Halloween at Redwall

By Spring Brookring

Note: This is a Halloween story. Halloween is not that close. In fact, it's a month away. That's okay. Just pretend. And anticipate the sugar.

It was the last week of October at Redwall Abbey. Creatures were going about their fall business. Curiously, everybody's business somehow included at least one trip to the cellars to taste the cider.

Then, all of a sudden, a small building appeared out of nowhere by the pond. It went pop. The beasts of Redwall wondered what was going on. The new kitchens they had ordered weren't due for another month. They stood together, working up their courage. At last, one brave young squirrel approached the door. He poked it sharply with a stick and leaped back as the watching crowd hurled itself on the ground. Nothing happened. Everyone stood up, looking rather foolish.

A large group carrying crowbars and nets finally swung the building's door open. It creaked, and a robotic voice did a cheesy imitation of an eerie evil-sounding laugh, the kind that the manufacturers obviously think ought to be scary but really isn't. Puzzled looks circled the crowd.

The squirrel that had first poked the door took a step inside the building. A black rubber spider fell off the doorsill and bounced around on a string for a while before giving up and going in search of rubber flies. The Redwallers were growing more and more confused by the minute.

Further inspection proved the building to be a shop, full of strange merchandise. There were long black robes and odd wigs and paint and trinkets and fake jewels and fake eyelashes and fake teeth and fake, cherry-flavored blood and pajama pants with fake bottoms attached. There were masks and lanterns and heaps of candy and pictures of bats and old women who for some reason appeared to be sitting on brooms. This seemed very unreasonable, especially when there were perfectly normal chairs to do the job.

The Father Abbot stepped forward. "I've heard about this," he said. "It's called Halloween. People dress up like twits and go around asking for candy from other people."

"Er," someone ventured, "Where exactly did you hear about this?"

The Abbot paused for deep cogitation. "I don't…exactly…remember," he said. This is dangerous. When you cannot remember how you know something, that usually means it is occult and uncanny and likely to cause severe disruption in the fabric of reality.

"Candy!" exclaimed a hare. "Sounds jolly good, wot wot! What say we give it a try?"

And, because people will try anything once, and are as impressionable as drops of warm wax, the Redwallers agreed. There was a mad scramble towards the costume racks as outfits were tried on, speculated on, and spat upon.

Chaos reigned. This is also dangerous. When you let chaos into a position of power, it gets insufferably smug and never listens to anybody. Dibbuns covered by large pointy hats chased one another around, guzzling fake blood. An otter with fake teeth and too much lipstick tried on gypsy shoes. Costumes were scrambled in the most terrifying manners. Their designers had hopefully never meant for them to look like this. Halloween took on a new meaning of scary.

By nightfall, everyone was costumed to their hearts' content. Heaps of candy stood in every dormitory and kind elder stood ready to pass it out. The confusion began.

"Give me candy or I'll play a prank on you!" yelled one juvenile mouse. The cry was taken up by several of his friends and soon it rang from the rooftops. Or, it would have rung from the rooftops, except that nobody was one the roof. Instead it had to settle for echoing from the windows.

Eventually the phrase was shortened to the simple, fast, "Candy-or-prank!" One vole, in true Halloween spirit, refused a group candy just to see what would happen. The candy-or-prankers stood around, unsure.

"Uh," said a squirrel wearing a star-dotted robe and a skeleton mask. "You aren’t giving us candy?"

"I guess not," replied the vole.

"Er...get him, everyone!" The vole was promptly covered in maple syrup.

By midnight, everyone in the Abbey was so hyped up on sugar that walking in a straight line became an intellectual exercise. A strange, sticky, stringy substance that sprayed from cans had been produced and now coated about fifty percent of the Abbey. An imaginative otter named it Crazy Cord. The grounds were covered in various pranks and sugar residue, plus rampaging candy-or-prankers. By three in the morning everybeast had gone to bed, or, if not to bed, had at least collapsed and fallen asleep.

When dawn woke the Abbey, they saw that the Halloween shop had gone. The space it left went pop. The Father Abbot promptly outlawed Halloween. Until next year, that is.

*creaky, robotic, cheesy imitation of an evil laugh*

Happy Halloween, everyone!