We Want Candy

There is always lots of talk about Christmas miracles, about how it is a magical time of year but what about Halloween miracles? Those can happen too, right? I mean, sure it doesn’t have the same emotional pull as a Christmas miracle, what with the snow and bells and everything, but it would still be something special.

On Halloween, I told my class that whoever came to my house with a costume at 5 pm would get candy.

At 4:30 there were about ten kids crowded around my front door.

“We want plenty, plenty candies, Mr. Tim,” Joseph shouted.

“Give me candies for me and my friends,” Laijab joined in.

I scratched my chin and examined all of their faces one by one.

“Wait, wait, wait,” I said. “Didn’t I say that I would only give candy to people in costumes?”

“Yes, but we don’t have money to buy costume!” Kenny said. He crowded in close.

In my head an internal battle was set off. I wondered, was I being incredibly cruel to deny these kids candy simply because they didn’t have access to buy a costume? Would giving them candy despite a costume constitute a Halloween miracle?

“Hold on,” I said. I walked into the house and found my friend Dan reading a magazine in the front room.

“Dude, there is going to be a riot out there,” I said. “All of the kids are shouting for candy.”

“Don’t give it to them,” Dan said over the top of his magazine. “If you do then they will be asking for candy all of the time.”

“Dan, it is Halloween.”

“Oh, really? Wow, I forgot about that. Well, yeah give them candy. Only if they have costumes though.”

“Yeah, that is what I thought.”

These kids were never going to have the means to get a lot of things in life, so if they wanted to succeed despite that they would have to start thinking outside of the box.

I went back out to the front steps of my house and addressed the eager crowd. I waited for them to be quiet and they shushed each other. They wanted to hear what I had to say. After all, I was the man standing in front of them and their sugar.

“It is 4:37 now,” I said grandly with a sweep of my arm. “If you want candy you have to go dress up as something and come back at 5.”

“But Mr. Tim!” the students groaned.

“Be creative!” I shouted and went back inside.

At 5:05 I was sitting in my room, rocking out to my iTunes when there came a frantic knocking on my door. It was a fellow teacher named Darren.

“Uh, you had better come,” he said.

“What?” I asked.

“There are lots of kids calling for you.”

When I went back outside, there was the posse of my kids. All of them had their faces covered in flour and they were growling out in monster voices.

“Hey great job,” I said and I handed out candy.

“We want more,” Joseph said.

“Don’t be ungrateful,” I told him.

“What if we come back with a new costume?” he asked.

“Well, then maybe we could talk.”

I went back inside. I made dinner, I drank a cup of coffee and played some guitar. Then at 7:30, a giant knock came at my door. This time it was Liz.

“There are more kids that want you.”

I came back outside to an even larger roaring than before and there were my kids, augmented in numbers, with face paint of all kinds and colors smeared on their faces.

I was very impressed with their determination to have gone from having nothing to making not one but two of their very own incarnations of a costume. They made their very own Halloween happen.

I joined them as we pranced around in front of my house — a gang of monsters terrorizing a tropical island.

A Halloween miracle — who would have thunk?

The love you give comes back in the end.
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