Mary Dunwich writes: Hallowe'en, half past seven. The Werewolf was upstairs posting on his increasingly popular music blog. I was in the sitting room having a chat with a German LingQ friend over Skype when the door opened and a strange and sinister group of people (well, mostly people) came in. The tallest one saw that the PC was on and stood mesmerised, like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a lorry. The shortest one flapped his wings grumpily and cooed.
I hastily pulled a sock over the webcam. It was that or work out the German for "That weird bunch behind me are a psychiatric outpatient who I have a crush on, my free-thinking kids and a dodo rescued from the seventeenth-century." I didn't think that Reinhard was ready for that kind of information about my life. I signed off as fast as I politely could and turned to face the shambling, flapping, vacantly staring group.
Minnie was wearing a floral dress, a pink cardigan, thick grey woolly tights, fluffy slippers, and a black leather jacket with "Hell's Grannies!" written over the back in studs. I hope the real Hell's Grannies don't get to hear about this. Relations between the Hell's Grannies and the Knights Hospitalier have been quiet of late, and I wouldn't like my daughter to be the one to break the fragile peace. James was wearing his usual clothes, minus his socks but plus a baggy grey jumper. He was wearing a grey wig to which he had applied his industrial-strength hair gel, until the hair stuck up at odd angles. Under his arm I saw a small blackboard with curly equations scribbled over it. I guess that his invisible friend, the late Albert Einstein, doesn't mind James dressing up as him for a Hallowe'en joke. Harry the Geek was wearing a white laboratory coat and glasses. His usually wild hair had been carefully slicked down. There was a stethoscope round his neck and he was carrying a clipboard. I suppose it's not surprising that Harry should have a horror of doctors, his experiences as a psychiatric inpatient at Sir Isaac's sound dreadful. I glanced down at Harry's ankles. Harry was wearing matching grey socks. Thank the Gods for that! Despite it being his parents' wedding anniversary, with all the emotional stress that that usually implies, Harry was having a good day. I have become very good at telling Harry's state of mind from his socks. Two odd socks is situation normal. Two matching socks is a sign of particularly good emotional stability. No socks means that the Devil has been giving Harry trouble again. Only one sock is a very bad sign and may cause me to give his care-worker a call.
Dodgson the dodo was wearing a tartan doggy jacket, a collar and a lead. In the dark he might pass for some breed of terrier.
"Get that animal out of my sitting room and into his coop before he ruins the carpet!" I said sternly to my son. James knelt down and started undressing the bird. "What on earth did you take him Trick or Treating for anyway?" "He was the Trick," answered Minnie smugly. "We kept him behind us. When people chose Trick, we brought Dodgson out and shone a torch under his beak. Some people were really freaked out! We got lots of sweets!" She waved a bulging carrier bag at me.
Oh dear. I wonder what the Vicar's going to have to say about this. "Weren't you supposed to be Trick or Treating with the Higgs-Bosons?" I asked, making a deft grab for the bags of sweeties. They looked quite sugared-up enough already.
"We started off with them. But there were too many of us so we split up," answered James, scooping the dodo up in his arms. "Besides, Lizzie kept giving Harry funny looks. I don't think she liked the look of him." "I told her that Harry's a doctor at Sir Isaac's, and he came straight from work without changing," supplied Minnie helpfully. "I don't think she bought it." Well, that's Lizzie's problem. As long as she considers the schizophrenic heart-throb to be a "responsible adult" then she can't object to my kids going round the neighbour's houses with him. "Harry, just the man! I need to talk to you about computers," I said switching off the computer, and Harry woke from his trance and grunted in Scots. I was hopeful of geting whole sentences out of him by the end of tea.
"The Hallowe'en supper's ready," I said. "A cauldron full of hot Witches Brew stew with Devil's Dumplings, Dead Men's Finger Rolls, Bat Biscuits, Imp Cakes, Brain Jelly, and Eyeball Ice-cream. Wash your hands first please!" And a splendidly creepy evening was had by all.
