The Corn Maze

The Friday night before our visit to Prickly Pete’s Pumpkin Patch, my mom comes and checks on me and my younger brother, Max. She does this every night before we fall asleep. It’s like she still thinks I am a baby. This probably wouldn’t happen if I wasn’t sharing a room with Max. Yet another reason to hate him. I hate pretty much everything about him. He cries a lot and is always complaining. Earlier at dinner, he cried about having to come along with us tomorrow to the pumpkin patch. Then, when mom said, “Fine, you can stay home with dad,” he changed his mind and cried about this too! Mom goes over to his bed first, to make sure he is tucked in properly and gives him a kiss on the forehead. Then, she comes over and tries to pull this silliness on me. I pretend as if I am already sleeping. I hear her for a little while, rummaging around the room, searching for the iPad. It’s under my pillowcase. I know she won’t search there.

She switches off the light. Once I hear her leave the room, I message Brian and Brody from the iPad to make sure they are still coming with us tomorrow. I let them know we’ll be picking them up at 2:00 pm. I also remind them to bring a bag to put their pumpkin in and, according to mom, to bring boots. It’s supposed to rain tonight and the field may be muddy tomorrow. Brody asks if we can have a sleepover, so that we can carve our pumpkins when we get back. I tell him I’m going to have to get back to him on that one. I have to see what kind of mood my mom is in, and promise her that we won’t be loud, that we will go to bed at a reasonable time and clean up all the pumpkin guts when we finish carving. This could shape up to be the best weekend ever!

But first, I have to carry out my plan.

“Max,” I say, “don’t you want to stay up and watch a movie with me?”

“It’s bedtime,” he says.

“Yes, but there’s no school tomorrow,” I whisper.

“It’s bedtime,” he says.

“I know,” I say.

I climb off the bed, careful not to step on anything in the dark, and sit beside him on his bed. “Look at this,” I say. I already have some YouTube videos ready after typing “scary pumpkin patch stories” in the search bar. I’m hoping, you know, even on silent, the videos might convince Max to change his mind again.

The first couple of videos I play are lousy. Silly cartoons that Max just giggles at. But then there’s this one video that has pumpkins with fangs in it, and it manages to look really real. The pumpkins crawl on little legs and they are just about to sink their teeth into a child who has fallen while trying to run away from them. I gasp and switch it off just before the bad part. It’s quiet. I can hear our cat, Goose, at the window. Max starts giggling in the dark. He doesn’t say anything. My heart is pounding and the picture of those pumpkins is stuck in my head. “Goose,” he says.

“Go to bed,” I say. “And don’t tell anyone about this.”

I am up early the next morning. My mom is busy fussing over my little brother. I expected to find him crying about having to come along with us. But he is upset because he doesn’t want to wear boots. Finally, mom gives up but tells him he has to wear them in the pumpkin patch because it is muddy. She lets him know it will be fun to stomp in the mud. Interesting, I think to myself, she has never told me how fun it would be to stomp in the mud before. In fact, she never wanted me to get dirty at all when I was little. I think about how things change from one kid to another. Why does he get to play in the mud when I never got to do it? I tell her I cleaned my room, put away my laundry, and oh, by the way, can Brody and Brian spend the night after the pumpkin patch? The pumpkins with fangs and little feet are still crawling in my head. Mom stops dead in her tracks. She looks at me with that sideways glance and I can almost see the wheels spinning in her head. I quickly jump in with, “We will be very quiet, I PROMISE!”

Mom raises her head, smiles, and says, “Okay, but only if you truly promise.” Happiness spreads from my heart to my toes. I jump up and grab my iPad to message Brian and Brody. They are equally excited and promise to keep things clean, quiet, and low-key. They ask if they should bring flashlights so we can tell ghost stories when we are all in our sleeping bags. I’m not so sure after last night, but I tell them it is a great idea.

We pick up Brian and Brody, and then we are on the road. Thankfully, my little brother falls asleep in the car and does not wake up until we get there. It was almost like being sibling-free, like the good old days. It’s drizzling. Yesterday was a warm, fall day, and today, light rain. When we get there, we pull into a parking spot and the car fills with the sound of all of us unclicking our seatbelts at once. We are bursting at the seams to get out and make some noise!

Mom wakes up my little brother and now he wants to wear his boots. He smiles and says, “red boots,” and my mom thinks he is so smart and going to be a genius. I’m sure I said something like, “My new red boots,” when I was his age and no one got excited. I feel like mom doesn’t know I am possibly a genius as well. I guess she will find out later and then feel bad for not knowing it was me who was the brilliant one, and not my little brother.

I’ll deal with that later though because right now, caramel apple time!

Brian, Brody, and I leave my mom and Max to go and wait in line for our caramel apples. The plan is to head to the pumpkin patch after this, and begin our search for the perfect pumpkin. But then Brian points to a sign on the food wagon: The Corn Maze is open this year.

“We got to do it,” he says with glee. “This year, we are all old enough for the age eight and up, Haunted Corn Maze.”

We head towards the corn maze after eating our caramel apples. It seems like it goes on for miles and miles. I am still thinking about the little pumpkins with fangs. I have been thinking about them since we got here. There’s a man dressed in a zombie costume, handing out flyers for the maze. I am kind of glad now that Max came along, otherwise we would’ve come here in the evening when it gets dark earlier. Maybe having that little guy around isn’t too bad after all. My caramel apple is doing flip-flops in my stomach. The pumpkins with fangs have returned. Brian and Brody take off to get in line and then they look back at me, as if to say ‘hurry up,’ and I join them.

Once we’re inside the Haunted Corn Maze, Brian and Brody run quickly to avoid the vampires, mummies, and ghouls who try to grab at us. I try to keep up, but they are fast! A clown with an evil grin reaches for me and I scream, duck and run as fast as I can. A pumpkin, no, a field mouse scurries in front of me and I almost slip and fall in the mud to avoid stepping on him. An arm with long, black nails reaches under the corn stalks and tries to grab my leg. I don’t see Brian and Brody. I’m not enjoying myself. I want out of here! A fake crow dive-bombs my head and I holler for help! Loud, creepy music is playing and I think I am going to throw up the caramel apple I ate. Brian and Brody should have waited for me. I know it is only a matter of time before the pumpkins on little legs arrive. I wipe away a tear and look around to make sure no one saw me. But I am alone. I know I am. I hear a noise on my left and realize I need to keep running. Someone…something is coming. I’m about to scream when, out of the corner of my eye, I see…the exit!

I make for the exit and jump for freedom once I am under the sign. I feel instant relief.

And then I see them.

Brody and Brian are laughing! I can overhear them talking about zipping around the evil clown as he walked straight toward them and how funny they thought the costumes were, and they wondered why the people in them chose to dress as strange creatures and reach for their feet. I run over to them and they pat me on the back and say, “It looks like you’ve seen a ghost!” There’s another round of laughter. I act like it was the funniest thing I had heard all day. I try not to shake in front of them. I know I will never do the big corn maze again. I’ll just offer to take my little brother, Max, to the kiddy corn maze for the next eight years and I’ll be fine.

“Were you scared?” Brian asks. I don’t like his sarcastic tone.

“This corn maze was for babies,” I say. They laugh again and we walk toward the pumpkin patch. I’m feeling a little better. I’m also glad I was able to keep my caramel apple where it belongs.

At the end of the night we eat popcorn and carve pumpkins with my dad. I make a happy, smiling pumpkin instead of the scary face pumpkins that Brody and Brian are making. It feels safer knowing nothing scary is going to be watching me at night with a candle in its mouth. We finish up, clean up and get out our sleeping bags. Brian suggests we sleep outside. I shut that idea down right away. I am staying inside, warm and cozy in my sleeping bag. Brody suggests telling ghost stories. Instead, I start talking about swimming at the lake last summer. We all end up talking about the fun things we plan on doing this summer. We keep the noise down like we promised. We hold back our laughter until one of us snorts. This causes us to laugh until our stomachs hurt. Mom comes in and tells us to quiet down before we wake my little brother. I decide I like my brother after all and we quiet down.

Within a couple of minutes, I hear Brian snoring. Then I realize Brody is sleeping as well. I roll over onto my back and think how silly I was to be afraid of people dressed as mummies, vampires and ghouls. I realize I let my imagination get the best of me. I will not be searching for videos on my iPad before bed anymore. But also, I won’t try to stop Max from being who he is.

All in all, it was a pretty good day. But as I drift off to sleep, I hear something at the window.

I sit up. It has got to be just our cat, Goose…right?

Right?