Rose held her feet down on Juniper’s costume while screwing the plastic head of the costume on her shoulders. Juniper had concocted an original design to present at the Sierra Grove Costume Party, and she knew it would score her some serious photo time as well the coveted $1,000 grand prize. As the sun went down over Sierra Grove, Delaware, Juniper sat in her living room, fully dressed from head to toe as the Great Pumpkin from the Charlie Brown Peanuts cartoon. She was going for authenticity and had every detail down, from the green vines coming from the bottom to the stem on top, which was her head piece. Her best friend, Rose, who is going as Lucy from Peanuts, cannot help but feel inconvenienced by Juniper’s need to be original.
“Okay, is there any reason why you have to have your entire body inside of the costume?” Rose wondered.
“Because”, Juniper explained. “The Great Pumpkin doesn’t have two legs walking up and down the street, and he doesn’t have a human head. So are you going to sit there asking questions or are you going to help me attach the wheels to the bottom of this costume?”
“Great, so I have to pull you along the street by your vines just because you don’t think a pumpkin should walk. It’s Halloween, Juniper. I don’t think people will call foul if you forgo a few details.”
“Well I will, and the last thing I need is-” Juniper gritted her teeth before she said “Sapphire Stodmire trying to make me look stupid by bringing up everything wrong with my costume.”
Rose shook her head and sighed. “All right, have it your way. By the way, ” she smiled, pointing towards the door. ” Did you plan on greasing up the walls, or were you going to turn sideways and hope for the best?”
30 minutes later, after Juniper had taken off her costume in the basement garage just to fit through the back door and readjusted the wheels on the bottom of the cart she was sitting on to mimic the illusion of sliding, she and Rose were ready to head up to Town Square for the costume party. Their costumes were part of a group scene, so there were other friends/characters that needed to be picked up along the way. As they passed the children dresses as ghosts, goblins, witches, ghouls, etc., Oleander called out to them from behind the bushes. He was dressed as Charlie Brown, and even shaved his head to imitate the loose strands of hair atop Charlie Brown’s crevice.
“Olie, thank you for your commitment, but the haircut wasn’t necessary….and the sweater is the wrong color,” Juniper chided, nitpicking at every aspect of Oleander’s costume.
“Wow, thanks, Jun,” He said with snark sarcasm. “The haircut wasn’t necessary, huh? It sure seemed necessary when you left me three voice messages telling me to get the Charlie Brown head.”
“Yeah, I meant the actual plastic head from the costume store. The haircut doesn’t even fit your head shape.”
Oleander began to appear annoyed, so Juniper let up. “But, it’s not that bad. And plus, it’s part of an ensemble piece. It’ll all come together at the Square when we’re all in place. Are we ready?”
Oleander and Rose stared at each other, then at Juniper, and then at the hill at the end of the street they would have to walk up. Because of Juniper’s insistence that the Great Pumpkin be every bit a pumpkin, she made her costume appear as a complete pumpkin with no arms, legs, or feet. Up until Oleander’s arrival, Rose had been pulling her along by the vines coming from the sides. Now the two of them were stuck with having to haul Juniper’s incredibly heavy costume up the hill, with her inside of it. Rose dropped the vines and pulled out her cell phone.
“Who are you calling?” Oleander asked Rose.
“I’m Group texting the guys to meet us down by 32nd and Tombstone so we can drag Jun up the hill.”
The three of them sat there waiting for almost an hour before they heard the familiar honking of Vermil’s car with Lily and Dan inside. The three exited the vehicle and stared at Juniper, and then stared at the hill and then stared back at Juniper.
“Well here is a solution,” Vermil said with his hands on his sides. “Juniper takes off the pumpkin thing, we pull it up the hill and she puts it back on when we make it to the Square. See? Simple.”
Rose checked her watch. “There’s no time. It took her half an hour to get the stupid thing on in the garage, and if my watch is right, we only have 20 minutes to get up the hill.”
“I’m not missing this party, or my shot at the $1,000 grand prize.” Juniper shouted, her voice muffled underneath the heavy orange exterior.
“Well you could always tie her to the back of your car,” Lily joked to Vermil.
It was hard to take her seriously dressed up as Snoopy, but apparently, Vermil did. He ran to his trunk and pulled out long, elastic straps. Then without saying a word, he runs around Juniper’s costume, twirling the straps around her and tying her to the back of his bumper. The others sat back and questioned it, wondering if her was seriously going to pull her up the hill. After watching him make a third trip around the pumpkin, they saw that he really was going to do it. Considering the only other option at that moment was to manually pull Juniper up, this was an easy solution for everyone to agree to, except Juniper who has no clue what is going on around her. After Vermil had secured the last strap, everyone piled into the car and began driving up the hill. Lily and Rose watched Juniper like a hawk, making sure nothing happened. Dan and Oleander joked between each other while Vermil slowly creeped the car up the hill. The back began to drag the further up the hill the car got.
“What the hell?” Vermil shouted. “My car’s going to need a trip to the shop after this.”
“Just a few feet more,” Oleander assured him, not even paying attention.
Just then everyone hears a snap. And then the car feels lighter. Rose began to notice that Juniper is appearing further away than the last time the she checked on her. She cautiioned Vermil to slow down, but he couldn’t because the weight was so unbalanced that if he did, the pumpkin costume would drag the car down the hill. Just then, a second snap is heard. Juniper is even further away than last time, and now she’s becoming frantic.
“Guys, what the heck is going on?” She screams out, unable to see anything from the inside of the costume. Unfortunately for her, no one could hear her muffled panics, so her calls went unanswered.
” Vermil, hurry up and get up the damn hill.” Rose nudged him. “I heard a second snap. How many straps did you tie her up with?”
“Three.”
“Three?” Rose exclaimed. ” A half ton pumpkin is on the back of your car and you figure three straps should do the trick?”
“Hey, you could’ve pulled her yourself,” He argued back. “I didn’t even want to do this stupid Charile Brown thing. I mean, really? Who under 35 even cares about the Peanuts comic strip? And besides, the only reason we’re even doing this is because Juniper can’t stand to see Sapphire Stodmire win another year in a row.”
“Guys-“
“If you didn’t want to dress up, why didn’t you just say so instead of punking out?” Rose scolded.
“Punking out?” Vermil said, growing agitated. “Big words from the girl that lets everyone tell her what to do without even asking. At least Juniper gave me heads up that she would be needing a Franklin for her whole Peanuts idea. From what I hear, she just threw you a wig and a dress, and told you to jump.”
“Guys-” Lily said quietly.
“You are unbelievable.” Rose quipped. “You just can’t get over the fact that I didn’t want to be your trophy girlfriend and Juniper snapped some sense into me-“
“Guys!” Lily yelled.
“What?!” Rose and Vermil yelled back at her.
Lily pointed out of the window. In the midst of their arguing, no one heard the third and final strap come loose and break off. No one heard the kids in the street screaming as they dodged a huge pumpkin hurling at them at 40 miles an hour. No one even felt the car become suddenly lighter, or the bumper jolt back up to level ground. All Rose, Oleander, Vermil, Lily and Dan could do at the moment was look in horror and watch their friend Juniper Jones, dressed as the Great Pumpkin from the Charlie Brown cartoon, roll down the hill and into the path of trick or treaters foraging for candy.
-To be Continued-