All Hallows' Eve by Vivian Vande Velde Read Free Book Online

Martin couldn't resist, even without his cousin.
    When he got home, and while his mother's back was turned, Martin fetched some flour from the drum where his mother kept it. That night, after the rest of his family had gone to bed, he rubbed it onto his face and hands to make himself look pale and gray. Next, he smashed some berries onto a rag, which he wrapped around his head so that it looked like a bloody bandage—with the added benefit that it also covered his dark hair and a good deal of his face. It would not convince Elfirda should she get a good look at him, but his intention was to only let her catch a glimpse.

    Silently he crawled out the window of his parents' house and into All Hallows' Eve night. He delayed only to go to a place where the stream gathered in an elbow of land, where the water was stagnant. He rinsed his shirt in that water, giving it the stench of death, which would help convince Elfirda that he was her departed husband.
    Then, as the moon hung low in the sky, Martin went to old lady Elfirda's cottage. He scratched at her window shutter, whispering in a hoarse voice, "Elfie, Elfie," which is what Tomlin had always called her.
That
should startle her awake and out of bed, but still give him time to run away. "Elfie, Elfie, come and bid your husband good-bye."
    All in all, it was a very good disguise.
    What Martin had no way of knowing was that Elfirda wasn't in bed, or even in the cottage, but instead had been tending her cow in the barn, for it had injured its foot.

    Nor did he see her come up behind him and bend to pick a rock up off the ground.
    The last thing he heard was her crackly voice muttering, "Drat, I killed you once and pushed your body in the stream to rid myself of you. Why would I want to say good-bye again?"

Cemetery Field Trip
    Janelle hardly listened as Ms. Hurston gave the same lecture all teachers all over the world always give every time there's a field trip:

• Don't be an embarrassment to the school.
    • Don't litter.
    • Don't damage anything.
    • Don't damage each other.
    • Don't get lost.
    Janelle and the other nineteen students in Ms. Hurston's fifth-period ninth-grade literature class yawned all the way through this.
    Then, because they
were
ninth graders, Ms. Hurston added:
• No smoking.
    • No drinking.
    • No wandering off as couples.
    Because they were ninth graders, the kids tittered.

    Then, because they were going to a cemetery, Ms. Hurston repeated the rule about not being an embarrassment.
    "Remember," she said, standing in the front of the bus, swaying every time they went around a corner or over a bump, "even though we're going to be in the part of the cemetery where there are mostly old graves, there
are
recent interments, too, and there might be people there visiting their loved ones."
    Brandon, who—as far as Janelle was concerned—had been a pain in the butt since she'd first met him in third grade, said, "Yeah, and besides, it's Halloween." He wiggled his eyebrows and—just in case anybody didn't get it—explained, "And on Halloween there's no way to know if someone you meet in a cemetery is
visiting
or
staying.
" Again the eyebrows wiggled.
    Brandon's warning got some of the girls giddy, and some of the boys trying to outdo one another in graphic details about what those who stayed in a cemetery might look like.
    Grow up,
Janelle wished at them. She thought this whole trip was creepy enough as it was.
    If Ms. Hurston was thinking the same thing, she didn't say so. She said, as though correcting an honest misconception, "Actually, Brandon—Jake, if you fall out the window, we're not stopping the bus to pick you up. Actually, we are not on the lookout for ghosts, ghouls, or hordes of the undead lurking in wait to suck our brains out through our eye sockets." While some of the kids made disappointed noises, Ms. Hurston went on, "Speaking of eye sockets, D'Vona, can you put the mascara away until the bus stops, so that you don't