Happy Halloween! 🎃
With the spooky season coming to an end, I thought I would share my Halloween special from last year.
This comes from the Princess Hanna series, which you can check out here (but you don’t need to go back through the series to enjoy this one):
Now, have the best Halloween! 🎃
Princess Hanna and Carrie sat at the dining table in the middle of the Scale City home where they were staying, each with a bowl of porridge in front of them. Carrie was sleepily yawning as she looked out the window at the brilliantly blue sky above. She was eager to get out there and go for a lovely morning fly.
Across from Carrie, Hanna was wide awake and intently focused. She was scribbling down notes in her notebook as she chomped down her porridge. She was writing out a training plan for the days ahead. Seeing George practising the day before had lit a fire in her. She was focused and driven.
As Carrie looked out at the sky, Michael suddenly appeared in the window, strangely covered in green paint for some reason. He was pulling a funny face, like he was sleeping with his eyes open. He was also holding out his arms in front of him, letting his hands dangle.
“Braaaains!” he said, his voice flat and deep.
Hanna and Carrie were totally confused.
“What happened?” asked Carrie. “Did you fall into a cauldron of goo?”
Michael ignored her. He came in through the window and landed down. He walked slowly towards Hanna and Carrie, swaying from side to side, still holding out his arms in front of him.
“Braaaaaaaains!” he said again.
Michael saw that they were still baffled.
He broke character and stood up normally.
“I’m a zombie,” he said, his normal voice back. “Can’t you tell?”
They were still lost.
“What’s a zombie?” Carrie asked.
“You’re kidding,” he said, shocked. “A zombie. Like in those old fairytales. I eat brains and scare dragons.”
“So you’ve covered yourself in green paint to look like this zombie thing?” said Hanna. “Why?”
“Do you two have any idea what day it is today?” said Michael.
Hanna and Carrie shook their heads.
“It’s Halloween!”
“What’s Halloween?” Carrie asked.
Michael’s jaw dropped in shock.
“You don’t know what Halloween is?”
“I’ve never heard of it,” said Carrie.
Michael’s voice was bursting with passion.
“Halloween is awesome! It’s a special spooky holiday where everyone dresses up as monsters and scary stuff. There’s parties and special markets and trick or treating!”
“What’s trick or treating?” Carrie asked.
“Trick or treating is the best! You go from door to door and ask trick or treat. If they pick treat, they give you candy. And they always pick treat.”
“What if they pick trick?”
“Then you give them a trick!” said Michael with a wicked smile.
Carrie eyes were wide with excitement.
“And all of Scale City gets into Halloween,” he went on. “Everyone dresses up and sets up spooky decorations. There’s the markets with all sorts of special food. There’s scary music in the plaza. In Cobblestone Alley there’s even a haunted house!”
“A haunted house?” Carrie wondered. “What’s that?”
Michael’s smile became bigger than ever. “I won’t spoil it. You’ll see.”
He was turning back towards the window, ready to get going, thinking Hanna and Carrie were too.
“First off,” he said. “We need to get you two some costumes.”
Carrie jumped up, but Hanna remained seated.
“I have to train today,” said Hanna.
Carrie looked distraught.
“Come on, let’s do it,” said Carrie. “Pleeeease, Hanna!”
“There’s a lot I need to do today,” said Hanna.
Hanna’s dad, the king, was just taking a seat with his newspaper.
“Go on, Hanna,” he said. “Go have fun. You can train tomorrow.”
“But I need to prepare,” said Hanna.
“And you can prepare tomorrow,” he said. “Experiences matter. Go try out this Halloween thing. If it’s really fun, maybe you could bring it back home to Courage Town.”
Hanna was still hesitating. “But what about Uncle James?” she said.
“He will absolutely understand,” said the king.
Hanna thought it over for a last moment then turned to Michael.
“Ok, I’m in.”
Carrie and Michael were elated.
Now for the costumes. Michael thought about it for a moment and then he had an idea. It was go time.
*
Michael led the way to the part of the city with lots of stalls. The whole city seemed to be getting into the Halloween spirit. All sorts of decorations were getting set up in the streets. Pumpkins with scary carved faces, skeletons made of painted tree branches, all sorts of strange but spooky sculptures made of different bits and pieces. Although it didn’t seem like any of the other dragons were dressed in costumes just yet.
“I may have put on my costume a little bit early,” said Michael shyly at one point.
They eventually made it to a general store that sold a broad range of different essentials. Michael went straight for the barrel full of toilet paper. He filled his arms with rolls of toilet paper and asked Hanna and Carrie to do the same. Confused, they cautiously went along with it.
Once they bought the toilet paper, Michael took them to a quiet alley and asked, “Which one of you wants to be a mummy?”
“What’s a mummy?” Carrie asked.
“It’s an old ancient type of monster,” he said. “Dragons dress up as them for Halloween all the time, I promise. If we wrap you up in toilet paper you’ll look just like one.”
“No way I’m doing that,” said Hanna.
Surprisingly, Carrie jumped straight in.
“I’ll do it,” she said.
Michael and Hanna ran circles around Carrie as they wrapped her up from head to toe in toilet paper, just leaving her nose, mouth and wings free.
When the job was done, Carrie asked, “How do I look?”
“You look amazing!” said Michael.
Hanna was howling with laughter.
“Ok,” said Michael, turning to Hanna. “Now we need to find something for you.”
Carrie had a troublemaker’s smile. “I’ve got an idea.”
There was Carrie in her new toilet paper mummy costume and Michael in his green paint zombie costume. Next was Hanna.
“So dragons dress up as things that are scary for Halloween, right?” Carrie asked Michael.
“Yep, the spookier the better,” said Michael.
“My idea for Hanna works then!” said Carrie. “A scarecrow!”
“You’re kidding…” said Hanna.
Michael was confused.
“What’s a scarecrow?”
“You use scarecrows to scare away birds from a farm,” said Carrie. “It’s like a dragon that you make out of straw and put out in the middle of your crops. The birds are terrified of them.”
“And so am I,” said Hanna.
“I love it!” said Michael. “How do we do it?”
“First thing we need is a straw hat,” said Carrie.
They went back to Michael’s house and his dad fortunately had a broad-brimmed straw hat that would work perfectly. Next on the list was the hay… and lots of it.
Michael had an aunty who ran a farm just outside of Scale City. They quickly made their way there, Michael and Carrie buzzing with excitement. Hanna, not so much… the Halloween spirit not quite grabbing her just yet.
Flying out of the city to the farm, it was a hot sunny day. Loose little bits of the toilet paper covering Carrie flip-flapped in the wind as she flew.
They made it to Michael’s auntie’s farm. It was a nice farm with a family of cows and horses chewing grass in the paddock. Michael led the way straight to the barn.
They opened the barn and went inside. There was the big pile of hay they needed. Except there was an issue…
“How are we going to get the hay to stick to Hanna?” Michael asked.
Michael and Carrie thought it over. Hanna, however, would have been more than happy for the plan to fail anyway.
“Honey!” said Carrie suddenly. “Do you have any honey?”
Michael lit up. He ran into the house and looked through the pantry for some honey. He found a jar of it and rushed back to the barn.
Michael handed the jar of honey to Hanna who just looked at it.
“Yuck!” said Hanna. “No way!”
Carrie pulled a sad puppy dog face.
“Please, Hanna,” she said.
Hanna rolled her eyes. She instantly knew she was going to cave.
Carrie and Michael had to fight hard to hold back their laughter as Hanna poured the jar of honey over her own head. There were tears of joy in Carrie’s eyes. Hanna wasn’t looking quite as happy. She looked like a very upset dragon.
Once Hanna was properly covered from head to toe in honey, it was time for the next step. She put down the jar of honey and turned to face the pile of hay. She took a big breath and then she jumped into the hay. She rolled around and burrowed her way into the hay like a squirrel in a pile of leaves. Hanna was the type of dragon who believed in the old saying, if you’re going to do something then you had better properly go for it. And she was sure going for it, burrowing deep. As she rolled around, her tail or foot would occasionally pop out from the hay.
Finally, the squirming stopped and Hanna’s head popped out from the pile of hay like a gopher popping up its head from a burrow. She looked like the saddest scarecrow in the whole world.
Now Michael and Carrie were really being tested, having to do everything in their power to keep from laughing.
Carrie stepped forward with the straw hat and placed it on Hanna’s head. Hanna really looked the part now. Carrie’s idea had worked perfectly.
A big frown on Hanna’s face, Carrie and Michael couldn’t hold it in any longer and finally burst out cackling. Even Hanna saw the funny side as a little half-smile slipped through her frown.
“Well look at you three!”
It was Michael’s auntie who had just walked into the barn.
“You all look fantastic!” she said.
“This is my auntie Mary,” said Michael. “Auntie Mary, this is Hanna and Carrie.”
“I love your costumes,” she said.
She then noticed the empty jar of honey on the ground.
“Is that my honey?”
*
It was still a while until the sun began to set and the true Halloween festivities kicked off.
It turned out that Michael’s auntie Mary had a pumpkin patch on her farm. She told the three young dragons that they could take a pumpkin each for carving.
Michael, Hanna and Carrie went straight to the pumpkin patch and picked out their pumpkins. They then took their pumpkins and sat down in the farm paddock with the cows and the horses.
Michael showed Hanna and Carrie how to scoop out the middle of the pumpkin. The cows were hanging around nearby for the scraps.
Using their claws, they started to carve their pumpkins into faces.
Covered in green paint that was getting dryer by the second, Michael couldn’t help but start to feel itchy.
Wrapped up in toilet paper, Carrie was in a similar boat of building discomfort. She was starting to feel hot under all of those layers of toilet paper.
And Hanna was the most uncomfortable of all, covered in hay and honey, scratching and itching already.
Michael gave his pumpkin a giant grin. Carrie gave her pumpkin cheeky eyes. Hanna gave her pumpkin sharp shark teeth and a scary expression.
While they were on the farm, Michael’s auntie made them some pumpkin pie.
Eventually, as time went on, the sky became pumpkin-y too.
It was Halloween time.
🎃