Halloween Costumes

“Mom,” I said, when I was in second grade, “I have a Halloween parade at school tomorrow.  I don’t know what to be.”

Mom looked at me.  She put a hand over her mouth and tilted her head, thinking.  She glanced at the bowl of plastic fruit on the dining room table: shiny red apples, perfect pears, and clusters of grapes, purple and green.   A smile crossed her lips.  “Hang on.”  She went to her sewing room and returned with a piece of green felt and her scissors.  “Here.”  She folded the felt in half, cut a V into its center, and threw it over my head.  She knelt and cut a line of similar V’s into the bottom of the fabric, giving it a jagged Fred-Flintstone look.  She grabbed the grapes from the bowl and began safety-pinning them to the felt, which sagged in response.  She found a pair of green tights and pinned a cluster of grapes in my hair.

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