LESSON #7: Try not to Run and Panic

When I was a kid living in Montreal, what you wore at Halloween was serious business. In fact, just a slight orange or yellow tinge on a single leaf would spark the start of my annual costume obsession. I’d spend weeks imagining my perfect get-up, days talking about it at school, and hours trying to talk my parents into buying exactly what I wanted. 

The Scream Mask Shawn bought in the 90's

My mother often opted to hand-sew our outfits, which I hated. All I wanted was the same store-bought ensembles my friends had, but in my mother’s eyes, mass production just wasn’t good enough for her children. She also had the same opinion when it came to candy – look! Home-made peanut butter cups! Freshly baked chocolate chip cookies! – which is where we drew a firm line. Our friends deserved real candy… the store bought kind made with 4 different types of sucrose and 6 different kinds of additives.

The only hand made item I proudly endorsed was my trick-or-treat bag. Unlike other kids, I learned very early on that a novelty pumpkin basket or plastic Halloween bag wasn’t going to suffice. If I had any hope in taking this trick-or-treat business seriously, I would need a double-woven cloth bag. Like a pillowcase. 

“Don’t! What are you doing? Lift, Tara, lift!” my dad would scream, as I’d drag my candy-laden pillowcase along the sidewalk. 

To plan, my father would eventually carry my pillowcase, freeing me to run down one more street and knock on one more house. My insatiable need for harvesting candy was a competitive sport, and I had to better my brothers’ bounty. The hard physical labour of being a successful hunter-gatherer would ultimately tire me out so much that I’d collapse into a puddle of exhausted tears mere moments before drifting off into a deep sleep. 

I’d wake every year early on 1 Nov, still dressed in my costume, to the sad and depressing display of 10 small chocolate bars and two lollipops. My brothers never faired any better. 

“Where’s all the candy?” We’d cry, wanting some sort of explanation for this outrage. “Were we robbed?”

“A lot of the candy was tampered with, so we had to throw most of it it out.” My mother would explain in a loving, caring tone. “Didn’t you hear about that little boy who bit into a candy apple with a razor blade hidden inside it? A razor blade! He lost half his face because of that bite. You don’t want to lose half your face, do you?“

“No. I just wanted the snickers bar.”

“I saw a tiny hole in the wrapper,” she’d say, wiping the corners of her mouth. “It might have been poisoned, so I got rid of it. Just to be safe.”

It never crossed my mind that my parents had either eaten or purposely thrown out my candy while I was asleep. Instead, I’d spend the next couple of weeks walking around the neighborhood staring at my neighbors’ houses in disbelief. Just when you think you’re safe…

Back in 1988, unlike today, Australians didn’t celebrate Halloween. So after moving to Australia, the only costumed children who knocked at our front door for candy was us. Since our house was also the only one passing out candy, my mother wasn’t able to use her normal excuses to cull any of our bounty. So when my father started to reduce the amount of candy he purchased (knowing who the end receivers were), it became obvious to us that we needed to attract more participants. God forbid dad stops buying candy altogether. 

After word got out that the house dressed with novelty bats and blaring The Omen soundtrack on the 31^st October gave out free candy to anyone who stopped by, my brothers started a local revolution. Every year, my brothers would band together to create the perfect scary-looking honey pot... attracting more and more local children which, in turn, forced my father to buy more candy.

As we all grew into our teenage years, Halloween evolved into something more substantial. Suddenly, it was less about candy and more about scaring the beejesus out of pre-teens. And these local unsuspecting Australian kids had no idea just how dedicated my brothers were to extracting the perfect blood-curdling scream from them. All they saw, as we did when we were kids, was the promise of free candy. They were sitting ducks.
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Though my parents still dress up and hand out candy on Halloween to this day, none of us ever took scaring children as seriously as Ryan and Shawn did during the mid 90’s. Despite any other commitments they had, they both sunk every waking moment of October and all their spare pocket change into creating the perfect haunted house. Their pièce de résistance, the cornerstone of every scare they extracted throughout that period, was the mask from Wes Craven’s blockbuster movie ‘Scream’.

The year Shawn bought that mask, the two spent days excitingly transforming our family home into a haunted house… complete with spider webs across all windows, fake gravestones in the front yard and plastic bats hanging from the trees. When darkness fell, the ghoulish green lights were switched on and the creepy music would start, adding to the theatrics. This was as Hollywood as our quiet street got. 

Open for business, Ryan dressed as an old man and sat in a rocking chair on the front porch – the green lights highlighting the large bowl of fun-size candy bars sitting on his lap. Unbeknown to these candy-desperate kids, Shawn would stay hidden in the dark behind the bushes wearing his mask… waiting for the perfect time to pounce.  

Since we lived at the end of a col-de-sac, children were forced to fretfully creep up the road towards our house… often in small sporadic groups. Like a well-rehearsed play, Ryan would patiently rock back and forth in such an eerie manner, one could easily talk themselves into believing that his show was the entire spectacle. 

As soon as the would-be trick-or-treaters arrived on the top stoop to grab their prize, Shawn would charge up behind them wearing his mask. There was always at least one girl who’d scream, which sparked uncontrollable laughter from the rest. With adrenalin still pulsing through their little bodies, the children would run away in fits of laughter, their hands filled with the promise of their next sugar rush. 

Adults very rarely joined in the fun... so when a small family of four decided to try their hand at trick or treating, my brothers decided to step it up a notch. A scream from a 10 year old girl was easy. But a scream from a grown adult? Now THAT was a challenge. 

As the family approached, the oldest of the two boys started to cry. The young dad lovingly bent down to his miniature pirate: “Don’t be scared. It’s all fake. See that old man? It’s only a costume. Just like your pirate costume. But he has lollies. Don’t you want lollies?”

“Yes…”

The young dad urged his son to follow his lead, while his wife carried their pint-sized cowboy. After the small family safely made it up the front stoop, Ryan kindly handed the little kids their candy, letting them take two handfuls each. 

The little superhero wiped his wet eyes and smiled at his dad. This wasn’t so bad after all. 

Just as the young dad turned to walk away, Shawn raced towards them with a war cry so loud, those of us inside the house mistook it for a tribal charge. 

Seeing the man in the ridiculous mask made the two small children, mouths filled with candy, burst into laughter. 

But the young dad didn’t even bother looking at Shawn or the mask. His first instinct was to run. And run he did… leaving his family to fend for themselves. In fact, he made it clear past the front yard before my mother switched on the normal bright lights, illuminating everything. The young dad stopped, and turned to look at the man behind the curtain; both of them, rolling on the ground in fits of laughter. 

“Where on earth were you going?” the young mum asked, perturbed. 

“I was... ahh... getting help…?”

My mother was quick to apologise on my brothers’ behalf, and offered the two adults some freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. Though they left with my mother’s homemade treats, neither adult sauntered down the street giggling like the hordes of children before them. Instead, they walked away sullenly, looking like they had been run over by a Mack Truck: it’s one thing to turn and run from your perceived threats when you’re young and inexperienced; it’s quite another to turn your back on everything you love to escape something that isn’t nearly as bad as your knee-jerk reaction imagined it to be