Autumn

Collecting the Small Girl from school on the last day before the mid-term break, the Very Small Boy was stunned by the fascinating assembly of witches, skeletons and superheroes who had accompanied his big sister on the annual school Halloween Fancy Dress Walk. The Small Girl herself, dressed adorably as a witch’s cat, came skipping out of class behind a small, disgruntled Buzz Lightyear; helmet askew, satchel trailing solemnly behind him.

“How was your Fancy Walk darling?” I asked, lifting her pink-sequinned cat mask to give her a kiss before we set off to walk home.
“Great!” she replied, swishing her tail “all the mummies and daddies dressed up too!”
“Really?” I asked, wishing I’d been free to go along myself “and what did your friends’ mums go as?”
“Evangelina’s mummy was dressed as a crayon!”
“A Crayon!” I cried, dissolving into fits of laughter “that’s… weird!”

I don’t usually go in for Halloween, having grown up in England (where it’s less popular) and being possessed of typical English reserve when it comes to the whole business of encouraging my children to knock on the doors of complete strangers and make unreasonable demands. But this year I decided to give it a go. And despite starting off nervously, after half an hour I was happily propelling my children up the neighbours garden paths, making them hold their loot bags up endearingly and snapping at them to ring the doorbell again if there was no answer (because all the lights might be off but that was definitely the flicker of a television I spied between the gap at the edge of the curtains, and in any case, what kind of person goes to the trouble of decorating their house for Halloween and then pretends to be out on the actual night?).

The day after Halloween, we had some bad news - one of our tropical fish was discovered floating alarmingly at the top of the tank: belly-up, eyes glazed, he was very definitely deceased. It was a Saturday morning and I was enjoying a rare lie-in.

“Mummy! Mummy!” two shrieking voices, accompanied by thunderous footsteps, flew down the corridor outside my bedroom, before the door was flung open and the Small Girl and her brother leapt onto the bed shouting “There’s a dead fish!”

I glanced at the clock: 7.14am, not bad for a weekend lie-in, and although I would have preferred to be woken a little more sedately, DH had followed the Small People upstairs with a welcome cup of tea so I wasn’t about to complain.

“Oh no, I’m sorry to hear that” I said, letting the Small Girl into bed for a cuddle and gently wiping away her tears.
“But why did he die?” she cried
“He was probably just old sweetheart, and got to the end of his life. You shouldn’t be sad, we rescued him from the pet shop and gave him a great home!”
“But it’s not fay-ur!” she wailed.

“I know darling. Sometimes life isn’t fair I’m afraid… it’s a tough old world out there you know”. I yawned and reaching for my tea, gazed out of the window at the beautiful clear blue sky and the bare autumn tree-tops, holding on precariously to the last of their crinkly golden-red leaves in the crisp morning light.