Once upon a time when Fern was eight years old, it was the day before Halloween Night and Fern was very anxious because she was not prepared for Halloween at all! She wanted to carve jack-o-lanterns, she wanted to make a costume, and most of all she wanted to have a big Halloween party. She was not ready at all!
“Mama,” Fern told Mama Leopard. “I don’t know what to start with!”
“Well,” said Mama Leopard. “Start at the beginning. What do you want to do most of all?”
“I want to do the party… a big party, with jack-o-lanterns and lots of candy, and you can dress up, and all of that!”
“Well,” said Mama Leopard, “Let’s see. First we have to go to the Forest Market to get all this stuff. First of all, it sounds like we’re gonna need pumpkins. How about we make a list of the stuff we need to buy?”
“Okay mama!” Fern meowed. She dashed out of the room and came back with a clipboard, a piece of paper, and a pencil. “Can you write it all down?”
“Of course, honey,” Mama Leopard purred. “Okay so what do you want?”
“First, pumpkins. And then I also want candy, balloons, and jack-o-lantern carving tools. I also want fake spiderwebs and other Halloween decorations. We also want a lot of food, like, like, the oranges can be drawn on to look like jack-o-lanterns and the bananas can be giant scary smiles!”
“All right, i wrote it down,” said Mama Leopard. “I’ll call Marsh and ask him if you can go to the store with him.”
“Okay mama,” Fern told her. She went up to her room and went over the list of stuff while Mama Leopard called Marsh and asked if he could go to the store with Fern.
“Fern,” Mama Leopard called upstairs, “Marsh said it’s okay if you go with him and is coming soon.”
“Okay mama,” Fern called downstairs. “I’ll be here the whole time!”
Fifteen minutes later there was a knock on the door.
“Marsh!” Fern called. She scampered over the door, dropped her coloring book, and opened the door. And there was Marsh!
“Hi, Fern! Ready to go?”
“Of course I am,” Fern cheered. “Let’s go!”
“Bye mama,” Fern called back to her mom as they set off through the forest.
They walked until they got to the Forest Market.
“Okay,” said Fern. “Here’s my list of stuff. First we have to get pumpkins.”
“Great,” said Marsh. “I see a pumpkin stall over there.”
So they went over to the pumpkin stall and picked out eight pumpkins, since there were going to be eight party guests, including herself.
They paid and put them in a cart Marsh had taken with him.
“Next, we need candy!”
“Hmm,” Marsh looked around. “I don’t see any candy stalls.”
Fern giggled. “They’re right behind you!”
“Oh!” Marsh spun around and there was the candy stall.
“Which candy should we get?” Fern asked him.
“Hmm, maybe some M&M’s? And Lollipops? And Skittles and KitKats? And Bubblegum?”
“Bubblegum isn’t a candy,” Fern pointed out.
“Yeah but it’s still good,” said Marsh.
“Fine,” Fern replied.
They went into the candy stall and realized there were bucketfuls of candy all around them.
“Woah,” said Marsh. “That’s a lot of candy!”
“I know!” Fern squealed with delight. “This is the best place in the world!”
“Fern, don’t eat all of it yet. Remember, we’re just buying some for your party. Not buying it for yourself to eat in one second!”
“Awwww!” Fern meowed. She looked around. “I don’t see any Skittles.”
”Let’s go ask the store owner where they all went.”
So he and Fern went up to the front desk and asked the shop owner (a very aggressive looking panther) where all the Skittles went.
“We ran out,” purred the panther. “But don’t worry, we’ll have it refilled soon.”
“How soon?” Fern asked the owner.
“Oh, in a couple of days,” said the panther. He looked down at her. “There is another candy shop, if you’re looking for Skittles, that has all the types of candy.”
“Great,” said Fern. “We’ll go there for the Skittles. Anyways, how much is ten packs of M&M’s, eight packs of bubble gum, five packs of lollipops, and three packs of KitKats?”
“That’ll be ten cocoa beans, miss!”
“Thank you!” said Fern. She gave him ten cocoa beans plus one extra as a tip.
Marsh put the candy in his cart and pushed it over to the other candy shop.
They got four bags of Skittles and went on to the Halloween decorations store.
In the Halloween store there were costumes everywhere and they got five costumes and a bunch of scary Halloween decorations and spiderwebs.
“Phew,” said Fern. “I think that’s enough. Come on, let’s go back home and give it to Mama Leopard for the party. I’m so excited I can hardly stand it!”
So they went back to Fern’s castle and found Mama Leopard reading on the couch.
“Fern!” she cried. “You’re back! And Marsh. Come on, come on, let’s decorate the yard and the house!”
So Fern and Marsh started decorating. They decorated the front door with spiderwebs and eyes and they decorated the hall with ghosts and zombies and skeletons. The ceiling had thousands of cobwebs on it with fake big black spiders, and in the yard there were white balloons everywhere with ghost faces drawn on them (floating) and in the middle of her yard was a big see-through canopy made out of thin leaves and there were cobwebs on the gate and there were zombies and spiders hanging down from thin wire that they tied to the trees up above, and blankets with ghosts drawn on them tied to the trees, and there was even a pretend coffin to play in. And they made a show platform and put a coat rack with all the costumes in and different backgrounds.
“Phew,” said Fern. “I think we’re finished!”
The sun was setting and it was almost dinnertime.
“Yay!” everyone cheered.
“I have to go home,” said Marsh. “Bye Fern, bye Mama Leopard.”
“Bye,” Mama Leopard and Fern called as they waved back.
“Well, it’s dinnertime,” said Mama Leopard. “Who wants some ice cream?!”
The end.