Thursday, November 29, 2012

First Halloween Party


Shawna had not really known what to expect. It was the first "real" Halloween party she had ever been allowed to attend. Her mother had always said that Christians should not celebrate Halloween and even restricted the types of costumes she and Dougie and Collin could wear for Halloween parties in their school classrooms. The girls had convinced Shawna that they should all go as vampires, unanimously voting her the most realistic looking vampire because of her height. At the moment, however, she would have been happy to be wearing a clown or ballerina costume—something her mother would approve of—and to be dunking for apples in the safety of an elementary school classroom. Shawna felt anything but safe in this ominous gathering tonight.

Although there seemed to be more girls than boys, there were several mixed couples in attendance. Most seemed to be of high school age or slightly older; many Shawna did not recognize. But almost all had an "otherworldly" appearance about them, as if they expected at any moment to be transported into another dimension. Shawna suspected that much of what Terilyn referred to as the "spiritual experiences" people might experience tonight could be directly linked to the heavy smell of alcohol and marijuana that seemed to linger over many of the partygoers—including the so-called adult chaperones.

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