Mother's Funny Halloween

Mother's Funny Halloween
A short story by Diana Weeks

I had been feeding a stray Halloween orange and black calico cat on the sly for two weeks …I got caught when I used the last of Mothers’ coffee cream…only because we were out of milk.

The back kitchen door bangs open…her “Greatest Mom” coffee mug splashed black coffee on her hand…and made her howl …in her rush to find me…Mother points with her elbows, hands on her hips, “Betty, is that a cat?”

I tried to lie my third grade… troubles away. “The cat just turned up hungry this morning… I was afraid she was going to starve to death.” I rambled on tenderly stroking the cat’s silky back. My red headed brother Steve, who’s ten and thinks he owns the world, looks out the kitchen door…watching Mother give me “the magnet look” that grabs and holds on.

Mother walks around me. “What’s her name?”

“Princess” I blurted. “Feel how soft she is.”

Steve proclaims… “Caught red handed” and goes back in. Mother comes over and pets Princess…and picks her up. “This cat is probably just lost…her family may be walking down the alley now”…Mother put her hand around an ear “Yes…here kitty kitty”…as she’s walking toward the back alley.

“I know Daddy doesn’t want us to have cats… ever since he accidently rolled over the neighbor’s “…but Princes’ll stay in the back yard and Daddy won’t even know she’s here.” Mother puts her down on the ground and Princess runs away up the alley.

“She’ll come back”. Mother takes my hand. “You don’t find cats…cats find you. Don’t ever ever …let her in the house…” Mother ordered. “This afternoon we’ll fix a box for her under the back porch… get ready for school”

I might have gotten away with a secret pet…Daddy runs a grocery store and leaves before we wake up and comes home after we’re asleep…He is too tired to complain.

@#$%^&(*_+ my Princess sneaked in and had a litter of six kittens in my parents closet…and best of all…it happened on the next Saturday and we got to watch the last three kittens come out. It was so exciting.

Daddy came home for lunch and was greeted by my little sister Kimberly… who told him she discovered our cat having kittens and took his hand and pulled him to his closet. “I didn’t know what was happening” she explained “but I saw blood”.

“Debora!” Daddy called. Mother came in and gave him a hug…and a long kiss.

“Isn’t it great …they’re getting to learn about life…just like you did living on a farm”.

Daddy had helped us move Princess and her still wet kittens…to my closet. He barely gave me time to get my ballet shoes out of the way. I heard Mother tell him several times…just till they’re weened”...And give him a deep kiss. Mother thought I couldn’t see them.

. …Finally, its Halloween my favorite holiday and Mother is baking cookies to give trick or treaters. She let us eat two each right out of the oven.

Mother didn’t believe in buying Halloween costumes. “What fun is that? You all get to create your own costumes. You can be whoever you want to be”.

“Can I be a ghost? I found the sheet” Steve waved it in my face and threw it over Kim’s head.

“Steve, you were a ghost last year. This year you can be really scary…a mummy” then she laughed her cackling “witch” laugh and started tearing the sheet into long strips and wrapping them around Steve’s limbs taping the ends with scotch tape. I stepped on strips as they fell rounding on the floor. …Kim joined me stomping. Steve yelled. “Mother make them stop getting my costume dirty”.

“Thank you girls, you don’t want it clean… a mummy has just raised-up-out-of-the-dark ground… he’s been scratching upward from the grave.”

I joined Mother’s movements sing songing “The mummy’s mad with anger about his dirty finger nails…”

We were all laughing when Daddy came in from their bedroom with one of his house slippers in his hand…extended toward us. “Smell this…all my shoes smell like piss.”

Mother smiled. “I’ll have the closet all cleaned out when you get home tonight”.

“I can tell by that determined look…” teased Daddy kissing her goodbye. We waved his 65 ford along. When he was out of sight…Mother pulled us into a huddle.

“Six lucky kids… who come here… to our house… for trick or treat will win …their very own little kitten” Mother jumped her cheerleader dance. “Yea, let’s hear it…I’ll tie a sweet bow around each neck…blue for boys and pink for girls…if we can tell. Steve speaks out…”in my Boy Scout book.”

Mother becomes director of our annual Halloween show. “Steve you go down and scare the kids over to us…I spoke up. “Especially … groups with no adult tagging along”.

Kim put on Bet’s pink ballet tutu…you can pass out the cookies.”

“Betty you can get our laundry basket for the kittens….the basket that’s short enough for them to peek over and look cute. And Betty…you my blond golden girl. can be the judge…you can pick out the winners”.

Until she said that… I was going to cry to keep all the kittens.. I could advise each child who got a kitten…to cross their heart and hope to die… promise to take good care of their new pet.. Honestly I was glad Mother thought of this…I felt so powerful getting to pick winners.

The third “treat” kitten given away was tearfully returned. “If Dad had been driving our group around tonight I could have kept “Frisky”. I’d already named her”. Kim gave her two cookies.

The next gaggling group of five …had two screeching girl twins…dressed as bats…black bats…each won a kitten. And a boy my age smiled and said he’d always wanted a cat to give his mom for her birthday tomorrow. “Go on” Mother laughed.

I had on Mother’s old white waitress uniform that was this years nursing uniform…with a red cross printed on my paper folded nurse hat. I got to use my toy hypodermic to give shots to the boys my age. What a great Halloween.



THE END
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