Saturday, November 1, 2008

Hallow 'een Candy


Write from the point of view of a child who went trick-or-treating, then had their parent take away all their candy so they wouldn’t get fat.

I twisted the antenna to face the front and shifted uncomfortably in my home made yellow and black out fit. It hung in the wrong places and scratched in others.

“Hi Tory!” I called waving at my best friend. “Oh wow look at your wings, they’re so beautiful.”

“Mum put some stardust on them to make the twinkle” she said twirling around. “And you’re a….”

“Bee – see the yellow and black.”

“I thought so – it was that or a yellow butterfly.”

“Does it make me, you know, look fat?”

“Oh no – the stripes are great. You are too skinny anyway.”

“No way, look at this tummy, Mum says I am going through a phase, I wish I were as slim and graceful as she were.”

Tory changed tack as she knew this was the beginning of one of my fat rants, “Come on Stella lets go trick or treating I overheard Mrs Booker saying she had extra goodies for the best costumes.”

With delight we ran across the road toward her house. Along the way we waved at other trick or treaters dressed in their finest, their bags bulging from loot.

“Hey Sally! Ewww that’s gross” I shrunk back as I realized Sallys face was dripping in green slime.
“Yeah mum got me extra slime – cool huh?”

Tory and I looked at each other and smiled uncertainly. The Slugworths were an important family in the village and I was always unsure how to take Sallys comments at times.

We had a wonderful time flittering from home to home, chatting and collecting treats from friends and neighbours. With mouths full of sweets, we farewelled each other and I turned to go home. I attempted to stuff as many of my lollies into my mouth before I arrived as I knew what would be the lecture when I got there.

“Stella Stix, come in here.”

I shrunk my way into the living room, where Father sat ignoring me and Mother adopted her haughty silent look.

Without arguing I handed over the remains of my treasures. Mother tipped them directly into the bin she had waiting and glared at me.

“Do you want to end up looking like that Slugworth girl? “ She said icily.

I knew better than to reply that it would be physically impossible.

“No” I mumbled instead.

“You are a beautiful young Stick Insect. No mate worth their antenna would be interested in you if you had a bump out of place. No off to your room young lady. We will talk about a diet tomorrow.”

I sighed giving into the inevitable. Perhaps I aught to have chosen a costume so that I could at least fantasize about being a butterfly like Tory.

I pulled out a hidden treat from under my costume and unwrapped it.

“And you can put that in the bin too young lady. Stick Insects are Slim”

4 comments:

~willow~ said...

well-written! Never having gone through the trick or treat tradition, I can nevertheless relate to the situation where the parent causes body-image issues in the child.... this was a tough prompt emotionally for many of us, I think :)

catryan said...

I agree it was a tough prompt. It made me think of Willy Wonka in Charlie & the Chocolate Factory at first....

Jodi Cleghorn said...

Superb twist on the prompt Annie!

Khaye said...

well written Annie- kudos! ;)