Mysterious Pumpkin: A Halloween Mystery

The date was October 31, 2002. The time was two in the afternoon. The little children across the street walked outside their house to carve a massive pumpkin. The pumpkin had a thick brown stem and a bright orange color, which glimmered in the afternoon sun. Something was really strange about the pumpkin, but I could not put my finger on exactly what was different. The children, who were abundantly excited to go trick-or-treating in a few hours, started carving the round pumpkin. Let us start from the very beginning, my neighbors were named Mary and John Lumberford, and they had three children named Lucy, Lanie, and Luke. I would sit in my front window and watch the children play joyfully in their front yard with no cares in the world. Mary

The time was now six in the afternoon, and the children had to start putting their Halloween costumes on to be ready for their party down the street. Lucy was dressed as a beautiful mermaid. Lanie was an adorable candy fairy, and last, but not least, Luke was dressed as a rowdy cowboy. Playing his cowboy role, Luke started lassoing his sisters with his rope. On their way to the party, I could see Mary and John’s patience level with Luke was about to explode. The parents were trying to pull Luke away from roping his sisters, but he resorted to attempting to rope the

I am not here to harm you, I am here to wish you a Happy Halloween.”

I answered quickly, “Who are you? Did you tie up my neighbors? Why are you here? Is this a prank? Am I being filmed?”

Laughing at my questions, the pumpkin headed person started running out my front door when he tripped on the sidewalk and the pumpkin fell off of the head. I caught a glimpse of the face under the pumpkin and realized why the figure seemed so familiar. The figure was my high school English teacher, Mark Teel.

As he ran off into the darkness, so many questions were going through my mind, “Does he live around here? Did the pumpkin really turn into a man? Did he tie up my neighbors? Was he trying to scare me? Was it really my teacher?”

I guess I will never know why Mark Teel decided to show up in my house on Halloween night in