"Hey Pumpkin Head!"(Kevin Hughes) “Hey, pumpkin head!”

The Schoolyard went silent. Not a “hush came over” silent, not a “blanket of silence” no…not at all, it was more of a deep dread, smothered in fear, with a bit of trepidation thrown in silence. A chorus of voices yelled quietly, a feat not normally within the range of most humans. They all said the same thing in a whispered roar:

“DO NOT CALL HIM THAT!”

The new kid in school was confused. He had only been in school for a few months. He established himself right away as the biggest, baddest, meanest bully to ever roam the recesses of St. Michael’s Grade School. He was big for a ten year old boy. In fact, he would have been the biggest kid in Eighth Grade too. He used his size to intimidate the other kids. It worked. But not on the kid with the oversized head.

If Charlie Brown came to life, his head would still not match the weird proportions of the kid with the big head. So far, the kid with the giant head had avoided contact with the bully boy. Somehow the bully just never seemed to be in the right place, at the right time, to meet up and bully the big headed kid. But today, at recess, he got his chance. He had wanted to call the kid: “Pumpkin Head” since he first saw him. Now that is was late October, with Halloween just around the corner…he thought it was time to show his wit.

So he yelled:

“Hey, pumpkin head.”

And that is when the silence shrouded the entire playground with it eerie presence. He got the distinct feeling that the kids were scared FOR HIM, not for the pumpkin headed boy. His bully brain tried to shuffle those hints into a warning…a warning that never made it to the front of his brain. So he ignored the heavy silence, the fearful glances at him, and the tears on a few other faces.

He marched right up to the kid with the gigantic head. Tapped him on the shoulder with a purposely to hard tap:

“Hey, pumpkin head. You going out on Halloween as Charlie Brown?”

It was only then that he noticed that the kid with the big head had orange eyes. Orange. The bully took a step back. Giving himself enough distance to regain his arrogance.

“What are you? Some kind of pumpkin freak?”

There was a gasp from about a hundred ten year olds - all at once. They knew where this could end up. One small girl, with curly hair and a freckled face, tried one last time to warn the bully.

“He doesn’t like to be called a freak. Or a pumpkin.”

The bully turned and roasted the small girl with a glance that promised a long school year of teasing and humiliation for her. She didn’t even flinch. Instead she held eye contact and simply said:

“You’ll be sorry.”

The bully boy snorted. He turned his attention back to the pumpkin headed boy. He was startled by what he saw. Maybe the little girl’s words got to him. Maybe he was coming down with a fever. Or maybe he just didn’t notice until now…but the boy with the big head had a slight orange color now. And not just on his head. It kinda freaked out the bully.

“So, you really are a pumpkin! Don’t you belong in the pumpkin patch and not in a school?”

Finally, the big headed boy spoke…and as he did, he grew a bright deep orange. Exactly like a pumpkin. The kids in the school yard backed away. The bully boy himself was getting more freaked out, but he held his ground. Then he heard the strangest two words he ever got in response to his bullying. Words he would have never expected.

“Happy Halloween!”

Those two words seemed to hang in the air as bright as Jack-o-lantern eyes. With the same evil grin emanating from the tone of the words, as the candle light would through the mouth of a real Jack-o-lantern. And then the big headed pumpkin kid smiled at the bully boy.

The bully boy’s bravado finally broke. He ran. That smile scared him back into the School.

Halloween came. The bully boy stole candy from a dozen little kids. He was taking his stash of other kids candy home …and thought he would cross the field near his house as a shortcut. There was some fog, but he knew the way. After all, he had smashed almost all the pumpkins in that field just two nights earlier. Nobody knew who was the culprit…or at least they had no proof. Luckily the owner of the field had sold most of the pumpkins before that night the rest got smashed. Still…it made the field look scary and dangerous.

The bully boy didn’t care. He stepped through the old gate and started towards home. He felt something tug at his leg. He shook it off. Another something grabbed at his other leg. He looked down at it was a thick green vine…attached to a smashed pumpkin. He tried to run, but another vine, this one thicker than his wrist had caught both his ankles. He reached down to pull them off of his ankles. More vines came and grabbed his wrists, his elbows, his neck. He tried to scream but the vines stifled the air coming out of his mouth. He struggled mightily as he was pulled to the ground.

The fog grew denser. It had a strange orange glow to it. If you were nearby (and nobody was) you could see what looked like a mound of pumpkins- piling onto some poor fellow. Then you saw just the mount of pumpkins, no evidence of a human anymore. No more struggling. Then all the vines and smaller pumpkins seemed to fall down and roll away.

All but one. A big one. A pumpkin about the size car tire. It had a crazy face drawn on it…like someone had made a caricature of a normal boy, and stretched and pulled it in different direction until it filled the entire pumpkin. The face looked familiar. Around the pumpkin was a whole lot of candy. Candy just spilled out in every direction from the big weird looking pumpkin.

At school on Tuesday (Halloween was on a Monday…that year) the kids were quiet. Even the Teachers noticed.

“What’s wrong children, why are you so quiet?”

The children all said the same thing.

“Nothing. Just to much sugar yesterday. We are glad Halloween is over.”

The bully boy never showed up in school again. They searched everywhere. By the time they found the candy around what was left of a giant pumpkin, nobody made any connection. That pumpkin had been stomped beyond recognition. Nobody knew where all the candy came from.

The big headed kid played in the playground. Kids would just walk up and offer him candy. He would smile and thank them. They didn’t just had him the candy, they offered it to him. As an offering. He accepted their candy and nodded his head.

“Happy Halloween!”

He would say with delight. The kids would back away…knowing they were safe for another year. Or until some other kid with a lack of sense, or brains …would try and tease the big headed kid with unkind words:

“Hey Pumpkin Head!”

Then they would all shake their heads as they heard the big headed kid finally speak:

“Happy Halloween!”

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