"Impostor!" The words flew over the fence. “Impostoree! Villain! Vile, evil deceiver!”
April stared into the graveyard. She could see nothing. The sun was shining, but even its midday light couldn't penetrate the fog that had settled there. She shifted her mask so she could see better through the eye holes.
“Hello?” She called, turning her head from left to right. “Is there somebody in the graveyard?”
A thrilling cackle of laughter from many mouths cascaded through the fog.
“Oh yes, trickster. There are many someones here.”
April put her green painted fists to her hips and glared into the mist. “Look, whoever you are, you shouldn’t go around calling people names. That’s rude!” She stomped her heavy black boots.
“Oooooooo,” a high-pitched voice imitated April’s childish tones. “Thaaaaat’s ruuuuude!”
“You know what’s rude?” The first voice, a much deeper voice, asked. “Pretending to be something you most definitely are not.” The voice made a grunting noise. “What are you supposed to be anyway?”
“I’m a goblin!” April stated indignantly.
“You are not!” The voice shouted back.
April touched her hair that her mom had sprayed green color on, her warty mask, and the rest of her goblin costume. “But it’s for Halloween!” She whined. “Of course I’m not REALLY a goblin. It’s only pretend.”
“That,” said the first voice with some deep satisfaction, “is exactly what I’ve been saying, fraudster.”
A hesitant voice spoke up. “You sure you’re not trying to be a toad?”
“A what?” Asked April.
“Quiet, Earl!” The rude voice demanded.
“Well,” April said, jutting out her chin. “Who are you?”
The voices seemed to speak all at once until the first voice made a throat clearing sound. They all fell silent.
T“We are, obviously, ghosts. That’s why we’re haunting the cemetery.”
The other voices made grunts agreement.
Just then, a strong breeze stirred the branches of the trees causing multicolored leaves to fall on and around her. The fog was swirling, whipping into a stronger and stronger whirlwind. It spilled out of the graveyard and danced around April until it had picked up enough speed and cycloned away.
Peering over the fence, April at first thought the ghosts had blown away with the fog. But then she noticed little bumps of white. Squatting down, she looked through the bars of the fence and saw what looked like white washcloths on the ground. She reached through and picked one up. Under it was a toad.
“The jig is up!” The large toad exclaimed, frantically hopping away from her reaching hand. All the other pieces of cloth that had been lying still, started bouncing until they fell off the toads they covered. April counted two dozen toads hopping further into the cemetery.
“That was unexpected.” April stated. “I do so love Halloween!”
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