Kid Pumpkin:
A “Creeperz” Short Story
By Rusty Fischer, author of Creeperz
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Kid Pumpkin
Rusty Fischer
Copyright 2014 by Rusty Fischer
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This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, places and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Cover credit: © paffy – Fotolia.com
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Author’s Note:
The following is a short Halloween story. Any errors, typos, grammar or spelling issues are completely the fault of the witches, ghouls, werewolves, vampires and zombies. (They’re not very patient with the editorial process!)
Anyway, I hope you can overlook any minor errors you may find. Enjoy and… Happy Halloween!
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Kid Pumpkin:
A “Creeperz” Short Story
I bring the doll to our special Halloween edition of “Show and Tell,” knowing it will make Fiona Applegate see red.
I keep it in an old-fashioned brown shopping bag until it’s my turn, the kind they give out at the grocery store when you say you don’t want plastic bags. It’s soft and crinkly now, and sitting on my lap.
The period seems to take forever. Mrs. Billingsley, our 5th grade teacher at Nightshade Elementary School, is really forgiving about Show and Tell day. She lets everyone pretty much show whatever they want, and tell about it for as long as they want.
And really, I know, we’re a little old for Show and Tell but it’s Halloween, the one day of the year even big kids get to act small for a change.
Still, it seems like everyone and their brother thought to bring their costume in and so I have to sit there while Billy Twofoot shows off his homemade marshmallow costume and Susie Farmer twirls around in her 3-D banana costume.
And once Homer Fudgkins whips out his homemade trick or treat sack, well, it pretty much goes downhill from there.
Finally it’s my turn and I stand, gripping the wrinkled paper bag and walking up to the front of the class. The snickering starts almost immediately, little whispers getting louder as I pass through the rows of desks on the way up front.
I’m used to it by now. You don’t grow up looking the way I do and not expect the class to twitter, snort or snicker every time you get called up to the front of the room.
Usually I’d be sweating and stammering and nauseous right about now, but today I’m not alone. Today I brought a friend with me, and I’m proud and happy and even a little bit hopeful for once.
I set the bag down on the Show and Tell stool and stand next to it, proudly. “Hi everybody,” I say, giving a little wave to the class.
Fiona Applegate sits up front, like every good teacher’s pet should, and snickers the loudest of all. “What a dork,” she snorts, just loud enough for everyone but Mrs. Billingsley – who’s half-blind and hard of hearing to boot – can hear.
“And an especially big ‘hello’ to you, Fiona,” I purr, watching her face – her pretty, pretty face – freeze in muted shock.
“I thought I told you never to say my name again, Froggy,” she hisses, bending forward so that I can smell the cinnamon from her favorite breath mints.
“Froggy,” that’s what they call me at Nightshade Elementary. Well, ever since Fiona started it, that is, way back in first grade when I showed up that first day, long legs, big ears and my hoarse, croaky voice.
“I figured it would be okay today, Fiona,” I croak, “since after all, it’s Halloween.”
“Well it’s not okay,” she hisses. “You give me the creeps, Froggy, and you saying my name gives me the double creeps.”
“Fiona?” asks Mrs. Billingsley, disinterested from behind the big romance novel she always reads at her desk during Show and Tell. “Is there some kind of trouble?”
“No ma’am,” she says, plastering on a fake smile. “Just congratulating Froggy here – I mean, Ralph – on his special Show and Tell.”
The class snickers, their eyes piggish and unkind as they follow Fiona’s lead. I ignore them and reach for the bag, the top crinkling as I open it and pull out my item for Show and Tell.
The class laughs at the gangly rag doll with the pumpkin head, but I ignore them because it’s not them I’m worried about.
“Now class,” sighs Mrs. Billingsley, probably regretting the fact that she let me get up and do Show and Tell after all. “Let Ralph have his turn. You all certainly had yours.”
The class quiets down a little and I hold up the doll. “This is Kid Pumpkin,” I tell them, admiring my own handiwork as I hold the doll out for all to see. “I made him myself.”
I did, too. From the clunky wooden shoes to the soft, felt legs and long fabric middle and matching felt arms. I sewed the jeans he’s wearing myself, and made the flannel shirt from one of my own, a hand-me-down Mom was just going to put in the rag pile anyway.
I’m so busy admiring my pumpkin doll that I don’t notice the class laughing at me again, none louder than Fiona.
“What a dork!” she says, pointing her finger, her pretty face pink with glee as she laughs and laughs. “What boy makes his own dolls?”
“It’s not really a doll,” I tell her, holding it out so she can see the fine detail in the pumpkin face, the way I cut out the eye holes by hand, and made them both equal, and painted the stem on top a hearty pine green. “It’s… well… it’s my friend.”
More howls of laughter and this time Mrs. Billingsley doesn’t bother to stop them. I laugh, too, because this is fun. Especially when I reach over and pinch Kid Pumpkin’s right arm and watch Fiona’s face flinch with pain.
“Owww,” she murmurs, under her breath, rubbing her arm.
I let off the arm, because I know she doesn’t get it. Yet.
I let the kids laugh as I describe in detail how I sewed the buttons on Kid Pumpkin’s jeans and even put a miniature homemade wallet, just like mine, in his back pocket.
Fiona recovers and says, louder than ever, “Only a complete and utter tool would take the time to make something so lame.”
I shrug, reaching for Kid Pumpkin’s left arm. “Guilty as charged,” I say, tugging on the arm, hard, and watching Fiona jerk down in her seat.
“Ouch,” she says, a little louder this time, and now the girls who sit around her are reaching over to help her back up in her seat. “What the heck?” she asks, and I see it wash over her face.
She gets it now. Or, at least, she’s starting to. She looks from her arm, to my hand on Kid Pumpkin’s arm, and gets it.
Just to make sure, I tug on it, once more, more gently this time, and watch her body go down just a little.
She gulps and grits her teeth. Her friends have seen it, too, and wear a little smile as I tug on the doll’s arm once more.
“Cut it out, Froggy,” she says, and I jerk hard, twice, until she slides down so far in her chair she hits her chin on her desk. “Ow, Froggy! Quit it!”
“Make me,” I say, but it comes out more like a growl. “Make me stop it, Fiona!”
I stand in front of her, holding the doll, crossing its legs so that her legs cross, pinching her arm until her face grows pink and she bites off a tiny little scream.
“Okay, okay Froggy,” she says, breathlessly, little tears sliding down her cheeks. “Just… take it easy.”
“Don’t,” says Moose from the back of the class. Well, her real name’s Darla Collins but Fiona’s been calling her “Moose” ever since she gained all that weight between second and third grade.
“Yeah,” says
Scarface Sam – real name Sam Cartwright – sitting next to Moose in the back of the room. “Let her have it, Ralph!”
“Froggy,” says Fiona and I shove my finger in Kid Pumpkin’s stomach, making her double over in pain. “I mean…” she huffs, out of breath, wincing, “Ralph, please, I’m sorry, I never meant anything by it…”
“Yes she did,” says Moose, chubby face red and glistening with sweat.
“You know she did,” says Scarface Sam, itching the long scar on the side of his face. He got it while skateboarding three years ago, but Fiona told everybody he got it while peeking in her window while she was getting dressed for school one morning. Most everyone but me and Moose believed her.
“I don’t know why you’re so mad, Fiona,” I say, inching forward and holding the doll out as a peace offering. “I made it just for you.”
Despite her pain, Fiona’s nostrils flare and her face recoils with disgust. “Gross!” she spits. “I don’t want your stupid doll, Froggy.”
I chuckle, twisting the finely detailed wooden pumpkin head off the doll’s face and putting it gently on the stool behind me. “I didn’t say it was a gift, Fiona,” I growl, louder this time shoving the doll in her face. “I said I made it for you. There’s a difference, see?”
The class gasps as they take in Fiona’s face, in every fine detail, which had been hidden under the wooden doll head. Her blond head, her pug nose, her blue eyes, all recreated in exact, exquisite detail on the face of my homemade voodoo doll.
“Your hair,” I say, gently rubbing it with my fingers and watching the hair on her own head move with the motion. “I stole it out of your comb during recess last week. It’s all I needed, to make my doll complete.”
“Y-y-you…” she stammers, “you stole my hair??!”
“I had to,” I confess, tugging on the doll hair and watching Fiona’s head jerk slightly in the same direction. “Otherwise the spell wouldn’t work and all I’d have is a dumb old pumpkin doll. And what good would that do?”
“Give it here!” says Moose, waving her hands. “Let me have a go at her.”
“Me first!” shouts Scarface Sam. “Give it here and I’ll show you what real pain looks like!”
But they’re not alone. All around the room, kids who’ve never even spoken to me before, who I thought adored Fiona like her little besties, stretch their hands out reaching for the doll.
“Let me at her,” shouts Phil Sims, who until this day I don’t believe has ever said two words to me – let alone raised his voice.
“Over here!” yells Delores Crebbs, who Fiona beat out for class treasurer last year.
“Children!” says Mrs. Billingsley, standing up from her desk at last. “I really must insist that—”
“Unnh,” I grumble, bending over, just as I’d been planning for weeks now. “Can I…. can you take me out in the hall to get some fresh air, Mrs. Billingsley?”
“Right now?” she asks, sliding her reading glasses down her beak shaped nose and staring at her unruly class with concern.
“If not right now,” I sputter, retching loudly and pretending to be sick, “It might be too late.”
“Oh goodness,” she says, rushing past me to open the door.
While her back is to me, I toss the doll midway down the rows of desks where greedy hands reach for it, children tumbling out of chairs and wrestling each other to the ground for a chance to give Fiona a taste of her own medicine.
Fiona screams in pain but I hustle Mrs. Billingsley out the door and stand there, pretending to retch as she avoids her eyes and wrings her hands and mutters silently to herself.
When I poke my head back inside the classroom for just a second, I see the pumpkin doll, torn to bits.
Beside it, so is Fiona Applegate…
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About the Author
Rusty Fischer specializes in writing seasonal short stories for the YA paranormal audience. Read more of Rusty’s FREE stories at www.rushingtheseason.com. Happy Reading and, as always, Happy Holidays… whatever time of year it might be!!!