Full of Grandpa's chocolate cake and sipping marshmallow cocoa, we all settled in near the
fireplace to hear a story of the past. He sat back in his chair, smiled and asked what story we would like to hear tonight.

Without hesitation we all said, “The Farmer and the Wagon!” He closed his eyes and allowed the memories to flood back into his mind for a moment before beginning.

“There was a run down baseball diamond at the back of an old park. An old railroad siding ran along the first base foul line of the field. The track was in a trough, making it easier to load and unload the cars, so the sides were kind of steep and hard to cross in a wagon. Remember now, this was when cars were rare and people still used wagons and buggies to get around. An old farmer lived just across those tracks, and this farmer took to unhitching his horse and tying it to the backstop with a long lead line on ‘our’ diamond and leaving the wagon near the tracks. There were plenty of better places to tie up that old horse, and we even asked him once if we could move his horse under a tree so we could play. He said ‘No!’ and slammed the door in our faces.

Well, the summer progressed and we had to play around that ornery horse and its messes. When summer faded into fall and ‘Mischief Night’ rolled around, we all decided that the farmer would be our target! That night, we all snuck out and met up at the field. We took that wagon apart and reassembled it across the tracks and on top of that old man’s barn. As a stroke of genius, we placed a jack-o-lantern on the seat; his glowing grin smiling into the pre-dawn darkness. We went home and slept till sun-up then met up again at the diamond. The farmer was standing on our side of the tracks scratching his head, and we had a hard time containing ourselves as we watched him look for that wagon. When he finally spotted it, he went crazy! He was yelling, cursing, and carrying on, while we all fell to the ground in fits of laughter.

That caught his attention and he stormed up to us and asked if we had done it. Looking as serious as we could, we answered ‘Oh, no sir! We know nothing about that. We just came down to play ball.’ He saw right through our carefully somber expressions and caught the gleam in our eyes. He told our folks what we had done, and our daddies whupped the cost of the crane used to remove the wagon from our hides but we all thought it was well worth it. The farmer started keeping that horse on his side of the tracks and we got our field back. That was probably the best Halloween ever when I was a kid.”

John's tiny digits couldn't grasp the sweets taunting him at the bottom of the jar. His younger brother looked up at him. The little boys sensed they were risking a lot sneaking around.

"Only Mommy gets us cookies," he said with nervousness. "We're not s'posed to be up this late."

"Timmy," John said with a grunt as one last stretch attempt failed. "Go to bed if you're scaredy. I didn't want those stupid things anyway. You know what tomorrow is?"

"Yes! Yes!" Timmy exclaimed gleefully. Thoughts of finding candies–more then he could ever eat– filled his head.

"Shh. Don't wake anyone. It's time you grew up. I got plans. You want in?"

The moon leaked cool light through the kitchen blinds, variegating the surfaces with light and shadow. Little footfalls maneuvered across the linoleum. The boys were carrying something metallic and cumbersome between them.

"John, I don't think we should mess with this. Mom says this kinda thing is for big people."

"We need it," John said, looking at the large saw-like tool in his hands. He was too young to realize what the device was, but it looked like it could destroy things. "Trust me. NO ONE will know who done it. When the whole house wakes up in the morning..."

"...yes? Are we 'bout to do a big no-no?"

“Oh yeah. They deserve it. They hide food from us. We’ll show them what happens when you hide food.”

The vengeance in his eyes frightened his younger brother.

“I’m going to crawl up on the table top there, Timmy. You help get that thingy up to me.

Resting in the middle of the large wooden table was what must have been to John’s little eyes the most gigantic meal ever. An easy target. A fun mess to make. He stood as tall as he could in the middle of the table and faced his foe. A tiny voice behind him whispered in rhythm “don’t fall off, John… don’t fall off, John…”

The little troublemaker used all his strength to lift the metal tool above his head, and with one tiny shriek, hurled it into his target. Food splattered back at them like a bomb. The boys giggled in laughter and glanced at each other with understanding. Timmy grabbed part of the large apparatus, and the two of them began to smash, chop, and cut the food left so “carelessly” out for them to find.

Mary walked into the kitchen with nothing on her mind but the desire to fight the offending morning sunlight with caffeine and grumpiness. She gasped when she discovered the mess on the table. “Harold? It’s a cute thought, honey, but can’t you ever clean up after yourself?” A pleading groan of ignorance came from upstairs.

“There goes the pie.”

Even the faces on the pumpkins were sloppily made–almost like random holes. No sooner did Mary notice the small steak knife did she spy the pair of sticky little mouse tracks.

Jane and I walked out into the street, our little hearts a flutter. This felt better than Christmas. Our first mischief night.
Finally my parents thought I was old enough to be left alone.
The Thompson house was decorated in orange and black for tomorrow. Ms Thompson loved the decorating contests in the neighbourhood. Jane’s family had also decorated. It was close to midnight and the moon shone high in the sky. The treacle I held under my arm was giving off a bitterly sweet aroma.
Jane had wanted to t.p. the neighbourhood, but I wanted something innovative. We were going to put treacle on all the door knobs in the street. An owl hooted in the distance. This was going to be so cool.
Suddenly we saw Jason and his friends walking around with bags of toilet paper. This was going to make our prank seem weak.
Jane and I ran home, grabbed our bikes and headed to the Wallgreens. We bought every can of shaving cream they had, we also bought rolls of that cute Hello Kitty sticky tape. We quickly made our way home. The boys had started tp-ing. We started smearing the doorknobs with treacle. Using the shaving cream, we wrote profanity on the yards and cars. We covered some of the cars in the sticky tape, taped widows shut and taped bikes to fences.
Jason walked up to us and told us to go home. “Nothing for girls” he said. Before I knew it we had smeared his face with treacle. The other guys ran over and we started a fight.
Screaming, laughing and running around. It woke the neighbours. They came outside and found us all covered in treacle, toilet paper, shaving cream, and Hello Kitty sticky tape.
After that I wasn’t allowed outside for mischief nights for 5 years.
All would do is sit outside my room, look out my window and stare at the jack-o’-lantern across the street. Sometimes I would see Jason at his window and he would wink at me.

I wish to apologise for the damage we caused to your fence last night, it was very irresponsible of us to climb over it.

I also wish to apologise for walking across your petunia patch. It was reckless of us to do it, and we will pay full restitution.

I also wish to apologise for the jack o'lantern that we carved. I was not aware that that particular 3.8 metric tonne pumpkin was of world record size, and I did not realise that it was not really fitting that my anatomically correct and enthusiastically well endowed naked likeness of Doctor Henry Kissinger that we carved into it (it was an eight man job) was not really appropriate, we thought it was just good for a laugh.

I also sincerely regret that the propane torch that we used to light it from within exploded, setting fire to your house and destroying your car.

I also regret not taking a photo before this happened, and fleeing before I could catch video of the aftermath.

Yours sincerely,
Salmon P Chase.

The dim, flickering light from my plastic jack-o-latern night light casts a warm, orange glow in my room. I stretch out on the bed and close my eyes. A faint tapping rouses me from my attempted slumber.
“Wake up, come on.” A muffled voice comes from the other side of my window.
I turn over and stare out the window. A werewolf stares back.
“Oh, I’m so scared Jazzy.” I open the window. “What do you want?”
“Let’s have some fun, let’s scare Eva! You know how jittery she is.”
I ponder the thought of Eva jumping out her skin at the sight a werewolf in her window.
“Ok, let me get my jacket.”
Little goblins, witches, pirates and ghosts whiz past Jazzy and I. They race from house to house looking for the biggest loot.
“ I didnt show you the best part of the mask.” Jazzy presses a red button on the ear of the mask. An eerie grunt bellows out. “Put your hand by the nose it lets out air too. It’ll fog up the window.”
“Priceless.” I smile.
We approach Eva’s house.
“Ok let’s crawl under the hedge, her window is right over there.” Jazzy points to the left side of the house and puts on the mask.
We crouch and tip top towards the window. We crawl across the grass under Eva’s square hedges and lean against the wall. Jazzy slowly turns toward the window and peeps in, she motions me to look. Inside two pink candles dimly light the room, Eva and a boy are passionately making out on the bed.
Jazzy counts to three with her fingers and presses the red button. The couple slows their make out frenzy, but then continues again. I run my long nails across the window and Jazzy hits her grunt button. The couple looks toward the window, screams and scrambles out of the bedroom. Jazzy and I fall to the ground in laughter
“ Oh my gosh!” I wail. “That was her mom and dad!” My side hurts,my stomach tightens and tears of laughter stream down my face.
“Oh crap, someone opened the door, let’s get outta here.” Jazzy pushes me under the hedge.
We scramble across the yard.
Eva’s father yells at us. “ Get off my property!”
Jazzy and I run faster than escaped convicts up the sidewalk and around the corner. We stop and pant.
“Hey you guys, what have you been up to?” Eva stands in front of us. Her little sister dressed in an angel costume grips her hand tightly, while jamming a bar of chocolate into her mouth.
“ Nothing just out for a run.” I hold my side. “We’re going back home now, though.”
“ Yep, gotta go, have a great night Eva. And please change your sheets.” Jazzy grins, pulls my arm and walks away.
“Huh?” Eva stands puzzled on the sidewalk.

Like every year since we moved to the neighborhood, Johnny had been so excited about Halloween that by October 15th he had bought everything for his party and perfected his costume at an excessive level. He was obsessed counting the days in the calendar (literally... like, marking with X’s every day obsessed). You see, the neighbors always gave a jack-o-lantern to the best party of the block and he was determined to win his 5th in a row.

He kept saying how no one would ever beat his costume that day and how ridiculous we were going to look next to him with our “without imagination” ones (even though he had no idea what we were going to wear).

Then one day talking with the guys, we realized we’d had it with his Halloween parties. No one ever could have fun in them because Johnny kept rubbing his costume and his perfectly planned party at everyone’s face. Then suddenly Mark said “it would be so funny if Johnny’s calendar was from last year, that way he’d throw the party one day before the actual date and we would be left alone with our costumes on Halloween’s night”.

Poor Johnny, Mark hadn’t even finished talking when half the guys had ran out to the closet hoping they'd find an old calendar that didn’t get to the garbage can at the beginning of the year.

Unluckily for Johnny, we found an old calendar at a box and dedicated the rest of the day to switch every photo from his calendar to the old one (it would be too obvious if he’d found a calendar with the wrong picture), and drawing the X’s as alike as we could. Then we told everyone he’d invited to act as if Halloween was one day before the actual date.

Everyone was so excited about the fact that this time we had the chance to get back at him for his annoying obsession with Halloween, that before we realized it was "Halloween day". The night came and as no surprise Johnny spent all night bragging about his amazing costume and saying how he’d win the jack-o-lantern prize this time too.

The next day Johnny had spent all day cleaning after the enormous party he’d thrown, so focused on keeping every single thing as a trophy, that he didn’t realize when it got dark and there were more people outside than the usual.
The bell rang and when he came out, there we were all dressed up in our costumes yelling “treat or trick! Open your present!”

He was so confused that he just nodded and went for his present, which almost made him pass out when he discovered that inside was a note saying “surprise! you’ve been tricked, Halloween is today” and a little jack-o-lantern at the bottom of the box.

“Relax Johnny” we said… “At least you got a jack-o-lantern for the best Halloween party on mischief night”.

Ah, Halloween. The children are all out trick-or-treating; the paranoid parents watching over their kids like a hawk would its prey. But the one thing that’s better than Halloween, the one day of the year when all of the “Bad kids” have the most fun: Mischief night.
The most memorable of nights, for me anyway, started right after my parents went to bed (Particularly late tonight, to make sure I wouldn’t sneak out.). But of course I would be sneaking out tonight, what pre-teen child wouldn’t?
I had the whole night planned: get together with my friends, we each had taken numerous toilet paper rolls for this special occasion, and go out for a night of debauchery. After we (there were three of us) had met up at the park at midnight, as planned, we gathered our TP rolls and headed out to cause incomprehensible mischief.
There we were, at the first house of the night. It was beautiful, a two story house with blue shutters on the windows. We didn’t know whose house it was, but we definitely did not care. We each went from a different angle of the house and launched our extra-strength paper rolls of doom. All was as it was supposed to be; the paper flying over the roof, landing on the other side, and then repeating the process. And on this particular day, I had brought a special surprise: a dozen eggs.
I picked the first egg out of the batch, wound up, and was about to throw it, when all of a sudden the egg burst into a yolky mess in my hand. Strange behavior for an egg, but I was determined to egg this house into a sticky oblivion, so I picked up another. The same thing happened. I reached to pick up another, and then they all started to burst right out of their shells. Frightened, my friends and I left all of our materials and high-tailed it out of there. We weren’t alone, though. We all felt it, the strange presence that surrounded us, although none of us wanted to admit it. We returned back to the park, and that’s when things started to get really creepy. The fog started to roll in, and countless strange dark looking figures with jack-o-lanterns for heads were in the distance starting to circle us.
Closer, and closer they approached. We all thought the same thing, to just close our eyes and run right through them. We looked at each other, nodded, and charged into the darkness. And then that was it. The park was completely empty; there wasn’t even any fog on the ground. Us being kids, we didn’t like apologies, especially if we were giving them, but we didn’t want to risk running into those… things again, so we decided that it was a mischief ghost of some kind, and wouldn’t go away until we atoned for what we did. So the next night, Halloween, we spent cleaning up his TP covered house.