From a scream to a whisper at Halloween

No guising this year, I say to Youngest Child. “Wassat?” “Trick or treating. Going round doors for Halloween. It’s off, because of The Vid.” “Meh. Don’t do that anyway. My age it’s parties, but we can’t. Covid’s rubbish, especially for my age people. For yours it’s not so bad obviously.”

“Obviously.” I’ll be knitting soup as usual on Saturday night.

“Me and my friends said we might dress up and zoom call,” she says. “But I can’t be bothered dressing up to sit on my bed.”

“Aw. Sorry you can’t party. Remember that one where the owners came back and people couldn’t leave till they cleaned and paid for breakages, all streaming live on mobiles. Hilarious.”

“Exactly. That’s why I’m not a party fan. I get stressed in someone else’s house... incidents, crying, mess, noise, police, parents or owners – cos turns out it’s an Airbnb – everyone has to pay for the cleaning…”

“Sounds amazing. Can I come to the next one?” “No.”

“Anyway, you love parties. Your screensaver is you in a ballpit holding a flamingo at a party.” “That’s not a flamingo.”

“Oh.”

“S’pose the last one wasn’t bad cos I put on the telly and ordered a Domino’s,” she concedes. “Party animal.”

I can see it’s up to me to save Halloween for Generation Covid. “So, we’ll decorate the house, get a pumpkin and a turnip, we can judge which is the best lantern...”

“Nah. Turnips always win. It’s the rule. At school a turnip always won.

“Why? Because they’re more like an actual rotting head?

“Nah, because old people were the judges and they like turnips cos they were forced to use them when they were young. And someone’s dad or a teacher had spent all night carving it instead of just getting a pumpkin.”

“Still, lanterns and pumpkin and turnip soup and...

“Yes!” she squeaks.

“Steady on, it’s only soup.”

“No, my friend has texted. We’re going to see a scary movie.”

Like I said, I’ll just stay in and knit soup.