The Story Spark was Boo to You! I chose the writing prompt: You hear a strange sound from your wardrobe; you open it and see…
Squash Holiday Storytelling
Did I tell you how much I hate telling Halloween stories? In general, I hate any holiday that limits the kinds of stories you can tell. It is way too restrictive.
How old is your audience? What is their background? Is telling a story about a devil acceptable? Can you predict who is going to leave the session and have nightmares that will cause legal ramifications for your program? Therein lies the rub. It’s also difficult to find enough stories to fit certain occasions. But you do what you’re paid to do.
I prefer an open-ended program, where I can either pick specific stories I’m working on or have the audience choose from a bag of stories I am prepared to tell, which ones I will tell. It’s a lot more fun, and a lot less pressure.
So there I was at home, the night before Halloween, and working on what I thought was an okay program to perform the next day in front of a group of 4th and 5th graders, when I heard a sound coming from my wardrobe, which was odd, since I generally do not hear sounds coming from my wardrobe.
It started as a scratching sound, and then a creaking sound, as if someone or something was trying to move around in the wardrobe without being heard. It was failing in that attempt.
I got up from my chair and picked up the nearest weapon that I could get my hands on. If this was a dangerous animal or criminal, I hoped that seeing me ready to attack them with a stapler would frighten them enough that I could close and secure the door before calling for help.
There I stood poised with the stapler in front of me as I quickly opened the door.
Had I shot some staples at what I saw, it would have had no effect, for I would have overshot it, since what I was looking at was on the floor and only about three feet high. That, and I don’t think that it would have been necessary anyway, as it didn’t look threatening at all.
It was one of those goose-neck gourds. It looked rather sad.
I didn’t know what to say. Luckily, it did know what to say.
“Harvey, I could use your help,” it said in a very low and pitiful voice.
I’m a storyteller, so when a pitiful inanimate object pleads for help, you forget all logic, suspend your disbelief, and you do whatever it asks.
And so it was. This gourd had lost its way. Somehow, it ended up in my wardrobe and wanted to find its way back to the pumpkin farm where it had escaped from.
Its reason was that there were more special gourds and pumpkins there that needed to be rescued before a Halloween disaster occurred and they were all taken away, carved up, or destroyed to make decorations, rot, be thrown away, and even baked into pies.
Knowing where the farm was, and realizing that it was probably closed at this hour, I became, with the gourd’s help, a thief in the night. We managed to make it to the field, find those special plants, and escape with them unharmed back to my house, where I set up a spot for them in my garden where they could flourish together and live a natural existence.
There was an interesting article in the local news the next day about an unknown robber who cleared away a section of that farm’s field. Asking for any information about the theft from their readers. I wasn’t about to give them any.
On the plus side, I did have a new story that I could share for Halloween with my students. I might have left a few details out and embellished a few others. I don’t think anyone would complain about that one.
Now, when Thanksgiving and the December holidays come around, and I need a story to tell, you can bet I will check out my wardrobe early in the planning.
