Mrs. Harvest's Halloween

Mrs. Harvest was delighted to be given bulletin board leeway at last. As a teacher's aid, she had had to cater to the wishes of Mr. Puritan, and avoid any reference to Halloween in the October bulletin board. This year was different, though. This year Mrs. Harvest had her own class.

Mrs. Harvest went to the party store and bought the required skeletons and bats, but her passion for Halloween was so great that she didn't stop there: She went to the local craft store and bought a myriad of orange and black fabrics and glitters with which she crafted her own Halloween treats. She worked for hours making the decorations, and on Friday afternoon finished the project by hanging her store bought and self made decorations on the walls.

The second grade teacher had to marvel at the beauty of her own work. The pumpkins smiled in just the right way. The ghosts hung phantom like from the ceiling. The bats even glittered. She hoped her decorations would convey a bit of the Halloween magick that she had known ever since she was a child.

On Monday morning, the students entered the classroom and squealed with delight. The classroom had transformed into a haunted playland. Mrs. Harvest began to give her lessons, all catering to the Halloween theme.

As Mrs. Harvest began her demonstration and talk about the tradition of pumpkin carving, she caught a movement from the corner of her eye. The dancing skeleton boarder was- dancing! The little bony men had begun to slowly beat a steady rhythm of their bones against the bulletin board. They circled the edges and banged a raging pagan beat. The children turned to stare, and they all began to scream.

The skeletons no longer had their happy festive faces. The bony men had a fierce, ravenous look in their eyes. They were hungry for flesh to fill the gaps in their bones. The ghosts above them began to howl. The strings that attached the ghosts to the ceiling barely restrained them. Frankensteins monster grew to actual size, and moved to block the door. The children were trapped in a room full of horror!

The steady beating of the bones began to get louder. The children's screams were drowned out by the shrieking of the ghosts and the beating of the bones. Louder, louder. The ghouls were pressing in, getting closer and closer until....

“ROOOOOAAAARRRR!” A raging roar silenced the entire room. The ghouls and goblins all stopped, dead in their tracks. The children turned to look around. In all of the excitement, Mrs. Harvest had dropped the candle she had just lit for the jacolantern demonstration. Magically, the candle had landed straight up and now illuminated the inside of the pumpkin. The jacolantern face looked viscious and mean, and all the living children and all the dead decorations could do nothing but stare. The carved pumpkin snarled its jagged lips and roared again.

The skeleton bones began to make noise again, but this time they chattered in fear. The ghosts turned even more pale, and the Frankenstien monster looked green. The ghouls were afraid of the jacolantern!

The smiling pumpkins on the bulletin board contorted their faces, and joined the glowing jacolantern in the fight against evil. The jacolantern faces roared and sneared until the ghouls retreated, and began to slowly transform back into paper decorations. Mrs. Harvest and the children sighed with relief.

Once all of the ornaments had returned to normal, the glowing jackolantern stopped his growl and opened his mouth to speak, “For centuries, my kind has warned off the evil spirits from homes and houses. Keep my light lit, and no more evil spirits shall harm you on this Hallow's Eve”. The jacolantern then returned to an inanimate state, allthough the candle inside still burned brightly.

Mrs. Harvest would never again hang up ghosts and ghouls, and the children would never again go to sleep on Halloween without making certain that a jacolantern was burning a bright, steady light.