"Don't ring a doorbell anywhere that does not have a jack o'lantern in the window," I warned them. My nephew nodded absent-mindedly. He was running an online search on my laptop on a picture of Billy, the bulbous, bow-tied doll that John Kramer from the Saw franchise likes to use on his victims. "That's the mask I want," he said and pointed at a medieval-looking googly-eyed carnival mask.
I passed him a cardboard blank. "Happy painting," I said, "I can offer to do you a quick bright-red bow-tie to go with your smoking jacket." Thanks to the internet, I had sourced instructions for making a quick and easy bowtie and the thing was ready inside 30 mins. The nephew was much impressed. Never mind the disturbing preference for psychokillers -- what he really, really wanted was a suave outfit.
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| The Halloween Creativity Table, complete with tea, which the boys hardly ever drink when they're back home. |
Catering to his best mate's needs was easier. "I'm going as a zombie," said F, "but I need help with my costume. I want my ribs to stick out and my insides to hang out like a bloody sack."
We had gone to the supermarket for some cheap white shirts that fitted their scrawny frames. They knew that most English children wore school uniforms -- in their country, that would be highly unusual -- but they loved the idea, oddly. "None of that brand bullshit," F said, "You just wear your black trousers and white shirt and sweater and be done with it. And look good."
"Hm," I said, non-committally. I continue to think school uniforms are the devil.
The nephew instantly fell in love with his short-sleeved white shirt for £2.50. "So stylish," he marvelled. He put his bright-red psychokiller satin bowtie on and would not get out of that outfit for the rest of the afternoon.
F's mangled insides were a tougher proposition. I used some of OH's old t-shirts in yellow, rust-red and light blue and stuffed them into a bluish freezer bag. "That's your lung sac, alright?" I said. I then cut some stiff seams off an old pair of stained capri denims and wrapped masking tape around them. Voila, ribs. A little magic with sellotape and they were sticking out quite realistically.
"This is great," said F, "but what about the fake blood?"
We had to experiment a bit but in the end, we used some fresh mashed raspberries from the back of the garden, tomato puree, brown sauce and cocoa powder and painted that mixture on his dramatically-ripped new school shirt. The fake lung sac crackled as F moved.
"This is disgusting," he said, weakly, "I think I need to sit down. I'm feeling a little sick."
I left him on the sofa to get used to his self-inflicted horrific exterior and went back to the kitchen to wash up.
Meanwhile, OH had prepared our own Halloween offerings. The two jack o'lanterns that the boys had carved a few days before went outside with tealights.
Boris the Fake Skull was being dusted down and placed in the shoebox with the other goodies. "Are the little ones having to fish their sweets out of the eye sockets again?" I remarked. "Oh yes," OH replied proudly, "let's take bets on how long it takes this year to make the first one cry."
Finally, the boys were ready to roll. "Can you come with us to do the first houses?" they had asked me, and of course I'd said yes, closet fancy-dress groupie that I am. To avoid embarrassing them, I decided to go into full disguise and went as V, the impeccably-behaved masked revolutionary, which I thought would be supercool. If the revolution does indeed kick off, it helps to have all the zombies and all the psychokillers on your side. I wore my home-made mask, my black floppy hat, a black outfit, a wide black gown and, what I thought was the icing on the cake, my Victorian lace-up black-lace on red-satin platform knee highs, with five-inch heels. They made me very tall. I towered over my charges, benignly grinning. The boys tried not to look at the fetish boots.
"Let's go!" I said, and nearly tripped over the kerb. The boys trailed meekly behind with their plastic bags. The street was already busy with little witches in black organza and six-year-old boys just risen from the grave. Their parents gave us a concerned look. Unlike their children, they had seen Saw and V for Vendetta and clearly thought the combination a little worrying.
We tried a neighbour with a very elaborately carved pumpkin in the window. Nobody opened. On our way back down the path, we ran into a little group. "Nobody's opening here," I said helpfully, from under my mask. "We'll see," said the mum firmly and steered the little ones past us.
"What was it we were supposed to say?" asked F nervously. "Trick or treat," said my nephew, annoyed.
The next one did open her door and the boys received their first handful of sweets and remembered to say "Thank you very much" and "Have a lovely evening."
I hovered by the front gate. "Aren't you having any?" the neighbour asked, kindly.
"Oh, thank you, no. I'm the notionally responsible adult." The neighbour snickered. The boys swivelled around and gave me a glare.
The door shut.
"Next time you take the sweets, alright?" hissed my nephew. "You're embarrassing us."
"I have to explain it if they ask me!" I tried to justify myself, "I can't take sweets from my neighbours that are meant for kids! I'll never live it down if they find out. They already think I'm weird."
Another small group of children with their parents crossed the street to avoid the increasingly heated argument between Billy the Doll from Saw and V The Masked Avenger.
The next door was opened by a tiny little boy, barely tall enough to reach the door, in a superhero costume.
"Trick or treat!" the boys thundered.
"Awwwww, aren't you lovely!!!" I went at the back, completely undermining my tough subversive exterior. His mum appeared with the sweets and began to share them out. Then she raised her face to me with a questioning look.
"I am the notionally responsible..." The boys turned wearily around.
When the door had shut, we traipsed down the path back to the street. I was getting into the swing of things and was beginning to enjoy myself. I had even managed not to trip on my high heels for a few minutes.
"Right!" I said brightly, "Where do you want to go next?"
"I think we know how to do it now," my nephew said coldly, from behind his mask.
The mask hid my disappointment. I looked down the street where a slightly larger group of children contained several adults in fancy wigs and costumes. They were having a ball. I, however, had been dismissed. Then I thought, the point of the exercise was to make them confident in doing things in this country that other kids do and it'll be the last year that they can do this. Their voices will have broken by next year.
I wished them good luck and tottered back to our house. We hadn't got far anyway.
"That was quick," OH said from the depth of our sofa.
"They told me to go away," I said, dropping the mask, "I was embarrassing them with my out-of-character comments."
The doorbell went. OH got up and grabbed the Boris Box. "Trick or treat!"
"Oh, it's you!" OH said, "Had enough already?"
"No, just thought we'd get some here too."
And off they were again.
"The cheek of it!"
OH kindly took over Halloween duties during the rest of the evening. It was busy. No-one cried though.
"I think they've all gotten used to Boris now," OH said, "He's becoming a bit of a feature on the circuit."
The boys returned for good about half an hour later. They'd hoovered up the rest of our street and had ventured into some of the others but clearly felt that the quality of the sweets wasn't improving and that they didn't like very many of those they found in their bags.
"My, you are spoilt," I said.
"We bumped into a group of teenage girls," F said, proudly. "They stuck their heads together and shouted something across to us but we didn't know what they'd said so I put my hand to my ear and shouted back "Call me!"
"What, did you give them your number? You pulled?" I briefly started worrying about what I'd tell the parents.
"No," he said glumly, "but it was a good comeback, wasn't it?"
"You need to improve your English so that you'll understand what they say next time," I said, in an attempt to turn the experience into a valuable motivation exercise.
The nephew fished a chocolate muffin out of his sweet bag.
"Check for embedded razors," I said absent-mindedly, remembering the scare stories we grew up with, of spiked St Martin's apples and knock-out chocolates.
"Are these supposed to be teeth?" Nephew asked and pointed at the white-chocolate drops.
They ate all the chocolates and left us with the sugary stuff.
"Did you enjoy your first Halloween in this country then?"
"It was alright," was the verdict, "One of the houses had a pumpkin and someone was definitely in but she ended up not opening the door. She saw us through the window though."
"Maybe don't go as a psychokiller or zombie next time then?" I suggested. "It does freak people out."
"Hm. Can I keep the red satin bowtie?"
"Of course you can."
And they spent the rest of Halloween evening on their smartphones, texting their mates back home.
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