When my daughter was three she wanted to help with the pumpkin. We took a trip to Goodwill one day to find some materials. “We don’t know what the pumpkin will be yet,” I told her. “Let’s look for some things in the store that might be fun for making a story inside the pumpkin.”
I carried her on my hip through the toy aisle. She pointed to a Snow White wicked stepmother doll splayed out on the floor, a character she was terrified of. “No Snow White!” She clutched onto me like a little monkey, pointing and frowning. “No!”
I could barely prevent myself from laughing.
“I have an idea. Should we put that mean lady in the pumpkin?”
My daughter thought for a second, intrigued. She nodded and then smiled deviously. We decided to make her into a creepy but harmless tarot card reader. I used the pumpkin wall to carve and paint the letters spelling “FORTUNE” and then nailed them on top.
After spending a lot of time the previous year devising a plan to free a woman trapped in a pumpkin, we were now planning to contain a woman inside. “She can’t scare anyone if she’s busy with her job,” I reasoned.
Nimble Narrative 