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Writer's pictureLinda Odhner, with photos by Liz Kufs
Oct 280 min read

Excerpted Inspirations #151


[Sally Copeland has been living at a school for children with cerebral palsy and other disabilities, and this is her first year home with her family, going to a regular school. She has had a rocky start with some of the children in her class. Meg and Kent are her sister and brother. Her classmate Elsje is from Holland.] The bell rang as if on cue. Meg rushed to fling it open. Libby and Elsje were standing on the step. Elsje was disguised as a little old witch and she would have fooled anyone, but it was impossible to hide Libby under any costume. Her glasses, her freckles, her long skinniness and her smile showed through even through she wore a big red rubber nose and and a clown suit patched all over in different colors as gay as any real clown’s ever was. “Trick or treat,” Libby said weakly. “Shell out.” [ ... ] [Embarrassment and awkwardness ensue.] “Last year,” said Elsje, her speech broken and harsh, “I went out on the first time for this Halloween .... I went with Libby. It is fun to go. You ....” She stopped for a moment, looking at Sal out of her funny witch’s face. Then she stepped into the hall with one swift motion and there finished what she had to say. “... You can come out now with Libby and me. We will take you.” Sal backed up, her eyes like a startled deer’s. “But –” she gasped – “But – I haven’t got a costume!” “Oh, I have an easy one for you,” Libby cried, crowding in after Elsje, gladness written all over her freckled face. “If your mother has an old sheet and some string ...” “Andrew,” Mother called, “come and help Meg with the door.” She ran off down the hall, her skirts flying. Libby took Sal in from head to toe, “If she could sit down,” she said thoughtfully, as though Sal weren’t there. Sal felt as though she weren’t, as though it were all happening to someone in a dream. But Elsje couldn’t be part of a dream. Not this Elsje. Still in her witch’s tall hat, she dumped the apples and candies off the chair and dragged it over. “Sit down,” she commanded. Sal sat. In ten minutes, they had turned her into a ghost. The sheet had been draped over her and gathered in around the neck with the string. Mother, under Libby’s direction, carefully snipped out eyes, nose, and mouth while Sal, from inside the sheet, kept warning them not to stab her. Then they simply lifted her to her feet and trimmed the sheet off so it came to about six inches above her ankles. Under the loose folds, she could move her crutches freely, and yet, when they led her to the hall mirror, she looked so ghostly she scared herself. Dad opened the door for her, Mother gave Libby an extra bag for her candy, and the three of them were off! Never in all her life was Sally Copeland to forget that first Halloween. There was a moon peering down at them mysteriously through the tall black branches of trees. You could smell the smoke of bonfires still drifting in the cold, sweet air. Almost every window had a jack-o’-lantern grinning or frowning crookedly out at them and, all evening, they passed gypsies and tramps, dancing girls and goblins abroad in the darkness. To Sal’s delight they met Kent and his friends – and Kent didn’t recognize her. Jean Little, Mine for Keeps (1962), pp. 94-97


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