Halloween

It’s Halloween again! That time of the year for ghouls, ghosts, trick or treat, fake blood, clichéd costumes, sweets, more sweets and disturbing movies. Or if you go to Eton College, a half-hearted Halloween-themed meal, if you're lucky that is.

You can’t blame the school really. Giving in to tacky, American non-events must be the first step towards moral destitution in their eyes. Plus, anything that might distract us from EWs and divs is a definite no-no, and that’s before you consider the practicality of the whole thing – letting loose 1300 boys into the streets to knock indiscriminately on doors make the words ‘zoo’, ‘cages’ and ‘open’ come to mind.

In truth though, there are always a few individuals who get into the spirit of things. Someone will find a Scream mask and take to the corridors, jumping out at unsuspecting victims. The chef will prepare dishes such as zombie intestines (spag bol) or vampire blood (tomato soup). And later in the evening you may be visited by C and B blockers playing ‘treat or treat’, a new version of ‘trick or treat’ in which you get extorted for confectionary. 

However, in my own house Halloween has been quiet the last couple of years, which came as a surprise after my experience in F block.

Back then, Halloween fell on the Monday after Long Leave, and I remember going to bed feeling exhausted already. However, I had been asleep only an hour when I was awoken by the noise of people in the corridor. Such an occurrence wasn't infrequent – often boys chatted out there before going to bed and as a light sleeper it sometimes disturbed me. But this time it felt different.

 I rubbed my eyes and sat up – I could hear several people conversing in audible whispers. It was odd I thought - ‘why are they trying to keep quiet?’. Then I heard my name mentioned and the mysterious figures began to move towards my room. What was happening?!

As they came closer one of them asked the other who should enter first. Realising now that I was about to be invaded, I thought I should pretend to be asleep in case this might deter them.

Slowly, the door creaked open and four shadowy figures entered my room. One of them was holding a torch, and from the faint light it emitted I could see all their faces were covered. The first was wearing a clown disguise, the second a Scream mask (surprise surprise) and the remaining two had socks pulled over their faces to give themselves the appearance of wannabe terrorists. 

If these disguises were meant to hide the wearers' identities then they failed spectacularly. Just by looking at their bodies I could tell who they were – four B blockers from the top floor with a reputation for pranks.

Being as quiet as possible, they tiptoed over to my bed. Then, in what appeared to be a rehearsed move, they leant over me as if in a horror film and on a count of three let out a wail of high-pitched noise! Terrified (despite being awake) I shouted out and they burst into laughter.

After calming down, one of the terrorists spoke in a Frankenstein-like voice, ‘Trick or treat?’
‘Treat’ I responded, and rummaging through the litter on my bedside table I found two Cadburys bars which I handed over.
The intruders were surprised by this, so much so that the terrorist dropped his pretence momentarily and spluttered a ‘thanks very much’. Clearly, their looting so far had provided slim pickings.

I thought this might be the end of it I would be left in peace, but I was to be proved horribly mistaken. Things took a nasty twist as I was ordered out of my warm bed and made to kneel on the floor with my hands behind my back. Then, as the others began to hum in a low rhythm the evil clown revealed a dark-coloured box he had been carrying, and lifting it slowly in the air began to speak:

‘Eton Boy, your gift to the four Wandering Spirits of this house has been gratefully received. We thank you, but in order to satisfy the Demon of Judy’s Passage it is incumbent on us whilst undertaking this spiritual quest of ours to extract from each of our victims an element of human sacrifice!’

‘What?’ I thought, ‘a human sacrifice?!’ - this wasn’t the trick or treat I remembered doing. As the others bowed in mock reverence I saw the clown take from the box a strange contraption. A gasp went up and I expected it to be something remarkable, but on closer inspection the only thing I could see was a replica of the fairground game in which you move the hole on the end of the stick through a wire obstacle course, without it touching the sides.

‘Play, now!’ the Scream ghost ordered, and hesitantly I picked up the stick. Since I had experience of this game I began to make good progress. I was almost halfway round though when my hand slipped momentarily and I touched the wire. As with the fairground game, I expected a buzzer to go off to indicate I had lost. However, I was taken aback when instead of hearing a sound the machine sent a powerful electric shock through the stick and into my hand! 

I yelped out in pain and the ‘Wandering Spirits’ fell about laughing, thrilled that I hadn't foreseen what would happen. But they showed me no mercy and bade me to play again. The knowledge of what lay in store were I to fail now made the task seem impossible. With my confidence dashed I lost within seconds, and the pain  felt worse, leading me to question whether the game could actually be legal.

I made a third and final attempt, and this time in spite of the pressure I made my way around quickly. I was favourite to come out on top when, sensing the undesirability of this outcome, the second terrorist extinguished the torch and plunged the room into darkness. The electric shock arrived a moment later and with a final peal of laughter the Spirits gathered up their things and left.

I knelt there in the dark, my hand numb with the pain. But at breakfast the next morning it turned out I had been lucky. Other F blockers had been empty-handed when it came to offering sweets, and as a result had been forced to attempt the wire game over 10 times! Runty was one of these unfortunates, and he told me about his effort to pacify the B blockers by opting for ‘trick’ over ‘treat’.

This was a bold strategy, particularly since Runty was no magician. His attempted move however had years of experience behind it, perfected by his uncle who used it on wandering trick or treaters. It consisted simply of predicting a coin toss three times in a row. If correct each time then the children would leave with nothing, but if he failed he would hand over a double helping of goodies.

The problem for Runty though was that whilst his uncle used a double-headed coin (like uncle like nephew?), he himself had a standard one to choose from, and he hadn’t lucked out. Besides, whether tossing a coin counts as a trick anyway is highly questionable, and the ‘Wandering Spirits’ recognised this by making Runty do the wire game holding the stick in his mouth.

You might think all of this sounds torturous, but looking back I’m glad I went through it. Of course I'm no fan of electric shocks, but life is about stories and this was a great one.

I’m not sure what The Princess would think of it though. For anyone wondering how my catch-up went with her last week, I’m afraid to say she went down with a cold (not Ebola) and had to pull out. She’s recovered now fortunately and Runty thinks I should use Halloween to send her a flirty message. At first I agreed, but when I heard his suggestion - ‘Can if I bob for your apples? - I made a sharp U-turn. Part of me wonders whether that boy needs a costume tomorrow.