“What are you going to be for Halloween, Mummy?” “Your mother.”
“Very funny.”
“Isn’t that scary enough?”
The boy gave a hollow laugh of assent, and, picking his way across the floor, went upstairs to do his homework. The kitchen was strewn with the makings of costumes. There were heaps of bubble wrap, cardboard boxes, and relics from our ancient dress-up collection — a frayed witch hat, a Hawaiian lei, a bright pink Japanese obi that went with a long-lost kimono, some strings of Mardi Gras beads, and a fairy wand. It was a pretty haphazard collection, but, as I tell my children, part of the fun of Halloween is devising a costume from whatever you have on hand. (Actually, to me it’s the only fun thing about Halloween, which I detest but endure in the interests of family harmony.)
“You should be a witch,” said a girl’s voice from amid a tangle of bubble wrap and plastic bags.
“No, everybody’s always a witch,” said another girl’s voice from inside a large white box. There was a scraping sound, and two rough semicircles of cardboard fell on to the floor.
The girl’s face peeped through. “I could be a box of cookies, or a robot!”
“Everybody’s always a robot,” said the third and youngest girl.
“No they’re not,” said the bubble-wrap girl.
“Yes they are.”
“No they’re not. Anyway,” she said, transitioning smoothly out of bicker-mode, “I am going to have the best jellyfish costume ever!” Rising to her feet, she dangled long tendrils of plastic over her little sister in a menacing way.
“Watch out, little fishy!”
“Stop it!” cried her sister, grabbing one of the cardboard semicircles and brandishing it at the jellyfish. But the sea creature had already turned away and was wafting around the room, jellylike.
“I could be a vampire with this knife,” the smallest girl said speculatively, looking at the cardboard. Then she moved it in a sideways motion, as if buffing her nails. “Or I could be an evil relaxing person … at a spa. …”
The third girl had meanwhile put her legs through the hole she’d cut in the cardboard box and was standing with the thing around her midriff.
“I could be a box of crackers.”
“Or a mail-order bride.”
She rolled her eyes. “Or a box of pasta.”
“Or ladyfingers.”
“Gosh, what’s all this?” said the eldest daughter, coming in from high school.
“We’re making Halloween costumes! What are you going to be?” the younger girls chorused.
“Too old to go trick-or-treating, unfortunately.”
“Aw!” the girls cried, as feet came thumping down the stairs.
“Check it out guys!” the boy said, arriving suddenly in the room. He wore an enormous green bow tie (leprechaun ghastliness from back in March), sunglasses with no lenses, and one of his father’s old jackets. He looked like a mad game show host, or the world’s scariest used car salesman. He thrust out a calculator.
“Oh yeah,” he said archly. “I’m a math teacher.”
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s column appears on Sunday and Thursday. She can be contacted at [email protected].
