Traipsing Round The Village

I watched The Four Little Seymours from a distance the other evening, and came to the conclusion that, despite a lot of bickery nonsense during half term, they’re actually not bad eggs at all.
Bless them.
I really didn’t want to go trick-or-treating… but they did. Last year, we missed it. So the Little Seymours were adamant that wasn’t going to happen again.
I had next to no input in their costumes – Little Seymour Number One packed a torn vintage wedding dress she digs out every Halloween (which only just fits), a mask and some face paints into a bag the night before. She did a dummy run of the make up, and was perfectly prepared for the big event.
Number Two borrowed my horns, tail and trident and accessorised a red dress with them. She had ingeniously attached the tail to the back of her tights with a paper clip, such was her determination to wear it. This, teamed with a ridiculous red wig kindly lent my Grandma E, and some theatrical make up made Little Seymour Number Two look like Annie on LSD.
Boy Seymour took his father’s broken Freddy Krueger glove out of the bin, dusted it off, and combined it with a thermal vest and pirate top, plus the obligatory Scream mask. With his mechanical little gait, he rather resembled Edward Scissorhands, minus the hair.
And when Mini Seymour refused to wear her arachnid disco boppers, I told her she couldn’t possibly go to people’s doors without making any kind of effort. She muttered something under her breath and huffed loudly, but donned them nevertheless.
They just couldn’t wait to get started.
I wanted Big Seymour to join in – he was conveniently stuck in his van somewhere a long distance away, and wouldn’t be able to indulge in the fun. But we ventured out anyway – me, somewhat reluctantly. I don’t like knocking on people’s doors. It’s something I try to avoid where possible, since I learned what hawkers were in 1994. But I entered into the spirit of things just enough to be seen lurking at the bottom of every driveway, ushering four small people forward in their pursuit of sugar.
I issued hissed instructions at them from the shadows, so that they didn’t just stand there gormlessly when the door opened. I prompted pleases and thank yous from the bushes like a misguided flasher, and I quickly waved jovially and exchanged pleasantries with the householder if I was spotted. But by and large, my little gang of four fended for themselves.
Our journey took us in a loop round the far reaches of The Village where, I had hoped, we might start to run out of lit pumpkin beacons. But they’re an enthusiastic lot, those villagers. On the last leg, when the loot bags were so full they were spilling chocolate rolls all over the pavement, a little vampire popped up to lure us into yet another willing abode.
The trip was not without its incidents. Boy Seymour, who is wobbly on his legs at the best of times, fell down some stairs early on. I leapt from the shadows to retrieve him, feeling mightily guilty I hadn’t gone down the dark, steep abyss with him in the first place.
Mini Seymour did manage to shed her spider disco boppers – onto my head. And even though everyone was complaining that their legs were falling off by the end of the evening, by seven fifteen it was Halloween; Mission Accomplished. Thank Goodness.

When we got back to the Funny Little Bungalow, with its manky pumpkins and its multi-functional zombie/trip hazard danger signs, I felt a bit bad we hadn’t stayed at home to receive trick-or-treaters ourselves. Then I remembered it’s not like those houses we had just seen. We don’t have a neat pathway, or a porch to decorate. We don’t even have a front door, for goodness’ sake. We have what can only be described as booby traps galore, and although that might in fact earn us prizes for authenticity on the terror front, I’d rather steer clear of any law suits.

Next year, I suspect Little Seymour Number One might not want to traipse around The Village with her little siblings and her creepy, anti-social mother. She’ll probably want to join her peers, and go to a spooky disco, or whatever thirteen-year-olds do.
But I live in hope that maybe, when we have a front door and a path and maybe some even ground outside our house, the Little Seymours might want to welcome trick or treaters to the Funny Little Bungalow themselves. And by then, it might not be funny any more. Just scary – in all the right ways.