Susanna Leonard  Hill is at it again.

The day Susanna announced the criteria for this year’s contest, I was going on a road trip with three of my nieces and nephews. Awesome! I immediately came up with my plan to cheat. I would simply tell them the three required words (shadow, candy corn, and monster), hop them up on candy, and let their little brains do all the heavy lifting.

The results? I’ll just say, after about an hour, I hastily switched over to a game of ‘I, Spy.’ Maybe this would be the year I would simply be enjoying everyone else’s great stories.

But then, yesterday, I noticed that other people had started to post their entries. How could I not join in? I sat myself down, got myself hopped up on candy, and dove into the challenge.

AFRAID OF HIS OWN SHADOW

by David McMullin

Wallace leapt with fright. “Ay-eeeeeeee!”

Oops. Just his own shadow. Embarrassing!

What made it all the more humiliating was that he, himself, was a shadow.

He couldn’t help himself. Halloween made him jumpy – kids wearing ghoulish costumes lurked around every corner.

To avoid them, Wallace shadowed anything he could find – a pumpkin, a dish of candy corns, a black cat.

Wallace crept over to hide behind a bat, but away it flew.

Exposed, he found himself face to face with the one thing every shadow feared more than any other.

A monstrous little girl was dressed as… the sun.

“Ay-eeeeeeee!”

*****

Thanks for taking a look.