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“Do they ever carve pumpkins in the Enchanted Forest?”
Their whole afternoon started off with an innocent question, raised by Henry. He hadn’t meant much by it at the time, merely aiming to distract his energetic stepfather. The man in question was currently destroying the internal design and careful ambiance of their beachside home.
Halloween, evidently, was a novelty to the former pirate. His questioning eyes had sparkled in delight when Henry finally succumbed to his begging and told him all about it. He had tried to downplay it as much as possible. He had painted a story of little children in costumes, begging their friends and neighbors for candy. He had royally messed up, he was sure, when he’d brought up the decorated houses.
“Decorated how?” Killian had pressed, intrigued.
Henry groaned. He knew at that moment exactly what was to happen next. Killian would wheedle information about the decorum from him and his mother, and would insist on decorating their house. He would throw himself into this holiday with the same unstoppable enthusiasm that he had taken to Christmas, Thanksgiving, all the other myriad holidays that he had never heard of before.
The old man was so embarrassing! As funny as he might have thought it was, conceptually, facing reality was mortifying. Emma was cool as far as moms went, but she was so taken by her husband that she indulged in his whimsy every time. Henry would endure, stoically being the face and voice of reason as Killian and Mom giggled over everything and put way too many gaudy items into their shopping cart. Spiders, skeletons, you name it, all heaped.
“Do you think they’d let me relocate my grave from the cemetery?” Killian asked, pondering the purchase of several stupid foam replicas with RIP printed on them. Henry had been a little taken aback. Surely the grim reminder of his actual death was out of limits? They hadn’t ever discussed the monument before.
Emma looked at the gravestones, expression equally grave. “Why not? It’s not like they’re using it for anything else.”
“Mom!” Henry groaned, exasperated, but his parents did nothing but laugh. He couldn’t help the sly smile that crossed his own lips.
After all, stealing a gravestone from a cemetery would be one epic heist… Operation Tombstone had a nice ring to it…
Their haul brought home, the family set about decorating with vigor. Killian wasted no time, organizing everything and instructing Mom and him on what to put where. The skeletons leered at Henry from their pile as he received his orders.
Mom thought it was a riot, apparently. Henry was annoyed.
“Why can’t we just decorate however we like?” he whined. Killian brandished a rubber rat, pointing it at his son’s face.
“We are decorating however we like, lad!” he said. “But too many animals in one space would look rather ridiculous!”
Henry looked around. Frankly, everything looked ridiculous. He opened his mouth to say it, but a warning glare from Mom changed his mind. “Fine. I’ll make sure to vary it up. Happy?”
Killian grinned widely. “Indeed I am!” He swung the rat in a theatrically grand gesture. “Now, go!”
Mom had good naturedly followed his suggestions, pulling one thing from each pile and heading off to some other room. Henry dawdled. He was beginning to feel a little old for this kind of behavior. He couldn’t believe that Killian, who was apparently over 300 years old, would think differently. Surely a swashbuckling, devious pirate captain would have better things to occupy his time?
Surely not.
Henry lingered, plopping down on the couch. He watched Killian dashing in and out, the piles growing smaller and smaller in his enthusiasm. Eventually, the room (and presumably all the others) was absolutely crammed full of decor. Spiders and cobwebs sat in every corner. Ghosts decorated every wall. Bats dangled from every ceiling light.
Henry took some small pleasure in not having budged from the couch the entire time. His hands had not touched any of the decor, having instead been occupied with the Xbox controller. He was deep into Fallout New Vegas and paying barely any attention to the increasingly chaotic interior design going up around him.
He was pulled from his pressing task when his father interrupted, turning off the television screen with a flourish. “Enough of that, boy!” he crowed. “Come look at the fruits of our labor!”
Henry sighed. “The game’s still going, Killian,” he explained. It felt like the hundredth time. “You just turned off the screen.”
“Nonsense,” Killian waved him away. “I need your practiced eye to tell me if this is all too much.”
“I don’t even need to look around. I can tell you right now that it totally is.”
Killian smiled warmly and clapped his son on the shoulder. “Indulge in an old man’s whims, would you?”
And Henry, reluctantly (he would deny any excitement until the end of his days) followed the pirate captain around their home.
It looks like Spirit Halloween threw up in here, Henry thought mournfully. Every possible thing that could be orange and black was adorned in those colors. Artfully fake blood splatters were smeared on the walls. A menagerie of creepy Halloween animals leered and loomed from every possible locale. Fake skeletons, tombstones, ghosts cavorted every which way.
It was the cheesiest thing he’d ever seen. Henry stifled a groan.
“What, too much?” Killian asked, as if now he’d decided to care if it was too much or not.
“I definitely remember telling you that it was…many, many times,” Henry groused.
Killian grinned. “Better too much than not enough. But what of the ambiance?”
Henry pretended to peer around closely. “Well…” he said, pressing a hand on his chin thoughtfully. “The whole point of Halloween is to scare people. This is just too goofy. It wouldn’t scare a second grader!”
“It’s better in the dark,” Killian promised, clapping his remaining hand on Henry’s shoulder again and squeezing fondly.
Henry bit back his retort. After all, he had more important things in mind than arguing with his stepfather.
“Whatever. Can I go now?”
“Go where?”
“Out.”
Killian frowned, pulling his outer lip down in a frankly childish pout. “You don’t want to spend the evening decorating with your aging parents?”
Henry cursed himself and his father’s guile, and let his lips fall into a softer smile. “I have a really good idea for some decoration, I promise. I’m on my way to go get it.”
Killian’s eyes lit up in delight. “Aye, lad? What is it?”
Henry’s grin turned mischievous. “No spoilers.”
Killian threw his arms into the air theatrically. “Fine, fine. Be back by nightfall.”
Henry pretended not to hear this last remark as he stomped out the door. Operation Tombstone, after all, required the cover of night. He silently thanked whatever deity was listening that he was working this out with Killian instead of Mom. Mom would absolutely remember this and get furiously worried when he failed to return by the curfew. Killian, on the other hand, was a bit more willing to let the young teenager take risks. He would probably even approve of Henry’s plan.
But Henry wanted all the glory for himself this time. He made sure Killian and Mom were distracted with their decorating and their baby, and slipped away when he was sure they wouldn’t notice.
He made it to the cemetery in good time, armed with his trusty go-bag and the tiny red Radio Flyer they had bought to haul Hope around. He wasn’t sure exactly how he would get the tombstone out, but he was confident. He carried a crowbar and a small shovel, and of course possessed a mighty-fine can do attitude.
He loitered around the cemetery, doing rounds and paying respects to those persons he had known before dying. He spent the longest time with Robin, leaning up against it and thinking out loud.
“You’re a pretty good thief,” Henry speculated. He was a staunch refuser of using past-tense to describe his deceased loved ones. “How would you steal a tombstone? Does it count as stealing if it’s going to the person whose name is on it?” He talked through different ways of unearthing the heavy stone object until the sun set and darkness crept through the woods.
Once he could no longer see the outline of the trees against the sky, Henry went to work. He reached into his bag and secured a beanie and headlamp to his head. Warm and able to see, he walked as quietly as possible. His feet skirted around piles of fallen orange and brown leaves, resisting strongly the desire to kick and disrupt them. His baby sister, he thought, would enjoy playing in these piles. Maybe next time he would actually bring her in her little wagon.
He reached the tombstone. Killian Jones, with no birthday. Henry wondered for a moment if Killian even knew when it was. Maybe they used a different calendar, that far back in time? He would have to ask.
Taking a deep breath, Henry began his task.
Operation Tombstone, step 1:
Clear out as much of the dirt as possible.
Henry retrieved a small folding shovel from his pack. Setting the pack in the wagon, he unfolded and locked his shovel in. He knelt by the grave and began to work, digging out the dirt close to the stone. He wanted an idea of how far buried in the earth it was, and knew that wiggling it out of the dirt would be easier with less of it in the way. He reached the bottom of the stone, buried only about 6 inches in the ground.
Not bad. He carefully dug out a trench around the stone, freeing it from the earth as much as possible. He dug a couple inches underneath both ends, leaving the rest propped up by a slowly crumbling column of dirt.
Operation Tombstone, step 2:
Secure ropes to gravestone.
Henry had been studying knots, of course. With Killian as a father, it was simply inevitable. Henry had whined and begged his stepfather to show him the most useful ones, that tightened when pulled on. Knots that would be useful, not just for sailing or fishing, but for any scenario. Killian had known immediately that these would be used for mischief and gone along immediately.
The memory made Henry smile, and with a smile on his face he made his knots. He secured two ropes going from the bottom to the top, one on either side. He then looped a third around the two ropes and the stone itself, hoping it would keep his two weight-bearing ropes from slipping sideways off the stone. It seemed to work well.
Operation Tombstone, step 3:
Construct some makeshift ramp to drag the stone up into the Radio Flyer.
The stone was heavy. He’d tried moving it, giving it an experimental shove. While it did budge, it was clear right away that Henry would not be lifting any portion of it. It was simply too dense, too heavy. He instead turned his mind to simple machines, to classes long forgotten about how the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids.
He didn’t think he needed the line of sticks as rollers, but shone the light around in search of something he could use. He was quite pleased when he found a couple pieces of discarded plyboard.
Leaning one end against the Flyer, he made sure the wheels were held in place by rocks and wouldn’t roll until he was ready. The plyboard made a sort of ramp from the ground to the wagon, which was not very high up at all. Henry noted the angle and then carefully piled the dirt underneath the plyboard ramp. The thin sheet of wood would doubtless snap under the weight of the stone, unless reinforced by the dirt.
He didn’t have enough, and praying that no one would mind too much, he began digging more dirt from around Killian’s grave. He figured it being unoccupied, the man wouldn’t mind too much. Yet.
Finally, dripping with a thin layer of sweat, Henry had a dirt ramp holding up his plyboard one. He walked up it, noting that it did not give under his weight whatsoever.
He glanced at his watch. The sun had set around 7:30pm, and 9pm would soon be upon him. He figured he had another half hour before Mom and Killian freaked out too much and had the whole town looking for him.
He stood, the wagon between him and the ramp. He tied the two ropes into a makeshift harness, having the majority of the weight pressed against his torso. This would be the moment.
He squared himself, took a steadying breath, and charged forward. The tombstone fell with a dull thud, the ramp stopping it from heading too far. Henry caught up the momentum and forced himself, and the stone, farther forward. He took each step with a great deal of effort and no small amount of sweat. Finally, finally, the stone scraped against the metal of the wagon and came to rest in the body.
Henry flopped to the ground, breathing heavily. He leaned against the tombstone, and opened his mouth in a silent cheer.
Once his breath was regained and his heart slowed to an acceptable rate, Henry hurriedly and carelessly kicked the piled dirt back into the holes. He stomped only a couple quick times to tamp the earth back, and then tugged the wagon behind him as he returned home.
Too tired from his great heist, he simply parked the wagon in the garage and slouched off to bed.
— — —
“Henry,” Mom’s voice, along with her hand, shook him awake far too early the next morning. “What did you do last night?”
Henry groaned and thrust his head into the protective embrace of his feather pillow. “Mmm?” he grunted, feigning innocence.
It didn’t work. Henry felt the mattress beside him dip as Emma took a seat beside him. “Killian wanted to take you up on your idea,” she explained, a smile poorly hidden in her mirthful tone. “Of going to a pumpkin patch. He got Hope all ready and went to put her in her wagon. I think you know what he found.”
Henry smiled to himself. It wasn’t the dramatic reveal he wanted, of course, but he could imagine the look of horror and pride that would be painting his father’s face.
Mom’s hand found his shoulder in his blanket nest. “He’s impressed,” she said dryly, “and I am too. How’d you do it?”
Henry lifted his face free of his pillow. “A little elbow grease,” he allowed, a foxlike grin baring his teeth in triumph.
Mom laughed, squeezing his shoulder warmly. “You’ll have to tell him later. Did you want to come pick out a pumpkin with us?”
And Henry, as reluctantly as ever, dragged himself from his warm and comfortable bed, to endure a long and arduous day at the pumpkin patch.