Tag: Allen Kopp

Frozen Charlotte ~ A Short Story

Frozen Charlotte image 6

~ Frozen Charlotte ~
A Short Story by Allen Kopp

(This short story has been published in The Literary Hatchet.)

The snow has stopped falling. The temperature hovers at fifteen degrees. The wind is minimal. The air crackles with electricity. The stars twinkle like diamonds on a bed of blue-black velvet. Atmospherically it is the best Christmas Eve on record.

Roads are snow-packed and have been for weeks. The best way to get from place to place is by horse-drawn sleigh. The automobile is still not in common use, as it is 1897, but those days are coming.

Charlotte Little will be attending the party at the Whites on her own, even though she is only twelve. Vardaman will drive the sleigh. He will watch out for her and see that she returns safely.

It is to be a party for adults as well as children. There will be an orchestra, bountiful food and drink, musical acts, caroling, magic tricks, surprises and a visit from Santa. Those who attend the party will remember it all their lives into old age. They will take memories of the party to their graves.

As the best friend of Amy White, Charlotte will be an honored guest at the party. She doesn’t mind that she has to go alone but finds it rather exciting and grown-up. She has a new dress made for her by a real dressmaker. It is white bombazine with red satin trim. It reminds her of peppermint, of Christmas. She has never had a dress before of which she is so proud.

She is to leave at five o’clock. Allowing for no mishaps with the sleigh, she will arrive at the party at six o’clock. She is dressed and ready to go hours in advance. Mother tries to get her to eat before she goes, but she is too excited; there will be lots of time to eat later.

When she goes down to leave, mother and father are waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. Mother has her coat and scarf for her and father her fur hat, gloves and galoshes, but she doesn’t want to put any of them on. She has spent hours getting herself ready for the party and doesn’t want to spoil the effect. The coat will flatten the frills and puffs of her dress and the fur hat will mess up her hair. She doesn’t need the boots at all but will walk in tracks that have already been made. As a kind of concession, she puts the scarf around her shoulders and slips the gloves on her hands.

Vardaman is waiting for her in the sleigh at the front gate, whip in hand. He is so bundled up in his riding accoutrements that only his eyes can be seen. Charlotte gets into the sleigh, piling her warm winter coat and fur hat on top of the lap robes in the corner of the seat. She throws her galoshes on the floor of the sleigh and forgets about them. Who wears galoshes with a fancy Christmas dress?

Vardaman drives slowly at first and then faster. Soon he seems to be flying without leaving the ground. The trees and farmhouses whiz past in an icy blur. Charlotte breathes deeply of the icy air and looks up at the twinkling stars. Already she is having a good time, and she’s not even at the party yet. She spreads her coat over her lap, but that is the only concession she makes to the cold.

She doesn’t speak a word on the way. If she has anything to say, she would have to say it to Vardaman and she rarely speaks to Vardaman unless he speaks first. He is what they call all business.

The trip goes smoothly enough without incident. Vardaman has guided the sleigh expertly and efficiently, as he always does. He pulls up to the side of the house belonging to the Whites and gets out, throwing a blanket over the horse’s back. His back is sore and he is in a hurry to get inside and take off his coat and outer wrappings and warm his feet at the kitchen fire. In his haste, he fails to notice that Charlotte hasn’t moved from the sleigh. She still sits there, not moving, her icy blue eyes staring straight ahead.

Sometime during the trip, Charlotte’s blood freezes in her veins. Her heart stops pumping blood and turns into a useless, frozen muscle in the middle of her upper torso. Her eyes become fixed in their sockets, frozen in place, eyelids opened. How can someone so dead look so alive?

It is the easiest of deaths. She has felt nothing, not even a tingling sensation. From one second to the next, she is here and then she is gone.

The party disperses at eleven o’clock. Those who expected Charlotte to attend are disappointed, but they figure something must have come up unexpectedly at the last minute to keep her home.

Vardaman, sated with food and drink, comes out and is happy to see that Charlotte has taken her place in the sleigh and is ready to go home. He is all too eager to get home to his warm bed. He wakes up the horse and takes the blanket off his back and in thirty seconds the sleigh has taken to the road.

He turns and asks Charlotte if she had a good time at the party. He believes she answers in the affirmative but, of course, no answer is forthcoming.

When they get back home, it is near midnight on Christmas morning. Unknown to anybody, Charlotte has been sitting in the back of the sleigh on a frigid Christmas Eve for seven hours.

He stops the sleigh at the front gate. When Charlotte doesn’t get out as he expects, he turns around in the seat and looks at her, at her blue, staring eyes. Right away he knows something is wrong. He runs to the front door and bangs loudly. Mother and father, both in their night clothes, know that something is wrong and come running out.

When they see that Charlotte is frozen through and through, they take her in and set her by the fire. They try to lay her flat, but she is frozen in a sitting position. They rub her hands and wrists and pat her cheeks. They put more wood on the fire. They believe all they have to do is thaw her out and she will revive and start breathing again. Not knowing what else to do, mother sends for the doctor.

In the morning they send for the undertaker’s men. They come promptly and take Charlotte away. In the afternoon on Christmas Day, mother and father pay a call at the undertaking establishment. They choose embalming for their little girl and, after she is embalmed, they want her dressed in her fancy, red-and-white Christmas dress that she wore to the party. They pick out the finest and most expensive cast-iron coffin with a little window over the deceased’s face. Only the best will do.

Two days before the New Year, a service is held at the Methodist chapel for Charlotte Little. All the same people who were at the White party attend the service, except now they are in black and are no longer smiling. Everybody wants to know how such a thing could happen. How could a little girl go out on a freezing Christmas Eve in only a thin dress and no coat, hat, gloves or galoshes? Some of the ladies look accusingly at mother and then look away quickly when she looks back.

The ground is hard as iron. No new graves can be dug until there is an appreciable thaw. Frozen Charlotte is kept in the frigid sub-basement of the church for the duration. All through the winter, people may come and visit her and pay their respects. They line up and peer into the little window over her face and are subdued into silence by the mystery of death.

Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

The Third Day of Winter ~ A Short Story

 

The Third Day of Winter image 4
The Third Day of Winter
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

(This short story has been published in Offbeat Christmas Story and The Literary Hatchet.)

They had a little party at work, complete with cake and champagne (Here’s to another successful year!), and then everybody was allowed to leave for the day. It was the day before Christmas and nobody had to be back to work for three days. What a festive mood the downtrodden workers were in! There was dancing on tabletops, furtive kissing in corners, drunken laughter.

As Vesper left the office, it was just beginning to snow so she decided to walk home instead of taking the bus. She had always liked snow, especially at Christmastime, and had seen too little of it in recent years. She stopped on the way home at a little market and bought a dozen oranges and a small box of chocolate-covered cherries. As she was paying for her purchases, the old man behind the counter gave her a sprig of mistletoe.

When she reached her building, she felt agreeably fatigued and slightly frostbitten. As she climbed the stairs to her third-floor apartment, she couldn’t help noticing how quiet the building was. The usual loud voices, TVs, crying babies and yapping dogs were absent. She seemed to be the only tenant who hadn’t gone out of town for the holiday.

She unlocked the door, kicked off her wet shoes and hung up her coat. It was just beginning to get dark outside so she turned on all the lights. She tied a ribbon around her mistletoe and hung it in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room; plugged in the lights on her little artificial Christmas tree that was made to look real but wasn’t fooling anybody with its brown-and-green plasticity. She stood back and admired the comfort, the appeal, of her little home. It was the first home she had ever had that was hers and hers alone without belonging to somebody else.

“I’m really very lucky,” she said to herself as she stood in the middle of the room.

Already she was missing her friend Marlene at work, even though she had just left her a short time earlier. She wanted to call her and tell her about walking home in the snow and about the mistletoe. She knew that Marlene would enjoy hearing those things and would laugh at them in her usual way.

She went to the phone, not to call Marlene—she would be busy now with family—but to call somebody else.

“Hello?” she said when she heard her mother’s voice, sounding very faint and far away.

“Who’s that?” her mother said.

“It’s Vesper.”

“Is anything wrong?”

“No. I just got home from work and I wanted to call you and wish you a merry Christmas.”

 “You know I don’t go in for that stuff very much.”

“I know. Did you get the silver pin I sent you?”

“Yes, I got it.”

“I thought it would look good on your black coat.”

“Oh, I don’t have that coat anymore. It was a little too funereal for me.”

“It was a beautiful coat.”

“If I had known you liked it so much, I would have given it to you.”

“It doesn’t matter. How’s Stan?”

“We’ve separated. I haven’t seen him since summer.”

“Are you getting a divorce?”

“Oh, I don’t know. There’s a new man in my life now. His name is Milt. He’s talked about marrying me, but I don’t think I want to get married again. I’ve been down that road too many times.”

“Any news of Weston?”

“Nothing, except that he’s living the bohemian life and wants nothing to do with his family.”

“When you see him, tell him I said hello.”

“I will, dear. I really have to run now. I’m meeting some people for dinner. I have a terrible headache and don’t really feel like going out, but I said I’d go and I don’t want to break my word.”

“All right, mother. Goodbye.”

As Vesper hung up the phone she was aware of the hurtful omissions in the conversation. Her mother hadn’t bothered to ask her how she was or what plans she had for Christmas, if she had someone to spend it with or if she was going to be alone. Those things wouldn’t occur to her—she simply didn’t bother herself too much with her grown children. She had delivered them safely to adulthood and that’s all that anybody could reasonably expect.

Vesper went into the kitchen to see what she might dig up for dinner, but the prospect of having the usual everyday fare on Christmas Eve and then dozing on the couch in front of the TV until time to go to bed was suddenly dismaying to her. She didn’t have to do what she always did, just because she always did it. She could make Christmas Eve into something special, even if she did have to spend it alone.

She went into the bedroom and changed her clothes quickly before she gave herself the chance to change her mind. She made herself ready to go out again (boots, scarf, gloves, coat) and turned off all the lights except for one small lamp beside the door.

She began walking, not knowing for certain where she was going. The snow had accumulated to three or four inches and was still coming down, the wind blowing it along the sidewalk and causing it to drift along the building fronts. Nothing made it seem more like Christmas.

Two blocks from her building she came upon two men, an older and a younger one, standing with their hands over a barrel in which a small fire burned. Both men looked down into the barrel, but when she passed near them they turned and looked at her. The older man was the nondescript sort that one sees on the street every day, ragged and undernourished. The younger man was thin, medium-tall and sturdy-looking. He wasn’t wearing a hat (in the light from the fire his hair had a reddish tint) and he wore an enormous overcoat that went down past his knees, with the collar turned up to partly cover his ears. On his cheek was a crescent-shaped scar as if once, long ago, he had been gouged by a shard of glass or the blade of a knife. These details about him registered on her brain in the few seconds she looked at him and then she looked away.

She came to a brightly lighted drugstore and stopped and looked through the frosty window at the rows of displays and the people moving about as if they were underwater. After a moment of indecision, she went inside, passing a perfume display over which two fat women were talking loudly, and went to a rack of magazines in the back. She picked up a magazine, thumbed through it and put it back.

The wall behind the magazine rack was a mirror. As she reached out her hand to put a magazine back on the rack where she had found it, she saw the reflection of a man in the mirror. He was half-a-foot taller than she was and standing behind her, to her right, as though looking over her shoulder. Thinking herself in the way, she stepped aside to give the man more room and that’s when she realized it was the same young man with the scar on his face who had been standing over the fire in the barrel. She felt embarrassed at the thought that he might speak to her, so she left the drugstore and went back out into the freezing night.

She walked on from the drugstore for a block-and-a-half and when she had to stop at a corner with a clot of other people to wait for the light to turn, she took a quick glance over her shoulder to see if the young man had come out of the drugstore after her. She didn’t see him, so she was sure he wasn’t following her. Why would she have ever thought he was?

A little restaurant with the smell of garlic and twinkling lights in the window attracted her attention. It was a place that ordinarily would have been too expensive for her, but she was tired of walking and went inside.

The lights in the restaurant were very dim, giving the place a dreamlike quality after the snowy street. A smiling waiter seated her at a small table near the front and helped her remove her coat. He handed her a menu and when she seemed to be having trouble making up her mind, he suggested fried calamari and polpette di baccala. She didn’t know what it was but readily acceded to his suggestion anyway. Since it was Christmas, she was glad to be able to order something unusual and exotic that she could tell Marlene about.

When the waiter asked her if she wanted a bottle of wine, she said yes and as soon as he brought it she started drinking copious amounts of it and eating delicious garlicky breadsticks out of a little basket while she waited for her food.

The food was very much to her liking but what she liked most was the wine. She ended up drinking the entire bottle before, during and after the meal.

When all the food on her plate was gone, she felt happy and fortunate, happy to be alive and fortunate to have a good-paying job that would allow her to have an extravagant meal on a special occasion. She thanked the waiter effusively, gave him a more-than-generous tip, and wished him a merry Christmas. He helped her into her coat and opened the door for her as she left.

In the next block she slipped on an icy spot on the sidewalk and fell sideways into a pile of snow, unhurt, but attracting some unwelcome attention. As a small crowd of people gathered around to see if she was all right and to help her to stand up again, she saw coming toward her the man in the long coat with the scar on his face. Someone blocked her view for a few seconds and when the way was clear again he was gone. Was she seeing people who weren’t really there? It must have been a result of drinking all that wine.

It was not late at all for Christmas Eve and, in spite of the snow and cutting wind, she wasn’t ready to go home just yet. She would make a night of it. She would have lots to tell Marlene and her other friends at work how she spent Christmas Eve while they were all with their families. They wouldn’t exactly envy her but would admire her for having a good time on her own without having to depend on somebody else.

Four or five blocks farther on was the Odeon movie theatre. She was delighted to see that the show was just about to begin. She paid her admission and went inside and took a seat in the orchestra among a handful of other people. She dozed during the previews of coming attractions and a featurette about a Christmas tree farm, but when the feature began she was fully awake.

In the feature presentation, a woman named Mildred was released from a mental hospital at Christmastime. She had to become reacquainted with her children because she had been away so long they almost forgot she existed. She tried to resume her role in life as wife, mother and society hostess, but she had terrible nightmares and hallucinations that showed she should never have been released from the mental hospital at all. What was even worse, though, was that her fifteen-year-old daughter, Veronica, was showing signs that she had inherited Mildred’s mental illness. She would put her dress on backwards without even knowing it and stand up during mealtimes and scream there were Martians on the roof. These were the exact same things that Mildred had done that caused her to be sent to the mental hospital in the first place when Veronica was in grammar school.

When the picture was over, Vesper sighed heavily, put on her coat and went back out into the cold. She was feeling tired now and the movie, although she had enjoyed it, made her feel like crying. It had been a lovely evening, though.

It was nearly eleven o’clock. The snow had stopped but it seemed colder now because the wind was blowing. When she thought of the long way she had to walk to get back home, she wished she was already there, relaxing in her pajamas, drinking hot chocolate and listening to Christmas music on the radio.

The streets that had been so crowded before were almost deserted now. Everybody had gone home to celebrate Christmas. A drunk stepped out of the shadows and asked her for a dollar but she sidestepped him and kept going without looking back.

Two blocks from her building she came upon two men, an older and a younger one, standing with their hands over a barrel in which a small fire burned. Both men looked down into the barrel, but when she passed near them they turned and looked at her. The older man was the nondescript sort that one sees on the street every day, ragged and undernourished. The younger man was thin, medium-tall and sturdy-looking. He wasn’t wearing a hat (in the light from the fire his hair had a reddish tint) and he wore an enormous overcoat that went down past his knees, with the collar turned up to partly cover his ears. On his cheek was a crescent-shaped scar as if once, long ago, he had been gouged by a shard of glass or the blade of a knife.

As she walked past these two men, looking straight ahead, the younger man disengaged himself from the older and began following her. She didn’t hear  a sound—his footsteps in the snow were silent—but she knew, she felt, that he was a few paces behind her.

She came to her building and climbed the stairs to the third floor, opened the door with her key, let herself in, and reclosed the door without locking it.  Without turning on any lights, she went to the window overlooking the front of the building and looked down. Standing there in the snow, looking up at her, was the young man in the long overcoat with the crescent-shaped scar on his cheek.

She wrote on a piece of note paper from beside the phone these words: Come up, apartment 320. She wadded the paper into a little ball and opened the window just wide enough to insert the ball of paper and let it drop to the ground. She stood there in the dark and watched the man approach the paper, pick it up and read it. She took a couple of deep breaths and in a few seconds she heard his footsteps on the stairs, exactly in time to the beating of her own heart.

Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp

 

by allen0997

Another Christmas Eve ~ A Short Story

I Want to Spend Christmas with You
Another Christmas Eve 
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~ 

My parents got their divorce the summer I was fifteen and sold the house we lived in. My mother, my little brother, and I moved into a small, four-room flat in an old apartment building downtown. It was on the fifth floor and there were no elevators, so that meant we were constantly walking up and down the stairs.

The flat wasn’t big enough for me to have my own room, so we moved my bed into a little space off the kitchen, which was originally meant to be a pantry. It was tiny and cramped, but the best thing about it was that I had my own window with a good view of buildings and trees far off in the distance. I liked to lay in bed at night and look out at the sky. The best nights were when there was a full moon. When there were thunderstorms, it felt like the lightning was going to come in through the window and zap me into oblivion.  

Now it was Christmas again, or almost. Our first Christmas in the apartment. Our Christmas tree stood in the corner of the front room, aglow with multi-colored lights and loaded down with tinsel and ornaments, stacks of presents beneath its branches. A sprig of holly hung in the doorway into the kitchen. On the front door was a wreath that would probably be stolen before Christmas morning ever arrived.

My little brother Georgie, age six, jumped up and down on the couch and screamed. He was wholly invested in Christmas. It was snowing out, he didn’t have to go back to school until after New Year’s, and he believed that Santa was going to be especially generous with him this year.

“You’d better calm down,” I said. “Santa will pass you by if he gets word that you’ve been bad.”

“I haven’t been bad!” he screeched.

My mother came in from her bedroom, where she had been putting on makeup and fixing her hair. She was afraid I was going to divulge the great secret that Santa doesn’t really exist.

“What did you just say to him?” she asked, looking at me threateningly.

“I didn’t say anything,” I said. “I just told him he’s giving me a headache.”

“Get down from there, Georgie! You know you’re not supposed to use the couch as a trampoline! The couch is for sitting, not for jumping.”

“All this Christmas stuff is making me puke,” I said. “A person can only take so much.”

“Well, it’s too bad you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be excited about Christmas,” she said. “I guess you’ve grown too sophisticated for your family.”

“He’s grown too sophisticated!” screamed Georgie.  

“Shut up!” I said.

“When do we get to open the presents?” Georgie screamed.

“For the eighty-seventh time, we will open the presents on Christmas morning after we’ve had a good breakfast.”

“Why do we have to wait so long?”

“Because I said so, that’s why!” She sat on the other end of the sofa and patted her hair in back.  

“I want to open one now!”

“No! We’ve been all through that a dozen times. You have to wait like everybody else.”

“Tomorrow’s Christmas and we haven’t heard anything from daddy yet,” I said.

“No, and you probably won’t, either. He’s probably laying up in some hotel room, drunk as a skunk.”

 “Drunk as a skunk!” Georgie screamed.

 “I thought he’d send at least send us a present.”

 “You’re old enough to know you can’t count on him for anything.”

“We always had a good Christmas with him,” I said.

“I know, but those days are over. Your daddy is out of the picture now. He was the one that wanted the divorce.”

“I’m going to the movies tonight,” I said. “It’s a Christmas Eve horror double feature.”

“I don’t care what it is,” she said. “You’re not going to the movies on Christmas Eve. You’re going to spend the evening with your family.”

“But I’m meeting someone.”

“Call whoever it is and tell them you can’t make it.”

“Is he going to be here?”

“He has a name, you know.”

“Is Regis going to be here?”

“Yes, he’s going to be here in time to eat dinner with us and later we’re all going to church.”

“I don’t feel like going to church.”  

“You feel like going to the movies but you don’t feel like going to church?”

“Church gives me a headache.”

“You’re insane.”

“If I am, I get it from you. Insanity runs in your family.”

“I think Regis is going to ask me to marry him.”

“Why would you want to marry Regis?”

“Why shouldn’t I marry him? He’s the sweetest, kindest man I’ve ever met and he’s got a good job.”

“He sells washing machines in an appliance store.”

“Someday he’ll be manager. There’s really good money in that.”

“What about daddy?”

“What about him?”

“You’re going to marry Regis without telling daddy first?”

“You’re a smart boy, but you just don’t seem to understand. There is no longer any connection between me and your daddy. We are kaput!”

“What does that mean?”

“Your daddy and I are finished with each other. All ties are severed.”

“All ties are severed!” Georgie shrieked.

“If you marry Regis, does that mean we can move out of this crummy apartment?”

“Not right away. Regis will probably move in here with us. His business hasn’t been so good lately. He’s a little strapped for cash at the moment. He expects things to pick up next year, though.”

“If Regis moves in here with us, I’m moving out.”

“Why don’t you like Regis?”

“He belongs to a bowling league.”

“A lot of men belong to bowling leagues.”

“He’s old!”

“He’s forty-three.”

“He wears cologne that smells like bug spray.”

“I’ll get him to stop wearing it after a while.”

“He has hairs sprouting out of his ears. Haven’t you ever noticed that?”

“Of course, I’ve noticed it. His grooming isn’t the best. That’s because he lives alone. All that will change after we’re married.”

“I think you should check with daddy first before you marry Regis. He might want to come back. If you marry Regis, it’ll be too late.”

“Your daddy is not coming back. Ever.”

“You might be surprised.”

“It’s time for you to face reality.”

“I am facing reality and I don’t like it.”

“I think I see Santa way up in the sky over there,” Georgie said, standing at the window.

“You’re hallucinating again,” I said.

“It’s too early for Santa,” mother said. “He won’t come until we’re all asleep. He doesn’t like for people to look at him.”

“I can certainly see why,” I said.

“I hope he remembers everything I wanted,” Georgie said.

Mother went back into the bedroom and in a little while came back out in her red Christmas dress that in my opinion was too tight. She had dowsed herself in perfume. When she saw me lying on the couch staring at the ceiling, she decided I needed something to do.  

“I want you to go down to Friedlander’s market and buy a carton of eggnog for tonight,” she said, digging in her purse for some money. 

“I don’t like eggnog,” I said.

“Well, are you the only one here? Regis says it’s not Christmas without eggnog.”

“Regis says. Regis says. What else does Regis say?”

“Can I go to the store, too?” Georgie asked excitedly.

“No! You stay here and help me wrap Regis’s present.”

“Regis, Regis, Regis,” I said as he went out the door. “He’s certainly a big man around here, isn’t he?”

The snow was falling heavier now. Cars made hissing sounds on the pavement as they passed by. Last-minute shoppers were still keeping the stores busy. With the setting of the sun, Christmas Eve had officially arrived.

The store only had one carton of eggnog left, so I grabbed it and went and stood in the long line to pay. When the cashier smiled at me and wished me a merry Christmas, I gave him a sour look.   

When I got back home, Regis had arrived with presents for all of us. He was throwing Georgie up near the ceiling and then catching him on the way down. Georgie squealed with delight. Mother stood at the stove and beamed her approval.

Regis had brought Georgie a stuffed elephant and some other toys. My present from him, still wrapped in a big box with a red bow, was at my place at the table. Before I sat down, I picked up the box and set it on the floor.

“Aren’t you going to open your present from Regis?” mother asked.

“I’ll open it later. I have a headache now.”

When we were all seated at the table, mother insisted we join hands while Regis said grace. Regis’s hand felt clammy and unclean in mine. When he finally let go, I wiped my hand back and forth along my leg before I touched any food.

While we ate, I could see that mother was wearing a diamond engagement ring. This, of course, would be her Christmas present from Regis. So, it was official, then. He had proposed and she had said yes.

Regis talked about his day at work and laughed while we ate. Mother didn’t say much. Georgie kept looking out the window for signs of Santa. When Regis seemed to have run out of things to say for the moment, mother looked at me and said she had something she wanted to tell me and Georgie.

“What is it?” I asked with a sick feeling.

“Regis has asked me to be his wife and I’ve consented. We’re going to be married on New Year’s Eve.”

“What’s the rush?” I asked.

“I think it’s so romantic to be married on New Year’s Eve,” she gushed. “It will be a new start of a new year for all of us.”

She turned and looked at Regis. There were tears in her eyes. Regis took hold of her hand and pulled her in for a kiss. I knew he was getting ham grease all over her.

“I think I hear Santa’s sleigh outside!” Georgie said.

After we finished eating, mother told me to go put on my dress pants and a white shirt for church. She would help me with my tie before we left for church.

Except there wasn’t going to be any church for me. I grabbed my coat and hat and ran out the front door before she had a chance to see what I was doing.

The snow must have been five or six inches by that time. I still had on my tennis shoes and I could feel the snow soaking through to my socks after a few steps, but I didn’t mind. I needed to talk to daddy.

I knew that Colson’s Drug Store, about four blocks down from where we lived, had a pay phone. I had a pocket full of change especially for that purpose.

Right after the divorce, daddy gave me his private number where I could reach him any time. If I ever needed him, all I had to do was give him a call.

There were a lot of people at Colson’s, mostly at the pharmacy counter. Nobody paid any attention to me as I went all the way to the back, where the pay phone was.

I was sure he would answer. He would probably figure it was me calling on Christmas Eve.

The phone rang ten or twelves times, but finally he answered.

“Hello,” a little groggily.

“Daddy?” I said. “Is that you?”

“Who is this? Is this Evan?

“Yeah, it’s me. Evan.”

“I couldn’t hear you very well at first.”

“Can you hear me better now?”

“Yeah, I hear you fine now.”

“Well, since it’s Christmas Eve, I wanted to call and wish you a merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas to you, Evan!”

“Do you know where we’re living now?”

“No.”

“In an apartment downtown, on the fifth floor of an old building.”

“I’ve been wanting to come and visit you and Georgie, but I wasn’t sure where you were living. How’s Georgie?”

“He’s fine. Waiting for Santa to bring him everything he asked for.”

“Where are you now?”

“I’m in Colson’s Drug Store, near where we live. Do you know where that is?”

“Yeah, I’ve been to Colson’s a few times. Don’t you have a phone in the apartment?”

“We do, but I didn’t want mother to know I was calling you.”

“How is your mother?”

“She’s fine, but she’s the main reason I wanted to talk to you.”

“She’s not sick, is she?”

“No, she’s not sick. She’s getting married on New Year’s Eve.”

Daddy was silent for a moment and then he laughed. “Who is she marrying?”

“His name is Regis. He’s a creep. He smells funny. I don’t like him.”

“Maybe that’s because you don’t know him very well.”

“I want you to come and get me.”

“What?”

“I said I want you to come to Colson’s Drug Store and get me. I want to spend Christmas with you.”

“Wait a minute, Evan! I’m afraid that’s not possible. I’m not living in a very nice place. I don’t even have a tree.”

“That’s all right. I don’t need a tree.”

“If your mother doesn’t know where you are, she’ll be worried.”

“I’ll call her from your place.”

I started to cry like a blubbery crybaby. I hadn’t meant to cry, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.

“Is it that bad?” he asked.  

“Mother just isn’t herself. I don’t want to be around her. She acts like Regis is some kind of a god. They make me sick.”

“All right. If it’s that bad, I’ll come and get you.”

“How long? How long will it take?”

“Give me a half-hour or so.”

“Colson’s Drug Store. I’ll be waiting outside for you.”

It was still snowing, harder than ever now, but I didn’t mind waiting in the snow for a half-hour. People coming in and out of Colson’s looked at me and then looked away. Maybe some of them thought I was going to try to rob them. I tried leaning back against the building, crossing my legs and putting my hands in my pockets. I tried to look casual, but I felt conspicuous. 

I wasn’t sure what kind of car daddy would be driving, but I looked at every car. One of them would be him.

The half-hour passed and then an hour and then two hours. I was determined to wait as long as it took. I would wait all night. I would still be waiting on Christmas Morning if I had to. My fingers and toes were numb. I could no longer feel them. I wasn’t sure if they would ever work right again or not. I didn’t much care.

Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Night Watch ~ A Capsule Book Review

Night Watch book cover
Night Watch ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp ~  

Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips is a period novel set in the state of Virginia in the period after the Civil War. A woman named Eliza Connolly lives with her daughter (whose name is also Eliza but is called ConaLee) in an isolated, rough, mountain setting, impassable in winter. Her husband has gone off to fight in the Civil War; she doesn’t know if he is still alive. An old woman named Dearbhla lives near them. She knows all the old conjuring ways, although she claims to not be a conjurer. She helps Eliza Connally and her young daughter and looks after them. Dearbhla is the mother (maybe) of Eliza’s husband.

These people living on their mountain are removed from the war, but every now and then the war intrudes on their lives. A man shows up with evil intent. He appears to be a straggler from the war, or maybe a deserter. He goes away, but then he comes back because he has taken a liking to the woman Eliza Connolly. He calls himself Papa. We never know him by any other. He finds that the remote mountain is a good place for  him to hide out, so he will stay as long as he needs to. After a while, Mrs. Connolly has a baby by Papa and then twins. (He forced himself on her.)

After a period of years, Mrs. Connoly stops talking and seems to have lost her mind, while ConaLee takes care of the babies. Papa, apparently desirous of moving on to greener pastures, takes the two of them (Mrs. Connolly and ConaLee) to the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum and drops them off. (The TALA is built on the grand Kirkbride model of lunatic asylums, popular at this time.)

Contrary to expectations, Mrs. Connolly is treated well in the lunatic asylum and seems to blossom. She is allowed to keep ConaLee with her as her “attendant.” (She doesn’t tell anybody that ConaLee is her daughter.) They have pleasant accommodations, and the staff are most helpful and courteous, especially the head of the institution, who develops a romantic interest in her.)

There’s one man at the asylum who will play an important part in the story. He’s the “gatekeeper” of the place, the first person there whom Mrs. Connolly and ConaLee meet. They call him “Night Watch,” which is also the title of the book. His face is disfigured, but nobody knows his story because he doesn’t remember it himself.

Soon an unexpected (and unwanted) person shows up at the asylum. Will this person bring the unpleasant past to life and jeopardize Mrs. Connolly’s progress? All will be revealed.

Night Watch won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for fiction. If you are a thinking person with an interest in good writing, I think you will find it well worth your time and effort. It’s a story about surviving (war, hardship, life) when you think it just might be easier to stop trying and lay down and die.

Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

In a Cemetery on Halloween Night ~ A Short Story

In a Cemetery on Halloween Night
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

(This short story was published in Creaky Door magazine.)

When we were younger, the three of us were fascinated by the subject of death. We had lengthy discussions about the possibility of a continued existence after life has ended. We all wanted to believe in such an existence. Since Halloween is the one day in the year that the veil between the living and the dead is supposed to be at its most transparent, we decided to put all talk aside and conduct a little experiment.

There were no fewer than eighteen cemeteries in our county, some of them tucked away in forgotten corners. Each of the three of us would select a cemetery to spend the night in—the night of October thirty-first. We believed it was important for each of us to be alone, as spirits were more likely to make themselves known to an individual rather than to a pair or a group. We would meet the next evening and discuss our experiences. We hoped that at least one of us would have the proof we longed for.

I chose the Cemetery of the Holy Ghost because I remembered my grandmother telling me when I was a child that some of her family were buried there, and I also had a vague recollection of being there a time or two with my grandparents when I was in grade school.

It was a once-fine cemetery that had fallen out of vogue about a hundred years ago. It contained many interesting mausoleums, above-ground crypts, stones and monuments. Some of the illustrious (but now forgotten) inhabitants of the cemetery included governors of the state and their “consorts,” a United States senator or two, a celebrated writer (all of his books out of print for fifty years), several war heroes, an actress who appeared on the stage in both New York and London, and a notorious multiple murderer. In checking the records, I discovered that the cemetery had not received a newly deceased person in almost fifty years.

In the early evening of October thirty-first, I drove my car out into the country. I made sure I knew the way before I started and found the cemetery without any trouble. I parked the car in a low spot where it couldn’t be seen from the road (if anybody happened to be passing by, which was unlikely), and went in. There was an iron fence all the way around the cemetery that had fallen down in places. Nobody who wanted in was going to be kept out. I walked around for a while, taking in the sights as much as I could before it was too dark to see.

I found a good place under a big maple tree to sit down where the ground was covered with fragrant, dry leaves. The spot had the advantage of making me feel safe from anything or anybody that might approach me in the dark, so I planned on staying there most of the night until daylight when I would get back into my car and go home again. I took the things out of my backpack that I had brought—a flashlight, some drinking water and snacks, a lightweight blanket, a paperback book in case I became bored with the whole scene—and as I made myself comfortable on the ground under the tree, I realized just how peaceful and lonely an abandoned country cemetery is on a beautiful autumn evening.

I sat with my back against the tree as night came on. I wasn’t especially afraid of the dark but I had to admit that every sound I heard made my heart beat a little faster. Was the snap of a twig or the crunch of leaves someone—or something—coming toward me? What if I really did have an encounter with a spirit of some kind? Would my nerve fail me? Whatever happened, I promised myself that I would leave and go home if the situation became too unpleasant.

Once when I heard a sudden rustling sound right above my head, I jumped up with a little yell, ready to defend myself. When I realized that it had only been an owl—in fact, a pair of owls—I felt a little foolish and was glad nobody was there to see how skittish I was.

I sat underneath the tree for what seemed several hours. I had to get up several times to get the circulation going in my legs and to keep warm. The balmy evening had turned into a chilly night. I was a little disappointed—but not altogether surprised—to see that a country cemetery on Halloween night is the same as on any other night. The dead are sleeping peacefully and there is nothing to be seen or felt. The only thing I was sure of was that it was without a doubt the loneliest place I had ever spent a night in.

When I looked at my watch and saw it was only a few minutes before midnight, I longed to go home and go to bed, but I didn’t. I just didn’t want the night to end that way, with my leaving long before I was supposed to because I wasn’t having any fun. Instead I wrapped myself in my blanket like a cocoon and laid down on the bed of leaves with my head a couple feet from the tree. If I could spend a few hours sleeping, it would be dawn when I woke up and I could go home and have a good breakfast and sleep until noon.

I was more tired than I thought and lying on the ground was more comfortable than I expected it to be. In a very short time I was lost in sleep.

I woke up long before dawn to what sounded like the strings being plucked on a musical instrument. I gasped, believing for a moment I was choking, and sat up.

“That’s Edith playing her ukulele,” a male voice said.

Since it was too dark for me to see anything, I reached for the flashlight but wasn’t able to find it. “Who’s there?” I asked.

“I’m right here,” the voice said.

I squinted into the darkness but couldn’t see anything. Then, as my eyes seemed to adjust a little bit, I could see what seemed to be the blurry outline of a person. After a few seconds I could see the features of a face—nose, eyes, a mouth—but they were very faint. I seemed to be looking at a person who was there and not there at the same time. Lit from within, he seemed to be, as when you put a small lighted candle inside a large paper sack.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I belong here,” he said. “You don’t.”

“Who’s Edith?”

“She’s my daughter. Ukulele player extraordinaire.”

As soon as her name was mentioned, a small girl “lit up” beside the man. Apparently they were able to turn the light on and off at will.

“Is there anybody else here?” I asked stupidly, running my hand across my eyes.

“My son Tom is here and several others who are just now hearing about you.”

A boy of about fifteen made himself known to me the way Edith had done. Then several others behind him did the same thing. As I looked out at them over the man’s shoulder, I saw that they were not quite touching the ground but “floating” above it.

“What are you doing here?” the man asked. I could hear the amusement in his voice.

“Do you know what day it is?” I asked.

“Time doesn’t mean anything here,” he said.

“Well, it’s Halloween,” I said.

“Oh, that,” he said, as if disappointed.

“So you understand the significance of the holiday?”

“Yes. And you are one of those who believe that Halloween is the one day in the year you will be able to see for yourself that we exist.”

“It sounds rather silly when you put it that way.”

“Are there others here also?”

“No. I’m by myself.”

“Are you some kind of medium between the world of the living and the world of those who have passed over?”

“No! Oh, no!”

“Then why are you seeing us right now?”

“This isn’t really happening. It’s just a dream. I’m afraid I’ve fallen under the spell, the romance, of being in an old country cemetery on Halloween.”

There was a murmur among the spirits behind the man. He listened to them for a moment and then turned back to me.

“They’re saying we can’t let you go like this,” he said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“They think, and I agree, that you’ll go back and spread the word that you’ve seen proof of life after death and then this place will never be the same. There’ll be people coming out here in droves—curiosity seekers like yourself and newspaper men and the like. I haven’t been dead so long that I don’t remember what people are like!”

“I won’t tell a soul.”

“No, indeed, you will not!”

I couldn’t help noticing that the spirits had increased in number. Before there were just a few but now there were dozens and behind them dozens and maybe hundreds more. I began to feel a little afraid at what they were going to do to me.

“Why are there so many of you here?” I asked.

“They all want to get a look at you,” he said.

“That’s not what I mean. Why haven’t you moved on in the spirit world? Do you have to stay here because this is where your bodies are interred?”

I heard faint laughter but couldn’t see who was doing the laughing.

“Of course not,” he said. “We’re everywhere. We can go wherever we want. There are no restrictions. That’s what being a spirit is. Some choose to stay here because their loved ones are here; others don’t want to leave because they’ve been here so long they don’t remember any other place.”

“You don’t like living people like me coming around bothering you, do you?”

“Most spirits choose to remain solitary or with other spirits. We would prefer that you left us alone. Nothing good comes out of it for us when you try to prove that we exist.”

“So, are you going to scare me to death so I won’t go back and tell people that I’ve seen you?”

“No, I have to tell you that a spirit can’t kill a living person unless it’s by suggestion. I’ve also heard of spirits causing heavy objects to fall on living people, but that doesn’t happen very often.”

“Well, I think I’ll get into my car now and drive home, then, if it’s all the same to you. And I promise you I’ll forget I was ever here.”

“You’ll go back to sleep. You’ve never really woken up. At dawn you’ll wake up and leave this place. You’ll forget any of this ever happened. You’ll have nothing to report to your friends.”

“I won’t remember any of this,” I said, “because it’s a dream and I never remember dreams after I wake up.”

Just as the sun was coming up I awoke to the enthusiastic singing of birds. As I stood up from my bed of leaves and folded my blanket, I was relieved that morning had arrived, I had survived the night intact and it was time to go home. I had done what I said I would do, which was spend Halloween night alone in a country cemetery. I wondered if my friends had fared as well as I had.

I walked to my car, started the engine, and turned on the heater. By the time I got out to the highway, morning was well on its way and the sky a brilliant autumnal blue.

I didn’t see the deer that came rushing out of the brush toward me like the angel of death. All I saw of it was its back legs as it sailed over the hood of my car. I suppose I had been thinking too much about bacon and pancakes and wasn’t paying as much attention to my driving as I should have. I swerved the car sharply to avoid colliding with the deer. Since I was going about sixty miles an hour, I lost control and ran the car off into a deep culvert that, lucky for me, had no water in it. I hit my head and was knocked out cold.

Somebody passing by on the highway saw my car in the ditch and called for help. An ambulance came and took me, still unconscious, to the hospital. The police had my car towed into town.

While I was still unconscious, I could hear a song being played on the ukulele. I didn’t know what the song was, but it was the same song over and over. A ukulele is not an instrument I’m used to hearing or would expect to hear. It forced me to recall in vivid detail the dream I was supposed to forget. When I regained consciousness, I asked for a pencil and some paper. I knew I had to write it down while I remembered it or risk losing it forever.

Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

A Mate for the Monster

The mate for the monster.

A Mate for the Monster
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

The monster is seven and a half feet tall and as strong as ten men. He walks in a frightening, slow-gaited, halting manner. He has a bolt in his neck; his face is stitched onto his enormous head. He probably doesn’t know that he is made up of body parts from dead people (and if he did know he wouldn’t care). No matter where he goes or what he does, he scares people without even trying. That’s what makes him a monster.

He lives in a lonely castle on a mountaintop. He has no friends and his days are empty and pointless. His brain is not so addled that he can’t ask himself why he was ever created in the first place. He has recently taken to talking a bit and, when he’s not smoking cigars, drinking wine, or running around the countryside scaring people, he says things like, “Love dead—hate living.” This is not a good sign.

The mad scientist who made him, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, and his equally mad colleague, Dr. Pretorius, see that the monster is not happy. He is not fulfilled and is not living up to his full potential as a monster. After much thought and deliberation, the two mad scientists decide that the monster needs one thing above all others: a mate who will appreciate him for what he is and won’t be repulsed by the way he looks or by his crude manners. They toy with the idea of creating a male mate but that just doesn’t seem the thing, somehow, so they decide they will create for him a female mate.

Dr. Frankenstein sends his hunchback assistant, Fritz, out on a midnight graveyard run. From the graves of the newly dead, Fritz will gather the body parts needed to cobble together a female mate for the monster. He knows just the place, he says. Leave everything to him.

Now, Fritz has never been overly scrupulous about where he gets what he needs. He isn’t above going to the village and, seeing a lone woman standing on a corner singing a song, hitting her in the head to subdue her and then strangling her. When he makes sure she’s dead, he puts her in a burlap bag and throws it over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and goes back to the castle. He knows Dr. Frankenstein will never ask questions as long as Fritz delivers the goods. The woman was just a nobody anyway. She’ll never be missed.

Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Pretorius spend about two weeks creating what they think is a perfect mate for the monster. They take as much time as they need without rushing; they want to get every little detail just right. When the next violent thunderstorm occurs, they will be ready to harness the lightning.

They don’t have long to wait. All day long the next Saturday the sky is turbulent and dark. Finally, at night, a fearsome storm comes down the mountain, tearing at the castle walls. The wind howls and the rain falls as if a spigot has been opened in the sky. The lightning seems to be exactly on top of the castle, as if made to order. The two mad scientists place the as-yet lifeless body of the female mate on a table, connect the conductors that will attract the life-giving lightning, and hoist the table upwards through a hole in the ceiling.

The monster knows what is going on in the laboratory and paces his chamber nervously. Dr. Frankenstein has told him he must stay away until they are ready for him to see his mate. He combs his hair; he tries on several suits of clothes but nothing seems just exactly right. He fears that his mate will be afraid of him and will try to get away. He wonders if he will have to tie her up or club her in the head to be able to get a kiss from her. He lies on the bed and watches the storm out the window until there is a knock at the door; it’s the hunchback Fritz telling him that Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Pretorius are ready for him to come to the laboratory.

When the monster sees his mate for the first time he is a little disappointed. She is standing between Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Pretorius and she’s swaying from side to side as if she might fall over. Her hair is very high off her head and frizzy as if electrified; white strands on both sides resemble bolts of lightning. Dr. Pretorius has dressed her in a flowing white gown that goes all the way to the floor.

She tries to pull away when she sees the monster standing in the doorway, but Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Pretorius hold her by the arms. As the monster walks across the room to her with a welcoming smile, she screams a piercing scream that rattles the castle to its very foundations. The monster is not put off by the scream but advances toward her. When he is face to face with her, Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Pretorius let go of her arms and withdraw to the dark recesses of the room. She surprises the monster by hissing at him like a snake, which he finds very arousing. When she screams again, he puts his enormous hands around her throat to get her to shut up. And so begins a great romance.

Dr. Frankenstein proposes a toast and they all have a friendly glass of champagne. They break the champagne glasses in the fireplace for good luck and then Dr. Pretorius, who is also an ordained minister, marries the monster and his mate so there won’t be any question of immorality going on in the castle.

They all live happily for many years to come in Castle Frankenstein on their mountaintop. Eventually Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Pretorius—even Fritz—all die because they are just ordinary men. The monster and his mate, however, live on and on. Through studying the writings of Dr. Frankenstein—and also Dr. Frankenstein’s father and grandfather—the monster has learned how to prolong his life and that of his mate for a very long time. The next thing he is working on is how to resurrect Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Pretorius from the dead. If he is able to do that, there will be no stopping any of them.

Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

All Hallow’s Eve ~ A Short Story

Halloween 2021 3

All Hallow’s Eve
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~ 

Mother stood over him while he ate his dinner of liver and onions. When she decided he had eaten enough, she told him he could go. He ran up the stairs to his room and put on his Halloween costume. A ghost this year, same as last year. Next year he was going to have to be something different. Wearing the same costume more than two years in a row was terrible.

His false face still had dried spit around the mouth, but it was his own spit so he didn’t care. He put it on and checked the entire effect in the mirror, costume, mask and all. Something was missing. Oh, yes, the old derby hat. It was the one thing that made his costume look just a little bit creepy and scary. Without the hat, the costume was just a cheap little-kid’s getup.

Mother was in the living room when he came down the stairs. “Come here, Buster, and let me take a look at your outfit,” she said.

“It’s a costume,” Buster said.

“Oh, don’t you look cute!”

“I’m supposed to look scary!”

“So, where are you going tonight? What are you plans?”

“I’m going tricking-or-treating, mother, the same as every Halloween.”

“Who are you going with?”

“I don’t know. Some of the kids from my class, I guess.”

“What are their names?”

“You want the names of all the kids in my class?”

“Of course I don’t. You’ll be careful, now, won’t you?”

“Yeah, I’ll be careful.”

“Make sure you’re not alone. Wherever you go, go in a group.”

“I don’t care.”

“What?”

“I said okay, I’ll go in a group.”

“Be home by ten o’clock.”

“Mother! It’s Halloween and tomorrow is Saturday!”

“All right, then. Eleven.”

When he finally got out the door, he broke into a run. The evening air felt good after the stuffy house and smelled good, like leaves and burning candle wax. It wasn’t all the way dark yet, but trick-or-treaters were everywhere, mostly little kids accompanied by their mothers.

He met his friends at the corner by the park. Eric was a skeleton, Stan a hobo, and Squeamy the Lone Ranger. Squeamy’s sister, Oda May, stood apart from the others, smoking a cigarette and looked bored. She carried a rubber-and-fur gorilla mask loosely in her hand like a rag.

“What’s Oda May doing here?” Buster asked.

“My mother wouldn’t let me go out without an adult,” Squeamy said.

“She’s fifteen!”

“I guess that’s enough of an adult.”

“Let’s get going, you losers,” Stan said, “before all the good candy is gone!”

Oda May flipped away her cigarette and put on the gorilla mask and they headed for the neighborhood on the other side of the park where all the best houses were.

It was a lucrative neighborhood. Three-quarters of the houses had their porch lights on. When people took one look at adult-sized Oda May in her gorilla mask, their smiles usually faded.

The treats were good, Hershey bars and popcorn balls instead of stale jelly beans. After three blocks, their bags were starting to get heavy. They sat down on the curb to rest for a while.

“That’s how it’s done,” Oda May said, hefting the bag of candy appreciatively between her legs. “If they’re just a little bit scared of you, they’ll fork over the candy quick enough so they can get rid of you.” She lit a cigarette without taking off the gorilla mask.

“Where to now?” Buster asked.

“I don’t know about you little turds,” Oda May said, “but I’m going to go meet my boyfriend.”

“What about us?” Stan asked.

“You’re on your own. I’ve played nursemaid long enough.”

“It’s all right,” Squeamy said. “We don’t need her.”

“And don’t follow me,” she said, “or somebody’s gonna lose some teeth!”

“Leave the mask on!” Squeamy called after her. “Your boyfriend might like you better that way!”

“What will she do with all that candy?” Buster asked.

“Probably give it to her boyfriend.”

“Who is this boyfriend, anyway?” Eric asked. “Why don’t we get to meet him?”

“He’s a criminal, I think,” Squeamy said. “She doesn’t want me to see him because she’s afraid I’ll tell on her. He’s twenty-three years old. I’ll bet he’s really terrible looking, like a convict.”

“I’d like to see him,” Stan said.

“Hey, I stole some of her cigarettes when she wasn’t looking,” Squeamy said, passing them around and lighting them.

“Boy, I like smoking!” Eric said. “I inhale the smoke deep down into my lungs and let it stay there.”

“Me too,” Stan said. “I’m always going to smoke for as long as I live.”

“My mother told me if she ever caught me smoking a cigarette she’d knock it down my throat,” Squeamy said.

“Doesn’t she smoke?” Eric asked.

“Of course she does. They all smoke.”

“Then why does she care?”

“Because I’m in fifth grade.”

“She’s a hypocrite,” Stan said.

Buster had never smoked before except for a quick puff off his mother’s cigarette when she wasn’t looking. He didn’t like the taste of it, but he wasn’t going to be the only one not to smoke.

Several times, he took the smoke into his mouth and quickly blew it out again. He wanted to have the others see him with smoke coming out his nose like a dragon, but he wasn’t sure how to do it without inhaling.

“Don’t you like smoking, Buster?” Squeamy asked.

“Yeah, I like it all right. I smoke all the time when my mother isn’t looking.”

“Well, finish your cigarettes, ladies,” Eric said. “We’ve still got a lot of territory to cover.”

They went over a couple of blocks to another neighborhood where the treats were bound to be good. They covered several blocks, both sides of the street, in just under an hour.

“My bag is getting really heavy,” Squeamy said. “I think I’d probably better go on home now.”

“Somebody gave me a guitar pick as a treat. Isn’t that weird?”

“Hey, it looks like it’s going to rain! If our bags get wet, they’ll bust through on the bottom and all our candy will spill out!”

“What time is it?”

“I think it’s about a quarter to ten.”

“I think we should call it a night.”

Some older kids, sixteen and seventeen, came up behind them with the intention of stealing their candy, so they began running furiously into the dark to get away from them. Stan knew the neighborhood better than the others, so they all followed him.

He led them around in a circuitous loop over to Main Street, where there were lots of lots of lights, people and cars.

“I think we outran them!” he said.

“Can you imagine the nerve?” Eric said. “We’ve been out all night trick-or-treating for our candy, and somebody thinks they can just come along and take it from us? What is the world coming to?”

Some of the businesses on Main Street were giving out treats. A lady at a bakery gave them day-old pumpkin cookies, which they devoured like hungry wolves.

A man standing in front of a tavern was giving out treats from a large plastic pumpkin. “You kids need to be home in bed,” he said.

“If we come inside, will you give us a beer?” Stan asked.

“Come back in ten years,” the man said.

There was a big crowd at the Regal Theatre, a long line of people waiting to buy tickets to the Halloween double feature: Bride of the Gorilla and The Terror of Tiny Town. Anybody in costume could get in for half-price.

“If we had enough money, we could go,” Stan said.

“Aw, I can’t stay out that late,” Buster said. “My mother would come looking for me.”

They were about to walk past the theatre, but Squeamy spotted Oda May in the ticket line in the gorilla mask and stopped. She wasn’t alone, either.

“She’s with a little kid and he’s a cowboy!” Squeamy said. “Her boyfriend is a child and a cowboy! That’s why she didn’t want us to meet him!”

From where they were standing, they all had a good look at the little cowboy. When he turned around to look at the line behind him, Buster saw his face. “That’s no little kid,” he said. “That’s a midget!”

“A what?”

“Oda May’s boyfriend is a midget and his face is all wrinkled! He must be thirty years old!”

“Oh, boy!” Squeamy said. “I’m really going to tell on her now!”

“I think we should go over and say ‘hi’ to her,” Eric said.

“No!” Squeamy said. “She’ll think we’ve been following her!”

They stood and watched Oda May and the midget cowboy move up in the line. When it was their turn, Oda May moved around behind the midget, put her hands on his waist and lifted him up so he could buy the tickets and then set him down again. Several people in line behind them laughed, but they seemed not to notice.

“Now I’m seen everything!” Squeamy said. “Can you imagine what their children will be like? I don’t even want to think about it.”

“Let’s go,” Stan said. “It’s ten o’clock and it’s starting to rain again.”

They decided to walk home with Stan, since he lived the closest. The interesting thing about Stan was that his father was an undertaker and the family lived above the funeral parlor. It was a subject of endless fascination to Stan’s friends.

“I think I’m going to call it a night,” Stan said when they were at the corner near his house. “Thanks for walking me home.”

“Do you mean you’re not going to ask us in after we’ve come all this way?” Squeamy said.

“Do you have a body in a casket we can look at?” Eric asked.

“Stan’s right,” Buster said. “I should be getting home, too.”

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Squeamy said. “I don’t think I can wait until I get home.”

“Oh, all right!” Stan said. “You can come in but you have to wipe your feet first.”

Stan’s parents were out for the evening, so they had the place to themselves. Stan took them down to the basement to show them around but made them promise not to touch anything. First he showed them the room where the embalming was done with its white cabinets full of jars and bottles and then a separate room where bodies were dressed and prepared for burial. The most impressive part of the tour was the casket room, where more than fifty caskets were opened up so people could see inside them. Eric, Buster and Squeamy took turns taking off their shoes and getting into a casket to see what it felt like, while Stan closed the lid on each of them for a few seconds and then made them get out.

“My dad wouldn’t like it if he knew we were down here,” he said.

“Let us know when there’s a body so we can come back and see it,” Eric said.

“I’ve seen plenty of dead bodies. It’s people you don’t know. You don’t feel anything looking at them.”

“You are so lucky! I’ve never seen a dead body!”

“I need to get home,” Buster said. “It’s getting late.”

Buster walked part of the way home with Squeamy and Eric, but they left him at the corner by the church and he had to walk the last four blocks alone. He held his bag of candy in his arms because it was heavy and soggy and he didn’t want the bottom breaking through. He didn’t see a single other person on his way home. Everybody was finished for the night. Halloween was over for another year.

Mother was sitting on the couch in her bathrobe and slippers watching a Charlie Chan movie on TV. “Did you have a nice time?” she asked.

“Yeah, it was okay.”

“I’m glad you’re home.”

“Why?

“I always worry about you when you’re out by yourself.”

“I wasn’t by myself.”

“There’s an escapee on the loose killing people. I just heard it on TV.”

“We just missed him.”

“Now don’t eat all that candy at once. You’ll make yourself sick. You still have to eat your fruits and vegetables.”

“I know. I want to go to bed now. I’m tired.”

She was saying something else as he went up the stairs, but he didn’t hear what it was.

He weighed himself on the bathroom scale, first without the bag and then with it. He weighed eighty-four pounds without the bag and ninety-five pounds with it. Eleven pounds of candy. One pound for every year of his life.

He undressed and put on his pajamas and set the bag of candy on top of the chest of drawers where he could see it from the bed. He got into bed, took one last look at it, turned off the light. Before he could have counted to ten, he was asleep.

Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

In Memoriam ~ A Capsule Book Review

In Memoriam book cover

In Memoriam
~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp ~

It has been said that the “Great War” (World War I) wiped out an entire generation of young men in England. We meet a few of these (fictional) young men in the novel In Memoriam by Alice Witt.

(Sidney) Ellwood and (Henry) Gaunt are students at a boys’ boarding school in England. (The students at this school go mostly by their last names.) Gaunt, it seems, joins the army at the beginning of the war with Germany because of his same-sex feelings for Gaunt. (We have to remember that homosexuality is a crime in England at this time.) Whatever feelings Gaunt has for Elwood, they are enthusiastically reciprocated.

Soon, Ellwood also “signs up,” along with many of the other “boys” (men) from the school he and Gaunt have attended. They cannot pass up the chance to experience the excitement and exhilaration of fighting in a war. They will all soon discover, however, that war experienced first-hand is not quite the same as they envisioned. The death toll mounts, as does the list of the grievously injured.

Ellwood and Gaunt are soon together at the front, but it’s not the same as it was at school, of course. Hell, even when experienced with one’s beloved, is still hell. Ellwood is present when Gaunt is shot in the chest. Ellwood is sure Gaunt is dead, but he himself is under fire, so he can’t stay behind to see. He runs for cover, believing that Gaunt has died.

So, Ellwood is left alone, to grieve for his beloved Gaunt. However, he has other, more immediate, problems on the front lines. He sees many of his friends and acquaintances killed or horribly injured. Soon, he himself is shot in the face. He loses one eye and part of his jawbone. Will he live, or will he join his beloved Gaunt in death?

In Memoriam engaged me fully, from the first page. It is a novel with an early-twentieth century sensibility. It might have been written in the 1920s or ‘30s by E. M. Forester or Evelyn Waugh. The gay angle of the story is downplayed and very tastefully handled. Homophobes needn’t be alarmed. In Memoriam is highly recommended, especially if you are interested in the War to End All Wars, as I am.

Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Mother Witch, Father Ghoul ~ A Short Story

Mother Witch, Father Ghoul
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

Jock and Lena had been married for eighteen years when their first child came along, a boy they named Finley. They had resigned themselves to being childless, so Finley was something of a surprise. Lena was sick the whole time she was carrying Finley and she wondered secretly if childbirth was worth all the trouble and fuss. She had been happy without children and wondered if she would ever be happy again.

Always a reader, she read book after book on child-rearing and parenting, hoping that the words on the printed page would make her feel inspired, but they had no effect in that direction. She woke up every morning during her pregnancy hoping that the little thing growing inside her would—if not exactly die—just not be there at all.

When Lena told Jock she was going to have a baby that neither of them expected, he was so dismayed he couldn’t speak. He shook and felt weak and had to sit down. When he recovered his senses, he demanded a scotch and soda and a steak medium-rare and accused Lena of having a secret affair with the obese man who cleaned the carpets.

The birth was a difficult one and Lena thought she would die. When the nurse at the hospital placed Finley in Lena’s arms for the first time, Lena fainted and fell out of bed; the nurse caught Finley just in time before he hit the floor. When Lena woke up from her faint, she had temporarily lost her senses.

Jock and Lena readied an upstairs room in their spacious house for the baby. They bought all the requisite furniture and all the little things they thought a baby would like. They had the room painted a cheerful yellow color and bought new curtains with elephants and giraffes on them; they spared no expense.

On the day Lena brought Finley home from the hospital, a few curious neighbors dropped in to see him. Lena wore a tight smile and welcomed the visitors graciously. Jock locked himself in his study and drank whiskey and wrote atrocious poetry.

Finley was a beautiful, perfect child with abundant light-brown hair and a full set of teeth. It was his strange, green-and-amber eyes, though, that people noticed first. He looked searchingly at any visitor who came into the room, as if he were studying them and knew things about them that nobody else knew. When people talked, he moved his lips and smiled, pretending he too was talking. Frequently he pointed at something across the room and when people turned to look at what he was pointing at, there was nothing there except the blank wall. He was seeing things that nobody else saw.

At about three weeks old, Finley began moving objects around the room by pointing at them with his tiny index finger and pursing his lips. If a floppy yellow bunny was sitting on the chest of drawers, he could make it fall to the floor or float across the room and fall into his bed, at which time he would grab it and stick it in his mouth. When a wasp came into this room, he pointed at it and flicked his tongue and the wasp fell dead in mid-flight.

“I don’t see anything of myself in him,” Jock said. “Nobody in my family ever had eyes that color.”

Lena was hurt anytime Jock suggested that somebody else was Finley’s father. The marriage, which before had been tolerable, was strained to the breaking point. Jock went out of the room when Lena entered and spoke to her only when it couldn’t be avoided. He blamed her for Finley’s existence and came to see their marriage as a mistake. He tried to warm up to Finley but believed that the two of them would only ever be strangers. He couldn’t visualize Finley living in his house for twenty or so years until reaching adulthood.

Despite Lena’s misgivings about parenthood, she tried to be a good mother to Finley. She fed him, bathed him and spent most of her waking hours looking out for him. There was always something about him, though, that to her didn’t seem right. It seemed he didn’t need her. He was attuned to something or someone else besides her. At times he would look longingly outside the window and point his finger and warble at something that only he could see.

At six months, Finley was walking and at nine months talking in complete sentences. He asked for pencil and paper and began drawing pictures of birds, castles, airplanes and elephants.

“How could you know about such things?” Lena asked.

When Finley was less than a year old, a relative gave him a picture book with farm animals and jungle animals. He looked appreciatively at all the pictures and then asked for a book with words.

“What kind of a book would you like?” Lena asked, stunned that a baby would make such a request.

“It doesn’t matter,” Finley said. “Just something I can hold in my tiny hands and turn the pages.”

She didn’t want to give him anything too “adult,” so she gave him a juvenile book about the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving. He read the book in one afternoon and asked for another one.

“Where did you learn to read?” Lena asked. “You haven’t been to school yet.”

“Some people are just born knowing things, I guess,” he said.

At one year, Finley was dressing and bathing himself and getting his own food. Lena kept a little stepstool within easy reach of the refrigerator. He never dropped any crumbs or spilled anything on the floor, and when he was finished eating he washed his own dishes, standing on a chair at the sink.

He learned to turn on the TV when nobody was around and watch on his own. He wasn’t interested in anything where people were talking. He wanted to hear music and see movement: pictures of animals, cars, airplanes, trains—anything but people.

One day, when Finley was one year and two months old, someone knocked on the door in the middle of the afternoon. Opening the door, Lena saw a strange-looking man and woman standing on the porch peering in at her. The man was very thin and pale and dressed in formal attire. (He seemed like a holdover from the Third Reich.) The woman was taller and broader than the man and wore a very old-fashioned kind of lady’s hat with a red feather and a veil. The chimpanzee she held by the hand wore an aviator cap with goggles and a little leather coat.

“You have the wrong house,” Lena said.

“I’m Mrs. Miggles and this is my husband, Julian.”

“Charmed,” Julian said.

“Whatever you’re selling, I’m not interested.”

“We’re not selling anything, but we would like to speak to you.”

“I’m very busy right now.”

“You’re going to want to hear this,” the woman said. “It concerns your son.”

When Mrs. Miggles said the words your son, she inclined her head toward the chimpanzee.

Lena allowed them into the living room and asked them to sit down. The woman began by saying, “The boy’s name is Armand. Say hello to the lady, Armand.”

The chimpanzee took two steps toward Lena and held out his hand for her to shake.

“How do you do?” Lena said.

Armand rolled his lips back over his teeth and gave a little squawk.

“Is your husband at home?” Mrs. Miggles asked. “We really wanted to speak to both of you.”

“He’s out right now,” Lena said. “Just what is this about?”

“I don’t know quite how to say it.”

“Just say it. Isn’t that usually the best way?”

“Well, you can probably tell we’re not like anybody else. I’m a witch and my husband here is a ghoul.”

“A ghoul?”

“Yes, a ghoul.” Mrs. Miggles faltered and then continued. “You had a son on the last day of August last year, I believe.”

“How do you know that?”

“I also had a son on that day.”

“And you’re a witch?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Witches have children?”

“Sometimes they do.”

“All right. So you had a son on the same day as me. How does that concern me?”

“Well, to put it bluntly…”

“Yes.”

“I have your child and you have mine.”

“What?”

“The child that you have that you think is yours is really mine. He’s half-witch and half-ghoul.”

“All right, if that’s true, then where is my child?” Lena asked.

“This is him,” Mrs. Miggles said, picking Armand up and setting him on her lap.

“You’re telling me I gave birth to a chimp?”

“Oh, no, no, no! You gave birth to a human child on the same day that I gave birth to my child, who isn’t really human in the sense that you mean it.”

“Then where is my child?” Lena asked.

“I just told you! Your child is Armand!”

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave my house now.”

“Well, perhaps I should backtrack and explain a little further.”

“I think you must!” Julian said in his odd croaking voice.

“When your attention was diverted for just a tiny second, my sister, who is also a witch, stole your baby and replaced him with mine.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Oh, witches can trick you very easily, I assure you!”

“I don’t believe a word of this!”

“She switched babies, and then do you know what she did? To get back at me for something I did to her a long time ago, she turned your baby into a chimp!”

Mrs. Miggles and Julian both laughed heartily.

“Nobody took my baby,” Lena said. “If such a thing had happened, I would have known.”

“It has taken me all this time to find you!” Mrs. Miggles said. “Of course, I had to torture my sister to get it out of her!”

“I’m going to call the police,” Lena said.

“And what do you think they’ll do, my dear!”

“My husband is behind all this, isn’t it? He’s playing an elaborate Halloween hoax on me because he never wanted a baby in the first place.”

“I’ve never spoken to your husband.”

Lena looked down at Armand who was sitting at Mrs. Miggles’ feet. When he realized he was being looked at, he smiled sweetly and yawned.

“So, if your sister turned my child into a chimp,” Lena asked, “why can’t she turn him back again?”

“That is a very reasonable question, my dear,” Mrs. Miggles said. “The truth is that the spell was hers and I don’t know how to reverse it.”

“Can’t you get her to reverse it?”

“Oh, no! I had to kill her!”

“You killed your own sister?”

“Oh, my, yes! She was a terrible trickster! If I hadn’t killed her, she would have killed me in the end!”

“She was a poor jealous thing,” Julian said. “She couldn’t have children of her own.”

“So, if you’ll just go and get your little fellow, whatever his name is,” Mrs. Miggles said, “we’ll make the switch and be on our way!”

“Do you think I’m going to turn my baby over to a couple of crazy people and take a chimp in return?” Lena asked.

“We prefer that you didn’t call him that,” Julian said.

Finley, who had been standing at the top of the stairs the whole time hearing every word, came running into the room.

“Mother! Father!” he said. “I knew you’d come for me on Halloween!”

During the embraces and kisses, Mrs. Miggles turned to Lena and said, “Now do you believe me?”

Armand went and stood beside Lena and took her by the hand. She reached down and picked him up in her arms and he kissed on her cheek, the way Finley was doing with Mrs. Miggles and Julian.

“At last, everything is right in the world!” Mrs. Miggles said.

Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Miss Wessel ~ A Short Story


Miss Wessel
~ A Witching Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

Rain had threatened all day but no rain came. Ragged horizontal clouds took on strange shapes in the sky and then merged with other shapes and moved on. The sun showed its face every now and then but mostly kept hidden. A gentle breeze blew into the third-floor classroom like a sigh, ruffling some papers, barely noticed.

It was Friday, the last day of October, Halloween. The children were restless. They wanted to be released from their bondage so they could don their ghost, devil, or cowboy costumes and go out into the world and make mischief and collect enough candy to last them through the winter that was coming.

Their teacher, Miss Wessel, also longed to be released. It was her day. She had been teaching ten-year-olds for decades. She was leaving for good, once and for all, at the end of the day. The time had come for her to fly off and live the rest of her life the way she wanted to live it. The children didn’t know they’d have a new teacher come Monday morning. That was the way Miss Wessel wanted it. Say good-bye to no one.

There was no need on this day to do any work, to put on a good face. She had designated this, her last afternoon, as a time for silent meditation. This meant reading, thinking, looking out the window, or whatever one wanted to do, as long as one did it quietly. If one wanted to sit and doze at one’s desk, so much the better.

All was quiet, but there seemed to be an unwritten rule that says a roomful of ten-year-olds cannot be perfectly still for more than a few minutes at a time, no matter what. An unusually large number asked to be excused to go to the restroom. Miss Wessel was inclined to tell them to hold on to it, but in every case she let them go because she simply didn’t care. If they didn’t come back right away she didn’t get up to go see what was keeping them. If they were wandering around the halls doing things they weren’t supposed to be doing, some other teacher would see them and send them back; if they never came back, that was all right, too.

A boy named Terry Hughie got up to sharpen his pencil and fell on his backside like the clown he was, causing everybody to laugh uproariously, which was exactly the response he was hoping for. A little while later, two boys were scuffling in the back of the room, apparently trying to strangle each other. When Miss Wessel threw a blackboard eraser at them, somehow managing to hit them both, they immediately desisted and sat back down in their seats.

With order restored, Miss Wessel slumped down at her desk and was just about to go to sleep when she heard footsteps approaching and someone standing beside her, breathing audibly. Opening her eyes, she saw Francine Quince standing inches away, looking at her with her strange dark eyes.

“Yes, Francine,” she said. “What is it? Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“I need to talk to you,” Francine said.

“What’s stopping you?”

“In private.”

“Can’t it wait until Monday?”

“No.”

With a sigh Miss Wessel stood and motioned for Francine to follow her into the cloakroom. She turned and faced Francine beside the fire extinguisher, clasping her hands in front of her to resist the urge to slap her. Of all the students in her class, she liked her the least.

“Did one of the boys draw an unflattering picture of you again?” she asked.

“Yes,” Francine said, “but that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Standing close to Francine, Miss Wessel realized—and not for the first time, either—what an odd child she was. She was taller than the other children and seemed older in some unidentifiable way; more worldly, somehow, than her years would have allowed her to become. She had a very long neck and pale skin and, in spite of the pinched-up features of her face, enormous dark eyes that were like pinpoints zeroing in on all she saw.

“I’m listening,” Miss Wessel said, when Francine seemed to hesitate.

“I don’t know quite how to say this,” Francine said.

“Did you have a naughty accident? Do you need to go home?”

“No, nothing like that. I just wanted to tell you that I know what you are and I know what you’re going to do at the end of the day today.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Miss Wessel said, mustering as much indignation as she could on such short notice.

“I want you to take me with you.”

“Now why would I take you anywhere?”

“Because I’m one of your kind.”

“And what kind is that?”

Francine laughed her grown-up laugh. “I’ve seen,” she said. “I know.”

“Francine,” Miss Wessel said sternly, not caring if the other children heard, “I don’t have the time or the inclination for this kind of nonsense! Please return to your seat and don’t talk of this again!”

“Everybody who knows me would be glad if I went away and never came back. They’d look for me, of course, because that’s what they’re supposed to do, but after a while when they didn’t find any trace of me they’d figure I ran away or was abducted by aliens or something.”

“Would you like to spend the rest of the day in the principal’s office?” Miss Wessel asked, not knowing what else to say.

“No.”

“Then return to your seat.”

“All right. I will. But I still want you to take me with you.”

The afternoon continued to its inevitable conclusion without further incident. When the bell rang to go home, Miss Wessel stood at the classroom door and handed everybody a paper bag of candy as they left. She made a point of looking them all in the face and calling them by name, as she would never see any of them again, and wishing them all a happy Halloween.

When everybody had left and there was one bag of candy left, Miss Wessel realized that Francine Quince was still in the room with her, sitting quietly at her desk. She had forgotten for the moment about Francine. She held the bag of candy above her head and smiled.

“There’s one bag left, Francine,” she said, “and it’s got your name on it. Happy Halloween!”

“I don’t want it,” Francine said.

“Then take it and give it to your little brother.”

“He doesn’t want it either.”

“Go home, Francine! School is over for the day and it’s time for all of us to leave. Your mother will be expecting you.”

“My mother’s a drunk and a whore who doesn’t even know what day it is.”

“Suit yourself. If you’re still here when the janitor comes in to straighten up, he’ll make you leave.”

“I’m going with you.”

“Francine, do you think I want to be responsible for the disappearance of a young girl? I think that’s a fairly serious charge.”

“It shouldn’t matter to a witch.”

“Witch or not, I have some scruples.”

“I’ll bet you’ve cast many spells on people and turned lots of men into toads!”

“It isn’t like that!”

“Then take me with you so I may know what it’s really like. You can make me your protégé.”

“Francine, I don’t even like you. Why would I want you with me all the time?”

“If you don’t take me with you, I’ll go to the police and tell them everything I know about you.”

“Why should that make any difference? I’ll be so far away they’ll never find me and they wouldn’t even know where to look.”

“Then take me with you.”

“I’m leaving now, Francine, and you’re leaving, too, but not with me.”

“I’ll kill myself if you don’t take me.”

“Do you know what it’s like to fly a broom? It takes skill and coordination, not to mention balance.”

“I can learn. You can teach me.”

“Good-bye, Francine. You have my sincere good wishes.”

Miss Wessel went out of the room, turning off the lights and closing the door. She knew that Francine was still inside, but she didn’t care; she was finished with her. When she walked down the hall to the seldom-used door to the attic, she knew that Francine was right behind her.

“You’re not supposed to be in the building after school hours, Francine,” she said.

She went up the dark, narrow steps to the attic, brushing away cobwebs. Francine was right behind her like a shadow. At the top of the steps, the fluttering of bat wings caused Francine to let out a little scream.

“If a few little bats scare you,” Miss Wessel said, “you’re not really a witch.”

“I just wasn’t expecting them,” Francine said.

“If you’re going to be a witch, you’ll learn to expect anything.”

Miss Wessel changed into a long, flowing black dress. After she had fastened all the buttons and smoothed the dress over her bony hips, she put on a black pointed hat with a wide brim. Her face, at that moment, took on a different look. Her nose and chin became more pointed, more prominent; her skin, always the color of ivory, took on a greenish tint. The wart on her chin that was barely visible before became enormous, complete with a tuft of bristling hair.

With her preparations complete, Miss Wessel pointed a long index finger at Francine and laughed a cackling laugh. “Are you quite sure you want to do this, my dear?” she asked.

Francine, in spite of herself, drew back. “Yes, I’m sure,” she said.

“Then follow me.”

She picked up her broom and climbed the ladder that was built into the attic wall and pushed open the trap door that led to the roof. After they had both gone through the trap door and were standing on the roof, Miss Wessel let the door slam back into place. Then, with Francine watching her closely, she straddled the broom with her legs.

“Get on,” she said, “and hold on. I would advise you not to look down until you get used to flying.”

Francine got onto the broom behind Miss Wessel and wrapped her arms around Miss Wessel’s waist.

“Are you ready?” Miss Wessel asked.

“Yes,” Francine said.

“Do you want me to put a curse on your mother before we go?”

“No. Her life is already cursed enough.”

“Very well, then. We’re off!”

The broom lifted, carrying its two passengers. Miss Wessel flew in a broad sweep over the school and the town so they could take one last look at the place that had been their home for so many years. Then, with the full moon as a backdrop, they flew away to points unknown, never to be seen or heard from again.

Copyright © 2024 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997