The mischief stirred in his bed of leaves. He stretched slowly, and then wiggled around until his head poked out of the leaves. He sniffed the air, and then stuck his head a little farther up and sniffed again. Then he wiggled with delight. Then air was filled with the scent of Halloween, and so it was time for him to come out of hibernation.

He saw that there was still light coming through the hole in the tree trunk where he had his bed, so he settled down to wait impatiently. He never appeared before it was dark. Darkness was the mischief’s time.

Slowly, the light dimmed and then became tinted with pink. The already cool air chilled still more, and a small breeze sprang up, rattling the fallen leaves down the sidewalks. The mischief waited as the pink light faded. When he finally stuck his head out of his hole, the first stars were prickling the night sky and clouds were scudding over the moon. The mischief called to his friend the chilly little breeze to come and play. It was the perfect time, the perfect weather for a mischief to do his work.

A group of children came by underneath the mischief’s tree, dressed in bright costumes and swinging bagfuls of candy. The mischief fell in behind them, pretending to be a small ghost swinging a plastic pumpkin. He followed them up to the door to a house where they chorused “Trick or treat!” but he didn’t stand in line to get any candy in his pumpkin. He planned a trick instead. As the children ran off, laughing, to the next house, the mischief lingered behind, once again unseen. He eased the ties open on the big plastic bags of leaves that were colored and printed to look like jack o’lanterns and then he tipped them upside down. The leaves scattered in the busy little wind which was happy to help, and the mischief put on his ghost guise again and ran after the children.

A block later, he and the wind sent a gust of leaves into the faces of the children and when they put up their hands to protect their faces, he tipped several of the candy sacks over.  He chuckled silently as he ran off, leaving the children poking through the leaves to rescue their treats.

A garden hose left out on a lawn was knotted in many places, another bag of leaves was opened, and a piece of chalk was used to draw skeletons on a sidewalk. Next the mischief was delighted to find a small piece of soap left by an outdoor faucet - he used it to smear the next few windows he saw.

He grabbed his friend the breeze again and they snuffed out the candles in all the jack o’lanterns they found and then tangled the clothes that someone had left on a clothesline.

The mischief followed several groups of children and tangled their shoe laces and put knots in their hair with the breeze, and then sent the breeze to hover around the adults with the children to make them shiver with cold.

The naughty pair whipped through a few gardens, making a mess of the remaining flowers and then sat in a tree that still had a few leaves to shake them down on the heads of passerby.

They rang a few doorbells and then ran away, and teased dogs which had been left out in yards until they were barking frantically. A black cat, sitting on a fence in the moonlight, had its tail pulled, and sleeping birds were scared from their perches. Trash cans were turned over with a great and terrible clatter.

The moon rose higher in the sky and the groups of children tapered off. The mischief knew that his time was almost over, and he said good-bye to his friend the chilly little breeze. Climbing the tree to his hole, he reflected with satisfaction that this had been a lovely Halloween, one of the best. Then he curled up in a ball in his bed of leaves and went to sleep with a smile on his face, dreaming of what he would do next Halloween.

-She Wolf (c)2007