October by Jim Bates, hot apple cider

October was a busy month.

We put the garden to bed which meant we dug out our potatoes and harvested our herbs and turned over the soil and got it ready for next year. Our lettuce and kale and cabbage we’d harvest and ate as the season progressed so there was none of that to store. All in all, the garden had been a moderate success.

“It’s all about the soil,” Arnie kept telling Meg and me throughout the short summer growing season. “We had good soil in there. Next year it’ll be even better.”

“Thanks so much for helping us with it,” I told him time and time again that summer. The day he and Jack had helped build the garden frame and we’d put in the rich, black soil mixed with horse manure stood out in my mind. It’d been great to work with them.

Our cabin had a root cellar and that’s where we put the potatoes and the herbs were hung in the kitchen. The effect was to make our little cabin smell fragrant and homey.

            School was going well for Andy. He loved being around the other kids and made friends easily. It was good to see him learning to get along with other kids his age, not just his sister and their friends Sam and Willow.

My day for assisting was Monday, so we drove down together and I helped out and we drove home together. Volunteering was a decision I never regretted. It was fun working with the kids, twenty-four first graders in all. Mrs. Schaffhausen (I never could get used to calling her ‘Rose’ like she wanted me) ran a tight ship. We had learning activities all day long: word study (reading), math (learning ‘our numbers’), technology (using school-issued iPads for learning activities and even some games), along with art, music, story-time, recess, and lunch. Class was from 9:30 to 3:30 and the time went by really fast.

            Meg continued working with Allie who was now four years old and Sam who was also four and Willow who was now five and could have gone to kindergarten but Amber wanted her to be home-schooled by Meg and that was fine with her. And us.

            Meg also continued editing for Charlotte’s Press and I continued working three days a week at the gas station. In the back of our minds was the as yet unanswered question: What were we going to do when our lease ran out at the end of December? Our landlady had intimated that we could continue renting if we wanted to. “I’ve had no takers on selling the damn thing,” was the way she put it, referring to our cabin. But Meg and I still didn’t know what we were going to do. We still had a couple of months to decide so we put the decision on the back burner.

Until then, the one thing we did decide because we knew we’d have to, was that we’d have to have firewood wood for heat. So that’s what I did. With the help of Jack and Arnie. They set aside some time from their busy schedule and met me at 7:00 am at the cabin the first week of October.

            “Okay, buddy. Let’s get you set for the winter,” Jack said pulling up with his pickup. The morning was crisp and cool, in the high thirties. He wore Carhart overall over an insulated undershirt that poked up from his red and black checked wore shirt. He wore knee-high leather boots and a black wool watch cap. I had on jeans, hunting boots, long underwear shirt, flannel shirt, hooded sweatshirt, and an insulated vest. On my head, I wore a stocking hat like Jack’s.

He gave me the once over and grinned.

“All set?”

“All set.”

“Good. It’s a good day to cut wood. Nice and cool. Believe me, you’ll work up a sweat in no time.”

I grinned. “Sounds good to me.”

He pointed. “Arnie’s driving the big truck.”

            The big truck was the loading truck with the claw crane on it that they used in their pulp wood business. Arnie tooted the horn and stuck his head out the window. “All set?” he waved.

            I waved back. “I am.”

            Jack climbed in the big pickup. “You can ride shotgun with me. Let’s go.”

            I climbed into the warm cab and off we went.

            Their permit to cut was in the Chippewa Forest about ten miles north and west of Esker. They worked with the Department of Natural Resources to do what was called selective cutting. The DNR would identify areas in the forest that needed to be thinned out and Jack and Arnie did the rest. The idea was to manage the forest for sustained growth and not clear cut the timber like happened with many other pulp woodcutters.

            As we drove, Jack pointed to a cup holder between us. There’s coffee if you want. There were two large coffees from down the road at the gas station where I worked. I gratefully took a sip.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.” Jack turned onto the highway and we were off. “So what are you going to do?” He asked coming up to speed, the truck humming along.

I’d been looking out the window, sipping my coffee, and watching the forest speed by. “What do you mean?”

“About staying up here. Linn told me you and Meg’s lease was up at the end of December.”

“It is.”

“Well, what are you going to do.”

The thing I liked about Jack, and Arnie, too, for that matter is that there were no-nonsense guys. If something needed to be done, say build a garden frame for our garden last summer, they just did it. They’d talk about it, sure, but it got done. Same with their business. If they had a stand of trees to thin, they’d work long hours to get the job completed. Only when the last tree was cut, hauled out of the forest, loaded onto the truck, and driven to the pulp mill would they consider sitting back and resting. I admired that in them.

“Meg and I are talking about it.”

He glanced at me, turning off the highway and onto a dirt road, one of the hundreds if not thousands in the country. “December is only a couple of months away.”

Looking at it from Jack’s perspective, he and Linn would have already decided what to do. Probably months ago. I had an idea. “What would you do,” I asked. “If you were Meg and me?”

He slowed the pickup and pointed the big truck straight down the road and was quiet for a minute, sipping his coffee and thinking. Finally, he said, “Well, it’s your decision you know.”

“Of course. I know that. I’m just wondering what you and Linn would do.”

“You moved up here to get away from the pandemic, right?”

“Yeah.”

“But the pandemic is still here.” He waved his hand. “It’s all over.”

He was right. As many people had died in 2021 as in 2020. “Yeah, I know.”

He glanced at me again. “So, from my perspective, living up here can’t be about the pandemic anymore.”

I’d recently read an article about people like us. The article poked fun at what they called ‘The Escapees’. People who moved away from the city to get away from the pandemic leaving home and friends behind. People like us.

“I hear you,” I said. I did, too. It was what Meg and I were grappling with.

Jack waved his arm. “I love it up here. So does Linn. So does Sam. It’s our home. I could never leave it. We were born and raised here.” He turned to me. “Our friends are here.”

I had to ask. “Do you think we did a wrong thing by moving up here?”

He sipped his coffee and slowed the truck to turn to the right. He drove another hundred yards and took a left. We were deep in the pine forest now. The sun was coming up over the trees and the sky was clear blue, with not a cloud in it.

“Do I think you made a mistake?” He looked at me. “No, I don’t. You did what you thought you needed to do. What was best for your family, especially Andy and Allie.” I liked Jack a lot. I admired the confident way how he lived his life. Linn, too. They were what I used to call ‘salt of the earth’ people. People close to the land. People who were independent-minded and could fend for themselves. Way different than me.

“I appreciate that.”

He turned again onto another dirt road. “That being said,” he grinned at me. “I’m not you. And you still have to decide what to do.” He paused and turned onto a two-track road that led deeper into the forest. The trees were close to us on each side. I turned. Arnie’s big truck barely fit. But it did. I had to admit, the guys knew what they were doing.

We drove another quarter of a mile to a clearing. Jack parked the pickup and got out and joined Arnie. I stood next to them and listened to them strategize what they called ‘The Cut’. Then, off we went. We drove the pickup about another quarter mile into the woods. We got out and the guys pointed out the trees they were going to cut and they cut them down. My job was to use my chainsaw and trim the branches of the downed trees. We were cutting birch because it was the best wood to heat our stove with.

When the trees were cut and trimmed, we hauled them to the pickup and loaded them in the back. Then we drove the pickup to the big truck and Arnie used the crane to load the logs onto the flatbed. We stopped occasionally for water and once for a big lunch that Linn had fixed of fried chicken, ham sandwiches on her homemade bread, and blueberry muffins made with the blueberries we’d picked last month with Amber. By the end of the day, the big truck was fully loaded.

We took a minute to catch our breath and check out our work.

            “There are about ten chords of wood there, Lee,” Arnie said, pointing to the big truck. The arm of the crane was resting over the top of it to hold it in place.

            “Should last you all winter,” Jack added, giving me a knowing smile. The implication was clear, the words unspoken. If you’re still here.

            We had all stripped down to just our undershirts, and even they were soaked in sweat. But we’d worked as a team, and we’d gotten the job done.

            “Thanks so much, you guys,” I said, pulling my flannel shirt on. Now that we had stopped working, we were cooling off. It was about forty-five degrees and the forecast was for frost overnight. I was glad to get the wood. We’d unload it tomorrow and I’d start cutting it up and getting ready for winter.

            I wasn’t sure what we were going to be doing about moving up north for good or moving back to the city, but I did know one thing. We’d need firewood soon for heat. Tomorrow I had to get busy and start cutting it.

About the author

Jim lives in a small town in Minnesota. His stories and poems have appeared in nearly four hundred online and print publications. His collection of short stories “Resilience” was published in early 2021 by Bridge House Publishing. Additional stories and publications can be found on his blog: www.theviewfromlonglake.wordpress.com. 

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The Greeter

by Jim Bates

hot apple cider

Jerry and his wife Jane have been next door neighbors of Lauren and I and for many years. He and I talk regularly, usually while one or the other of us is working in the yard or doing something else outside. He's a nice guy, maybe a little conservative for my tastes, but he's kind and decent and a good neighbor. Over the years I've heard many stories about his strong willed mother. So when he told me about Helen and how she first got her job at Macy's, and then how she'd been injured and unexpectedly laid off before finally becoming a volunteer Greeter at Macy's, it prompted Lauren and I to do something we hadn't done in a few years - we decided to take a drive into downtown Minneapolis to see the holiday lights and displays. Maybe we'd even run into Jerry's interesting sounding mother.

            We went on a Thursday afternoon, the second week of December, driving on I-394 for half hour into downtown and then parking our car in the lot A ramp. We walked five blocks across the city with the expressed purpose of going to Macy's to view the recently opened 'Old Thyme' Christmas exhibit on the eighth floor, but as we came through the Seventh Street revolving doors we were lucky enough to see Helen. We'd never met her before but Jerry had described her well; there was no doubt the friendly, white haired lady who welcomed us with a "Merry Christmas! Thank you for visiting our store like we were long lost friends, was her. We introduced ourselves as friends of Jerry and she was charming and gracious and couldn't have been nicer.

            We only chatted for a moment or two before more people crowded in so we left and made our way through the crowded aisles to the escalator and then up to the Christmas exhibit on the 8th floor. That's' where the Old Thyme Christmas theme was really put on display for all to see. A bustling, cobbled stone street scene had been created, and we walked along wide-eyed, admiring the quaint shops on both sides with workers inside illuminated by the glow of warm yellow lights. There were mounds of cotton snow all around, and the scene was populated with men and women out and about, carrying packages, dressed for winter in old time wool jackets and coats with colorful scarves and hats. There were children playing - ice skating and pulling sleds, and dogs running and cats hiding behind corners, and trees everywhere decorated with pretty ribbons and bows and ornaments and lights that twinkled. And, of course, softly playing in the background were the melodic strains of traditional Christmas music.

            After Lauren and I viewed the exhibit we wandered around on various floors, window shopping and looking at other festive displays. We even saw a jewelry counter decked out with sprigs of evergreens adorned with tiny silver and golden ornaments and red bows. In a word, the effect of the entire store was enchanting.

            When we were finished with our browsing we made it a point of making our way through the crowds back to where we'd entered, just to say good-bye to Helen, but we didn't get the chance. She was talking to a young Somali man with "Asid" on his name tag. They were carrying on an animated conversation and seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely, and we didn't want to interrupt them. I noted she was wearing a red carnation on the lapel of her jacket, a gift, no doubt, from one of the many friends of his mother Jerry had told me about.

            Lauren and I left then, feeling good and infused with a little more Christmas spirit than we'd had before we entered the store. It was nice to see the older lady and the young black man together. With all the crap on the news lately about people not getting along, and everyone freaking out over the color of someone's skin or their choice of religion, it was good to see those two together and how comfortable they were with each other. It was really good.

            We walked through the crowded downtown sidewalks toward our car. The sun had set and every building had displays of Christmas lights on, filling the night with an festive glow. If it were to start snowing, it would have made the scene perfect. And then it did. We smiled at each other and Lauren took hold of my arm. Was it the time of the year? The seasonal festivities? Or could it happen anytime or anyplace? We didn't know, but for one brief moment the world felt right and in sync with itself, and we walked along smiling and nodding greetings to complete strangers. Sound weird? Maybe, but it felt like it was the right thing to do and that was good enough for us.

            We took our time walking to our car, talking about what we'd seen at Macy's and about Jerry's mom, enjoying each other's company and the fresh snow drifting down and the pretty, colorful lights of the city - even the cold bite of winter in the air. And, most especially, the growing feeling that maybe Helen was on to something. Maybe it really was all about opening your heart to others and putting differences aside. Maybe it was about seeing those who were not the same as we were as people first and foremost, and not getting hung up on the color of their skin or where they worshiped. Maybe it was all about being humane and treating people with decency and respect, like Helen was doing; and like her friends were doing. And if that was the case, we were more than happy to join her. Which gave me the inkling of an idea.

            Make no mistake, the city was loud. There were buses blasting by and cars speeding, kicking up slushy snow, and horns honking almost non-stop. In a way, it was kind of a madhouse. But, balancing the mayhem, there were also carolers on the street corners and bell ringers for the Salvation Army, and people like us, out having a good time, enjoying the soul of the city and finding  joy in the season.

            Foremost in my thoughts was Helen. In my mind I saw her back at Macy's talking to Asid and how comfortable they were with each other and how happy they seemed. It was little things like what she was doing that were making the world a better place, and she was doing it for no other reason than it was the type of person she was. And so was Asid, as well as all of the other friends Jerry had told us about: Clare, Simon, Leon and Rico. They were open and generous with each other. Skin color and religion didn't matter. The type of person you were was what counted the most. I wanted to be part of that world. 

            My idea suddenly crystallized. I stopped dead on the sidewalk and told Lauren about it and she agreed. We turned around and headed with a quick step back to Macy's. Thankfully, Helen thankfully was still there, in high spirits and just as cheerful as before.

            I walked up to her when there was a break in the crowd and re-introduced myself and Lauren as friends of her son. She immediately remembered who we were. We chatted for just a minute before I asked her the question we'd come back to ask.

            "Lauren and I were wondering if we could take you to dinner this evening when you're done working," I said to her. She didn't bat an eye, and nodded enthusiastically as I was talking, but before she could agree out loud, I added, "And maybe bring some of your friends from work along, too."

            And she did. And that's how we got to meet Asid, Simon and Rico (Clare and Leon couldn't get away). We had a nice meal together, good conversation and, before we parted, made planes to get together for following Thursday. Hopefully, it was the beginning of something permanent for all of us.

            And that may have been the end of the story except for one final thing. The next day I was out shoveling the five inches of snow that had accumulated since it had begun falling while Lauren and I were downtown. It had continued during our dinner with Helen and her friends as well as during our slow drive home and then long into the night.

            I had worked my way out to the where the driveway met the street and was clearing what seemed like ten tons of the stuff left behind when the city plow had gone past when Jerry drove up, slid to a stop and beeped. He rolled down his window and greeted me with, "So when are you going to break down and join the twenty-first century?" I was nearly too tired to laugh, but I did anyway. This was our long running joke about my insistence on shoveling my driveway and sidewalk by hand. Jerry, on the other hand, had used his powerful snow blower earlier, finished quickly, and then had run out to open the his hardware store before stopping home to drop off a gallon of milk for Jane he'd bought on the way. I was happy for the break since I'd been out for almost an hour and a half. The snow had been wet and heavy, our driveway was long, my arms were sore, and I was beat.

            I laughingly told him, "Never!" Even though I'd been silently wishing for one for the last half hour, picturing myself jauntily prancing up and down my driveway gripping a big, red snow blowing machine with both hands, merrily flinging snow fifty feet into the air.

            We chatted a while, being neighborly, before he turned serious.

            "So how'd your evening downtown go?" he asked.

            "Good," I told him, "Really good." I took my hat off and wiped the sweat from my forehead. "The holiday displays were great. Really pretty." But I knew that's not what he was really asking about. "The best part, though, was that we saw your mom and even met some of her friends."

            "Really? How'd that go?" He had a look between wanting to know and driving straight home without hearing my answer.

            Well, don't ask if you don't want to know and he asked, so I went ahead and told him about our evening, specifically about how happy his mother seemed and how nice her new friends were. "There's a guy from Somali named Asid and he and Lauren talked cooking. We came away with the recipe for a dish called Qado that sounded delicious. We talked with Simon about the conflict in the Middle East. He used to live in Lebanon but he's been in the States for fifteen years. He's a Christian and had a pretty unique perspective about the different factions of Muslims and all the fighting going on between them. And her friend, Rico, gave me a hint on how to get rid of those Japanese Beetles that were feasting on my Morning Glories last summer. He said all I needed to do was brush them off the flowers into bucket of a little dishwater soap and water."

            When I was finished with my re-cap of our dinner, Jerry was silent for a minute, looking straight ahead through the windshield, doing some heavy duty thinking, I figured. I told him, "Your mom said she wished you'd come down there. She'd like you to see where she works and meet some of the people she works with." I paused. He was quiet, thinking hard, I'm sure weighing the pros and cons, so I added, "They're good folks, Jer. You'd like them."

            Finally he turned to me. I always felt Jerry had a kind nature and I knew he cared a lot about his mother."I'm glad you saw her down there. I've been thinking about maybe going down there for a while now. My mom can be a force of nature, that's for sure."

            "I don't really think you have anything to lose. When was the last time you and Jane were in downtown, anyway?"

            "A long time ago. Thirty years at least."

            I didn't want to make a big deal out of it, but I felt a little nudge wouldn't hurt. "The eighth floor Christmas show is done up old fashioned and is kind of fun. Jane would like it," I said, just to push him a bit more.

            He looked past me to his home, thinking some more. Then he said, simply, "Well, what the hell. Why not?" I realized, then, he must have been ready, all he needed was a reason to convince himself. It was really that simple.

            We chatted a bit more, and I told him about parking in Lot A. Then I waved good-bye as he drove down the street to his driveway and turned in. I may have been mistaken, but I could have sworn there was a look of relief on his face. Like he'd told me many times before, he and his mother had always gotten along well. He must have come to the conclusion that it was time to move on and accept this new phase of her life. Besides, like I'd told him, her friends really were good folks. It wasn't going to hurt at all to get to know them.

            I finished my shoveling and walked up my driveway to the back door. I was thinking about Jerry and Helen. It was good he was going to make an effort to accept what his mother was doing and the new friends she was making. I know it sounds like a little thing and it may have been a long time coming and, yeah, I know change is hard, but you had to start somewhere. And that's what he was going to do. You couldn't ask for anything more than that. And, who knows, when all is said and done and for everyone concerned, next year might turn out to be a pretty good year.

About the author 

Jim lives in a small town twenty miles west of Minneapolis, Minnesota. His stories have appeared online in CafeLit, The Writers' Cafe Magazine, Cabinet of Heed, Paragraph Planet, Nailpolish Stories, Ariel Chart, Potato Soup Journal, Literary Yard, Spillwords, The Drabble and World of Myth Magazine, and in print publications: A Million Ways, Mused Literary Journal, Gleam Flash Fiction Anthology #2, The Best of CafeLit 8, Nativity Anthology by Bridge House Publishing and Gold Dust Magazine. You can also check out his blog to see more: www.theviewfromlonglake.wordpress.com

Was It Just My Imagination?

by Jim Bates

Hot Apple Cider

I'll never forget that Halloween when I was in fifth grade. The day started weird and just kept getting weirder. I woke up on my own, which was one thing. Mom didn't have to rattle my bones to get me to wake up like she normally did. Instead, I got up all by myself, excited for my favorite day of the year, Halloween. But my excitement was tempered by a strange ringing in my head, like a doorbell going Ding...Dong...Ding...Dong and it wasn't just one time, either. It lasted all day.

            My clothes didn't fit right either - shirt and pants too tight and shoes too big.

            Downstairs Mom fixed pancakes for breakfast instead of my normal bowl of milk and cheerios, something she only did on the weekend, if then. Like I said, weird.

            Outside, the day was dark and foreboding, made even more so by a flock of blackbirds that followed me on my walk to school. An owl flew by with a mouse dangling from its beak. I even had to go by Old Man Jasperson's house by myself because neither of my friends, Tim or Jay, met me on the way like they normally did.

            At school the weirdness continued because all of the teachers had dressed in costumes for Halloween. Mr. Stevens, my fifth grade teacher, was Dracula which was odd because he was a quiet and withdrawn type and should have dressed up like some poet I'd never heard of. Plus, Dracula was exactly what I'd planed to dress up as later that night. Big time weird.

            Tim and Jay approached me in class wondering where I'd been. "Why didn't you meet us?" Tim asked, popping his bubble gum.

            "Yeah," Jay added, running a comb through his curly hair. "We were both waiting outside and you never showed. What's up with that?"

            Before I could answer and tell them that I'd walked by both of their houses and hadn't seen either of them, the bell rang and we had to sit down.

            By the end of school I had pretty much forgotten about all the weirdness of the day, my excitement for Halloween taking the place over everything else. At the final bell my friends and I bolted from the building, agreeing to met at my house at five in the afternoon to start treat or treating. Which we did.

            Tim showed up wearing a werewolf mask and an old fur coat of his grandmother's. Jay was dressed like a sorcerer in a light blue cape and wearing a pointed hat with sequenced stars and planets on it. I wore my Dracula outfit, complete with black cape, pointed teeth and slicked back hair.

            "See you, Mom," I yelled as I ran out the door, clutching a pillow sack bag for my treats.

            "Be home by nine o' clock," she called back.

            I told her I would and Tim and Jay and I spent the rest of the evening running up and down the streets of our neighborhood collecting candy. We made a real haul.

            At the end of the evening we decided to make one last stop at Mr. Jasperson's house.

            Tim was not excited. "Hell, he'll just give us apples, like every other year. It's not worth it. Let's just head home." He pulled out a small bag of M&M's, ripped it open and started munching away.

            Jay had a different thought. "I heard he was going to give out caramel apples this year. Those would be good. I like caramel."

            I liked caramel too but was unsure about stopping. Mr. Jasperson always struck me as kind of gruff. His wife had died a few years earlier and my mom told me he was just lonely.

            "You could talk to him, you know. He used to teach science at the University. You might learn something from him."

            Right, I thought to myself. Me talk to a college professor? An academic I wasn't. I didn't even know how to spell the word, let alone talk to a smart person. My best conversations were with my calico kitty, Jessie, only because she didn't care what I said as long as I kept her fed.

            But getting back to the suggestion of stopping at his house. I thought about it and finally said, "Sure, why not? What have we got to lose?"

            Tim and Jay hung back while I walked up the brick walkway to the steps leading to the covered porch and then the front door. There was a single light on, barely illuminating the door knob. The rest of the lights were turned off. I turned and looked at my friends, who by now had stepped back to the sidewalk. I looked past them and noticed something strange; the street was empty and the neighborhood was deserted. Where were all the other trick or treaters?

            A gust of wind blew leaves that swirled around my feet. The night had suddenly become cold and windy. Nearby trees swayed and a branch cracked and fell to the ground. I shuddered, glad it had missed me. I turned and faced the front of the house, not noticing until then all the vines that were entwined along the railing and the door.  I took a deep breath, told myself to not be a sissy, climbed the two steps and crossed the porch. My hand started trembling as I reached out and rang the doorbell. Ding...Dong...Ding...Dong and it occurred to me at that moment it was a sound just like I'd been hearing in my head all day.

            Behind me I thought I heard a voice and turned. I saw nothing out of the ordinary. Then I realized to my horror that Tim and Jay were gone. I was all by myself. My heart began beating faster and faster. Hey, guys...I was just about to call out into the darkness, when I heard a scraping sound behind me.

            I turned around with the words trick or treat innocently forming on my lips. Then I saw the door swing wide open and, awestruck, I gazed at the entrance, not believing my eyes. There before me was a wall of caramel apples stacked one on top of the other and completely filling the entryway. I stood frozen in place unable to move as slowly they began falling, dropping one by one, until the entire lot of them cascaded down upon me like a caramelly waterfall, knocking me onto my back and burying me in a sticky, messy mass of apples.

            I panicked and pushed them away and scrambled to my feet. It was then I felt a cold hand grip my arm. What now? I was afraid to look, but I steeled myself and did, then immediately wished I hadn't. There, latched onto me was Mr. Japserson. He was dressed in a black cape like mine. His face was white, he had pointed teeth, and thick red lips that were curled back in a sneer as he intoned, "What kind of a trick did you have in mind for me, young fella'?" Which was weird enough except for this: he was holding his head in the crook of his arm. He was a headless Dracula! The world started spinning and I began screaming. Then I fainted.

Mom woke me in the morning with a cheery, "Hi there, sleepyhead. All ready for your favorite day? Halloween? Tim and Jay are waiting in the kitchen to walk you to school. Better get a move on." She raised the window shade, letting bright sunlight in.

            I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, confused."Wait, Mom. Hold on. It's Halloween? Today?"

            "Yes, dear, it is. Your favorite day, remember?"

            What was going on? I was major league confused. What about last night? What about Mr. Jasperson and the caramel apples? More to the point, what about the headless Dracula?

            "What about yesterday, Mom?" I asked. "I thought yesterday was Halloween." I'll admit  I was freaking out a little, on the verge of completely losing it.

            "Oh, sweetie," Mom bent down and hugged me, calming me. "No, it's today." Then she looked at me, deep concern in her eyes. "But you were acting strangely all day yesterday. Don't you remember? I had to keep you home from school. You had a pretty high fever, but it broke overnight. You're lot's better now." She looked at me again and felt my forehead."You sure you're feeling okay or should I keep you home from school for another day?"

            So I'd just had a high fever? Yesterday's weirdness really hadn't happened and I'd imagined it all? Better yet, today really was Halloween? Hot dog! It sounded good to me.

            I swung my legs over the side of the bed, ready to embrace the day. "No, Mom. I'm good. Tell Tim and Jay I'll be right down."

            "You sure, you're okay?"

            "Yeah, Mom I'm better than okay. I'm great!"

            She left my bedroom and I got dressed already picturing myself in my Dracula costume and heading out trick or treating later in that evening. It wasn't until I was combing my hair that I saw it - a bit of caramel stuck on my ear. I looked at myself closely and then saw some more on my neck. Then more caramel on my other ear. I got a wash rag and cleaned it all off glad Mom hadn't seen it. To be honest, I wasn't sure I could even explain it to myself, let alone to her.

            Tim and Jay and I had a great time trick or treating that night. We made a real haul. Our last stop was at Mr. Jasperson's . He greeted us warmly and even asked me if I'd like a job raking leaves later that week. I told him sure.

            He also gave out caramel apples for the first time that we could ever remember. They were pretty good, I have to say, even though there were kind of messy. Real sticky.

 

About the author 

Jim's favorite holiday is Halloween and this story is dedicated to all those who enjoy the mystery and magic of that special day.