Martha Kelly was a pissed off little girl. At age 12 she felt that she was finally old enough to be allowed to go out for Halloween with her friends without adult supervision. It was an important step towards being considered mature and responsible (and most importantly lots of fun). Instead her mother had a different idea.
Mrs. Kelly felt that the streets were no longer safe for children at night but her love of Halloween meant that she wasn’t going to simply deny her kids the fun. She decided to have a supervised party in her house for all of the kids in the neighborhood. There would be games and entertainment and a costume contest and of course lots of treats.
Each room of the house had various games and contests. There were sweet tasty prizes for the winners and the losers too. Every activity was supervised by a volunteer parent. That meant that instead of just having to cope with her mom and dad Martha had to deal with pretty much every adult from the neighborhood plus one boy in particular.
Calvin has a crush on Martha. He loves the idea of this party. He would never get invited to go door to door with her and her friends but now in the confines of her house he was able spend an evening with her. Calvin is not your average little boy…he loves TUG’s.
Calvin’s plans for tonight include trying to trick Martha into letting him tie her up so that he can kiss her. In his young idealistic mind that is all he needs to get her to fall in love with him. One kiss, welcome or not, and she will fall for his irresistible charms.
Calvin wore the simplest of costumes to the party. He cut eye holes in an old sheet and went as a ghost. It was the perfect way to conceal the ropes he carried in his pockets. Being a practical planner he also had a roll of duct tape should his advances not be immediately welcome. That way he could silence her until he won her over.
When the party started, with over 30 kids ranging from 2 to 16 years old, Calvin covertly followed Martha around waiting for a chance to get her alone. His opportunity came when she went to the darkest corner of the recreation room in the basement.
In addition to denying Martha the pleasure of going out with her friends her mom had also given her a special duty at the party. She had to occasionally go to all of the various games and make sure that the candy supply remained well stocked. Of course she was reluctant to do it and had to be prodded each time by mom.
On one of the candy supply runs mom also asked her to do one other thing. In the corner of the basement in the recreation room the television had been put onto the all-animation channel which was showing a Halloween cartoon marathon. Someone had complained that the volume was too loud and mom asked Martha to turn it down.
After Martha turned the volume down she turned around to find Calvin standing behind her. In spite of his costume she knew it was him, she could see his shoes.
‘Would you like to win some candy?’ he asked her.
‘How?’
‘I have a game to play and if you win you can have five pieces of candy.’
‘That sounds good, what do I have to do?’
‘Let me tie you up’ he said as he lifted his sheet to show her the ropes ‘and if you can get out you can have the candy.’
Half an hour later it was time for the costume contest.
‘Martha, have you seen Calvin?’ asked his mom.
‘He was watching the TV’ she replied ‘I’ll go get him.’
Martha dashed off to the basement. Sitting staring at the television was a familiar ghost.
‘I won’t tell anybody what you did’ she hissed at him ‘if you don’t tell them what I did. Do we have a deal?’
He nodded in agreement. She lifted the sheet to reveal Calvin, hands bound behind him, ankles bound, several strips of tape over his mouth and the shadowy beginning of a black eye.
His kiss had indeed been unwelcome and after being untied Martha first collected her candy and then she showed him just how unhappy she was with his trick.
She took great pleasure in painfully ripping the tape from his face and then roughly untied him. As final retribution she warned him ‘Don’t bother entering the costume contest, your costume sucks!’