Even though Eddie says to Chrissy that the middle school talent show was the first time they hung out, I like to imagine that it’s not necessarily true.
Imagine if you will it’s between the years 1974-1975, Eddie and Chrissy would be around 8-9 and 6-7 respectively. Chrissy isn’t really allowed to celebrate Halloween with the rest of her friends because “it’s the devil’s birthday and we do no worship the devil and bring forth evil spirits”- real quote spoken by childhood youth leader folks.
Anyway, so Chrissy isn’t allowed to celebrate Halloween, and it causes a little bit of teasing and borderline bullying at school. Chrissy doesn’t even bother at this point to beg her parents to let her just participate in trick or treating or even walk with her friends as they go out because she’ll only be tempted to the dark side or a piece of candy that will only make you feel sick later, etc.
So on the big night and Chrissy is left with a babysitter while her parents are out helping with a church fall event baby girl somehow musters up the courage, grabs a pair of angel wings from a previous Christmas Nativity play and tutu from her closet and sneaks out to experience Halloween for the first time in all of her six years. Just in and out, she won’t be missed.
It goes about as well as you can expect.
Chrissy enjoys herself for as long as she can until it becomes increasingly overwhelming, and like ‘oh my goodness I can’t believe I’m doing this I shouldn’t be doing this my parents are going to be so mad when they find out.’ Kind of freakout. And you know how there are the older kids who just want to ruin the fun for the younger kids’ Halloween- so Chrissy’s Halloween just keeps getting worse. A group of older kids taunt Chrissy and her makeshift costume, to the point where she’s crying and running off into the woods to get away from them.
So now Chrissy’s in the woods, it’s dark, she’s cold and she doesn’t know which way to go to get her back home. Minutes pass turning into an hour and another hour and Chrissy is trying not to work herself into a panic attack when she hears a snap of a twig ahead of her. Frightened, believing it’s one of her tormentors, Chrissy attempts to find a fallen tree branch to defend herself with, she’s relieved and yet apprehensive when she sees it’s not one of the bullies but a slightly older boy wearing a devil mask.
The boy approaches her, quietly regarding her and Chrissy knows she should be afraid, but instead she has a sense of calm now being near the boy. The has kind eyes. She knows that she is safe with him. He hands her a mars bar from his pillowcase candy bag to cheer her up and hesitantly Chrissy takes it, feeling slightly better. This strange boy has shown her kindness the entire night, even more so than anyone in the entire Halloweek. Suddenly, the masked boy turns and leaves; panicking and not wishing to be left alone Chrissy follows after the boy, noticing that he would stop at every turn until she caught up with him.
Chrissy eventually realized what the boy was doing as she could make out the lights of her neighborhood block approaching.
The boy in the devil mask had guided her back home. But as Chrissy turned around to thank him the boy was gone.
Chrissy was obviously grounded for nearly two whole weeks until the start of the Thanksgiving break when her parents found out, but she never forgot the boy who got her out of the woods that Halloween night. Chrissy never learned the identity of the boy, but she couldn’t help how years later in middle school Eddie Munson at the talent show held the same kind glint in his eyes just like her devil boy did those many years ago.