Not On My Patch: a Young Wizards Hallowe'en Story Read Free

feelings in a vague fog of annoyance at the kibitzing. “And how many of these have you done, oh great design expert?” Nita said to Ronan when she couldn’t bear it any more.
    “Pumpkins? Not a single one, I’m glad to say.”
    Kit glanced at him, confused. “Wait, I thought you guys invented Hallowe’en.”
    “’Course we did. The pumpkins to carve, and the candy, though, that’s new. We didn’t get candy when I was little. Just nuts and apples.”
    Nita and Kit looked at him, incredulous. “And that was all?” Kit said. “That wouldn’t get your house a whole lot of business around this neck of the woods. Might even get you egged…”
    “Different times,” Ronan said. “Different traditions. Back then people just gave the kids what we grew at home: stuff from outside was too expensive. But nowadays you lot have ruined us. We’re coming down with pumpkins and plastic Jack O’Lanterns and crappy superhero costumes.” Then he snickered a little. “You know what we used before pumpkins?”
    “What?”
    “Turnips.” Ronan started laughing.
    “Turnips,” Nita said in wonder. “But wasn’t the whole carving thing originally about putting something freaky enough in front of your house that it would scare the demons away?”
    Ronan was still laughing, but he managed to stop himself after a few moments, wiping his eyes. “Yeah. And you do have to ask yourself what poor weedy wimp of a demon would be scared of a carved-up turnip…”
    “Not that I’m sure why demons would be scared of pumpkins either,” Kit said.
    Ronan shook his head, but he grinned a little. “Some traditions don’t make sense,” he said. “No point in paying attention to them if they don’t work for you. Like the apples and nuts. Lots of lovely fiber, no question. Good for little growing kids. But I think I prefer these wee marshmallowy things.” He reached into yet another of the bags he’d been plundering and produced a screamingly yellow cellophane-wrapped chick, eyeing its packaging. “Peeps? Poops?”
    “Poops!” Kit snorted with laughter and mimed falling over sideways out of the chair.
    “Must be some planet where they poop this color,” Ronan said, examining the marshmallow chick with a critical eye. “Wouldja ever look at that shade. Think of the godawful crap they must put in these things to make that happen…”
    He popped the chick into his mouth and chewed with a meditative expression. “Revolting,” Ronan said after a moment. “Got any more?”
    “They come in orange too,” Kit said, digging around in yet another of the bags and coming up with an orange marshmallow pumpkin, which he unwrapped and tossed to Ronan.
    “Will you two cut that out?” Nita said as she finished with the pumpkin’s second eye. “It took me hours to get those right!”
    Ronan ingested the Peep-pumpkin and started going through the contents of another of the dumped out bags. “And look at these,” he said, picking out a piece of candy corn that had somehow wiggled its way into the marshmallow pumpkin packet. “Look at this thing, it’s just so much sugar and dye. All the chemicals in these, you’ll stunt your growth for sure! Here, I’ll eat them for you.”
    Nita sighed in resignation. “These peanut things are good,” she said, picking up one candy that Kit had spilled out of another of the bags.
    Ronan stared at the pale-orange object. “That’s never a peanut.”
    “It’s just supposed to sort of look like one. It’s marshmallow too.”
    “Who’re you kidding?” Ronan said. “This thing’s hard. A Styrofoam peanut, that it might be.”
    “Different kind of marshmallow…”
    Ronan bit into it anyway, and then gave Nita the kind of look reserved for some unfortunate whose senses were malfunctioning. “And why’s it taste like bananas? You people are unwell.” But nonetheless he started rooting around in the candy on the table for another.
    In the back of the house, the bathroom door opened. A few