After a long day at school, with some hanging out at the park afterwards, Harriette arrived home to five pumpkins sitting on the kitchen table.
“Pumpkin carving time?” she wondered aloud.
“Yep,” her mom said, standing in the doorway.
“Cool,” Harriette said, “is Collin home?”
“Uhm, yeah I think so,” her mom said, “He might be in his room. When you guys are ready get the twins and come down here.”
“Okay,” Harriette said. She went up to Collin’s room where he was sitting on the bed using his laptop.
“Hi,” She said sitting down next to him.
“Oh, hey,” Collin said, closing his laptop, “Did you see the pumpkins downstairs?”
“Yeah,” Harriette said, “Pumpkin carving, I guess Halloween is really just around the corner isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Collin said.
“Well, this weekend I have to go shopping with the girls then,” Harriette said, she didn’t have a costume for the annual Halloween Dance. “We’ll need costumes for the dance. You can come with us if you want.”
“I don’t think I’m going to the dance,” Collin said.
“Why?” Harriette asked.
Collin shrugged, “I don’t know, it sounds boring.”
Harriette frowned, lately Collin had been calling a lot of things “boring.” Things that were exciting to Harriette. This worried her, she and Collin usually did everything together.
“But we’re always matching for Halloween,” Harriette said, “besides I can’t go alone.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m your brother,” Collin said, “going with me would still basically be going alone.”
Harriette frowned again, if she keep frowning this much she’ll get frown wrinkles. She straightened out her face.
“I’m sure you’ll have fun,” Collin said, “You have your friends.”
Suddenly Harriette realised what exactly was going on, Collin didn’t like her friends. It was obvious at the start of the year when he expressed his displeasure with being popular. Plus the way he said friends sort of gave it away.
“Collin, you don’t like my friends?” Harriette said.
Collin made a face, “Your friends are cool. It’s just, all the people who hang around you, it’s uncomfortable.”
“But, Collin, everyone’s my friend,” Harriette said, “that’s the point, I’m popular.”
“Yeah, I know,” Collin said.
Suddenly the twins ran into the rooming, both talking at once about pumpkins. Harriette guessed they saw them and were now here to pester them about them.
“Okay,” Collin laughed, turning his attention to the twins “pumpkin carving time.”
Collin got up and led the kids out of the room, leaving Harriette still distressed about their previous conversation. After a while she got up and headed over to Tamarai’s room to tell her about the pumpkins.
”Oh, hey,” Tamarai said. She was sitting on the bed reading a book, now in her “at home clothes”, a pair of leggings and long t-shirt, a big difference from her school clothes which consisted of lots of pieces.
“Pumpkin carving time,” Harriette said.
“Oh, awesome!” Tamarai said, jumping off her bed. Tamarai always got excited about dumb holiday things, since she grew up in an orphanage in India she didn’t get to do any of that kind of stuff.
They both went downstairs to the kitchen where Collin and the twins were already seated. Harriette sat down next to Collin and her mom passed her and Tamarai a pumpkin and then got to work with helping the twins with theirs. The rest of them were on their own.
Their mom had already done the work cleaning out the inside so all they had to do was carve them. Collin had already staring outlining a face onto his pumpkin with a marker, while Tamarai was already cutting out a classic jack-o-lantern face.
Harriette had no idea what to do, and quite frankly didn’t want to do this at all. She wanted to talk to Collin and fix whatever his problem was. But she couldn’t do that right now so she picked up was the the carving knifes and start cutting out a circle for one of the eyes.
She decided her pumpkin would be the epitome of adorable, with cute circles eyes, with one winking maybe, and a adorable pumpkin smile. Yes, it was gonna be cute.
By the time she had gotten to carving out the mouth Tamarai was struggling with the classic Jack-o-lantern mouth, with the teeth. Collin being the nice person he is, offered to help her with it, she happily handed the small carving knife to him and handing the pumpkin over.
Harriette watched as he carefully carved the mouth with complete concentration. Harriette admired how Collin always seem to put his all into whatever he was doing, even if it was just carving a pumpkin for Halloween.
“There you go,” Collin said, handing over the pumpkin after he was done.
“Thanks!” Tamarai said, admiring the pumpkin.
Harriette look at her own pumpkin, all she had to do was finish the mouth. She picked up her carving knife and cut out a little smile carefully.
“Aw, that’s adorable,” Tamarai said.
“Thanks,” Harriette said, feeling proud of her cute pumpkin. She glance at Collin who cutting something out carefully, he was doing that thing when you cut out only a little and it glows when the candle is lit.
“You’re so cool,” Harriette said, “you always make the best everything.”
“Uhm, thanks,” Collin said, looking over at her, “yours is cute too.”
“Thanks,” Harriette said. Now what to do, Harriette wondered. She was done, and it looked like it might take Collin a while to finish.
“If you would like, you girls could put your pumpkins out front,” Their mom said, noticing that they were finished.
“Okay,” Tamarai said, looking glad that she had something to do. Harriette followed her outside to the front porch. Tamarai put hers on one of the step. Harriette looked around, thinking of the best place to put hers and decided to set it on the railing.
Later that night they would come out here, put candles in them and watch them light up in the night. That was another of Tamarai’s favorite traditions. It wasn’t hard to please Tamarai.
Back in the house Collin was having a hard time focusing on the job at hand. Something Harriette had said earlier bugged him. “Everyone’s my friends.” Collin didn’t understand this. He doubted any of those people actually liked her for herself, not one everyone thinks of her. Or if anyone actually even knows her other than her close friends..
Everyone liked her because they’re supposed to. But he couldn’t tell her that, she would be hurt or just blatantly deny it.
Harriette and Tamarai came back into the kitchen. Harriette was telling Tamarai something about the Halloween dance, probably planning costume ideas. Collin hoped she would find someone to match with.
“I’ll call DaeRi and Tell her,” Tamarai said, leaving the kitchen.
“What’s up?” Collin asked.
“We’re being modern Disney princesses for Halloween,” Harriette said. “and if you decide to join us you can be a modern Disney prince. I hope you do.”
“Cool, neat idea,” Collin said, ignoring the last part. He didn’t want to go to the dance, and that was that.
“Thanks,” Harriette said.
With that Harriette left the kitchen too and Collin turned his attention back to his unfinished pumpkin. But he didn’t feel much like finishing it so he got up and told his mom that he’d finish later.
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