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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/books/entry_id/582795
by Shaara
Rated: ASR · Book · Biographical · #1421180
I teach second grade and adult ESL. But these tales are not just about my experiences.
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#582795 added May 1, 2008 at 11:27pm
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Purr of a Cat



The Purr of a Cat




I can't be home on Halloween night. A disaster, that's what it is. But my students are counting on me. They've all decided to wear costumes to class, and we're going to hold a real Trick-o-Treat party. Imagine -- twenty-three adults who've never experienced bobbing for apples, painting faces, and hanging fake spider webs.

I was going to cancel class that night, and then I saw their faces.

I tried to cheer them up telling them how much fun it would be to hand out treats. I told them they could go to one of the haunted houses in the community. Then I suggested they invite friends over and have a party. That cheered them up. They began to applaud. It took me several moments to realize they thought I'd said WE'D have a party. Of course, I tried to explain that's not what I meant. The look they gave me when they finally understood hit me in the solar plexus.

Greta's eyes teared up. She was barely nineteen, brand new in the country with no relatives, no friends. Her job at the hotel where she did laundry was her only interaction with anyone -- that and the English for Second Language class I taught. A fat tear rolled down her cheek. She wiped it and stared up at the ceiling.

Big Ben, an aging strawberry picker, one whose family was still in Mexico, sighed heavily. His gnarled hands writhed, like angry snakes. Ben said nothing. He looked up at the ceiling, too.

I took a deep breath and thought about the trick-or-treaters who would find my house empty if I weren't at home. The kids would egg me. The yolks would slide down the glass and meld with the brick trim underneath.

One time on Halloween when I was stuck in traffic and therefore late, kids had toilet papered my yard and put ninety-three plastic forks in my lawn.

But Alfonso and Jesus, my two newest ESL students, each only sixteen and without any family, were darting looks around the room. "No problema," they said to the others, but their shoulders looked weighted down and heavy with sadness.

"We talk the English on Halloween," Maria said. "We fiesta. All English. Okay, teacher? Please. We come? Please?"

Instantly the excitement was back. I looked about. I just couldn't say, "No."

"All right, but you have to wear costumes! Breaking my own rule, I spoke in Spanish. The couple from Bangladesh who didn't understand Spanish, nodded.

"We wear. We come," the man told me, and his quiet wife said, "Halween" and smiled for the first time.

So that was settled -- too late to back out. But what would I do about the trick-or-treaters, the eggs, and the forks in my lawn? Well, it was candy the kids wanted. If only I could . . .

I sighed. I'd miss all those cute toddlers in their big-eyed-frog costumes, the Batman and spider boys, the ballerinas, the ghosts and goblins, and my favorite, the boy who came to the door every year and talked and talked about his Halloween, his mother in tow behind him. He'd been coming for years and years, and his beard was a dark shadow on his chin. But all six feet of him would wiggle with joy as he told me how he'd thought up his costume, displaying each fake-blood wound.

The little angels and clowns would be fine without me. They'd see a darkened house and move on, but the young man with his bundle of enthusiasm and nowhere else to go because everyone kept telling him he was too old, even though in his mind he wasn't -- I couldn't let him down.

I was torn, needing to be in two places at one time, but not even a witch can do that. Yet, there was something I could do. I'd promised my family I wouldn't. But . . .

Sure, I was rusty, yet my fingers still tingled. Sometimes I did get something wrong. Maybe a frog or two would hop away, or I'd accidentally make a dragon. That's why my family . . . Never mind about that.

Besides, they didn't need to know. I wouldn't tell anyone but my cat. She'd have to lend a tail hair or two, and I needed her purr. Magic goes bad when a cat doesn't purr, of course. Everyone knows that.

So I got the ingredients, found the perfect cauldron, and set up my spell ingredients: two cat hairs, twenty bags of candy, seven ghostly screams, and a bat toenail. Then I said the magical words: "Spider web and cocklebur, burnt nail and kitty purr. Zloom, zloom, zwie."

The cauldron filled up. I placed it outside on my porch, right next to the pumpkin.

The party for my night class was a smash. My students' English blossomed: pumpkin, black cat, Trick-or-Treat, ghost, witch, costume, candy, Halloween.

I got home by 9:30, but as I drove into my driveway, my heart double timed. There were no forks in the grass, no raw eggs on my window, but at least thirty children and their parents were all frozen on my lawn. I jumped out of my car and ran up the steps of my porch. The candy bowl was full.

I opened the door and let my cat come out. "What did I do wrong this time?" I asked her.

She purred against my leg, then took a walk among the children. "Meooooow," she told me.

Oh, no! She was right. The spell shouldn't have ended with zloom, zloom, zwie. It was zloom, zloom, zwoop. I redid the incantation, and all the children came back to life. "Trick-or-treat," they called out, and I tossed candy right and left.

Then my favorite young man, all six feet of him, came running up to me. "Guess what?" he said. "I'm a vampire this time. See my cape. I have teeth, too. But don't be scared. You're not scared, are you?"

I laughed and dumped the rest of the candy into his bag.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
© Copyright 2008 Shaara (UN: shaara at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Shaara has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.
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