Suzie’s Halloween Adventure
by
Tich Brewster
Halloween was little Suzie’s favorite day of the year. Her favorite part was not just the bucketsful of candy, it was dressing up. She loved buying material and working alongside her mother creating unique costumes. This year she found the prettiest purple, and right away she decided it would make the perfect witch costume. Her mother helped her cut the fabric and sew it. Suzie’s mother even added pink around the collar and a ribbon of pink around the base of the hat. Once it was done, she tried on her witch dress and hat. It was perfect.
That night her mother took her to the festival down the street. Her friend Timmy had dressed as a skeleton. “Cool costume,” Suzie said to her friend.
Timmy smiled. “Thanks, but I think yours is the best one here.”
That made Suzie beam with pride. She and Timmy went to the games. They decided to toss rings. Timmy got more rings on the pole than Suzie, but they both won a handful of candy for participating.
“Hey, Suzie, awesome costume.” Suzie and Timmy looked up to see their friend, Elijah walking toward them. He had a bucket full of candy and a sucker hanging from his lips. Elijah had rolls of toilet paper wrapped around his body like a mummy.
“Oh, very creative, Elijah. I like mummies.” Suzie said.
Elijah beamed. “Thank you. My mom helped me get the toilet paper wrapped around me.”
The three friends visited all the games and collected as much candy as their buckets could hold. As they walked back toward the cake walk, a house across the street caught their eye. It was an abandoned house and the gate on the fence was broken.
A group of kids ran out of the gate yelling, “Don’t go in there, it’s haunted.”
Elijah’s eyes lit up with excitement. “Ooh, a real haunted house. Let’s go check it out.”
“What?” Timmy shook his head and stepped back. “No way. What if the ghost is really mean?”
“Maybe it’s not haunted.” Suzie looked both ways before crossing the street with Elijah. She glanced back and saw Timmy looking at the giant house with fear. “Come on, it’s just an adventure into an empty house. There might be treasure in there.”
Suzie was afraid that Timmy would go back to the festival, but right before she entered the gate, Timmy yelled, “Hey, wait for me.” After checking for traffic, he ran across the street. Now that the three of them were together, they could search this old abandoned house for treasure. Maybe they would find some toys they could take home.
As they neared the house they heard a loud groan. “Did you hear that?” Elijah pointed at one of the upstairs windows. “I think I heard a ghost.”
“Don’t be silly?” Suzie said. “There’s no such thing as ghosts.” But then she heard a groan coming from the broken window. Or maybe ghosts do exist.
“I don’t know about this.” Timmy clutched the handle of his trick-or-treat bucket. “This is scary.”
“You can stay here but I came for an adventure.” Suzie pushed open the door that barely hung by its hinges.
The house was dark but the lights from the festival shown through the windows giving her enough light to see. So far nothing scary, just some furniture with sheets draped over them. Elijah came in, followed by Timmy. The groan from upstairs sounded sad and tired so she carefully walked up the stairs.
“Hello,” Suzie called out. She didn’t know if ghosts could hear her, but she hoped that this one could because it sounded lonely. “Can you hear me?”
This time the ghost didn’t groan, it whined. Suzie and her friends followed the sound to a room that was two doors down the hall. The whining quickly turned into panting and a loud bark. In the middle of the room was a fluffy white dog with a brown spot around one eye. He was tangled in a sheet and couldn’t get free.
Suzie set her bucket down and untangled the dog. He licked her face when he was free. Looking at the wrinkled sheet, Suzie got a bright idea. She searched the room and by luck found a pair of scissors. She cut eye holes in the sheet and draped it over the dog. “There, now you have a costume.”
“I guess we really did find a ghost.” Timmy petted the dog through it’s ghost costume. “Can I call you Casper?”
The dog barked in approval.
“I like that name,” Elijah and Suzie said at the same time.
Suzie picked up her bucket of candy and said, “Now that we found our treasure, let’s go back to the festival.”
Tich Brewster 