Gwen Doh Lynn

10: The Emu Incident

It was the weekend when things took a turn for the worse.

On Saturday morning, my mom said, "Great news! We're going to meet Hazel's family at the best place in town to buy Halloween pumpkins! They have hayrides and a corn maze and a petting zoo, too."

Cat lifted his head and said in a very unenthusiastic voice, "Wow."

But I thought it sounded pretty cool. Until she said, "It's called Full Moon Fields."

Ugh. "And Orchard," I mumbled.

My mom was all smiles. "You've heard of it!"

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Oh. My. Goodness. I admit, Full Moon Fields (and Orchard) was truly amazing.

We walked from the parking lot up a long, leaf-covered path to the farm entrance. Along the path, trees arched overhead making a sort of tunnel. A teenager took our three dollars each and handed us a map. Right when you walked in, there was a full-on pumpkin house you could go inside (not made from an actual pumpkin, of course, but very realistic). There was a wishing well and when you dropped a coin in it, a creepy voice said weird things to you like "Your money can't save my soul" and "Why are you throwing things at me?" You could take a hayride around the entire orchard and through the haunted swamp, and go in a massively huge corn maze. There were even llamas you could pet. And emus, which are very large, gray flightless birds, kind of like ostriches, that you could not pet. For an extra dollar, you could go inside a special little building where there was a display called "Creepy Crawlies." Of course we paid the extra dollar. It was like a mini-zoo with tanks holding snakes, a huge tarantula, giant cockroaches and some praying mantises. Hazel was beside herself with joy.

A lot of younger kids were wearing Halloween costumes. Turns out, if you showed up in costume, different workers around the farm would hand out candy to you. It was good candy, too, like Skittles and Hershey's. Too bad we hadn't worn costumes, but we bought snacks at the cafe instead.

We ate at a picnic table under a big tent. It was nice to hear my mom chatting about random adult stuff with Hazel's parents. She had been talking with Hazel's mom on the phone recently, and I hoped they were getting to be as good of friends as me and Hazel.

The apple pie with cinnamon ice cream on top was delicious. I got whipped cream on my apple cider and they even had apple jello. Hazel got two servings. Everything was perfect.

Then

I saw Elspeth.

Seriously?

She was with a blonde-haired man wearing khakis and a denim shirt, and a woman who was wearing too-red lipstick. Natalia was with them, too.

I elbowed Hazel.

The woman was holding up her phone to take a picture and they made Elspeth and Natalia pose in front of the fence of the emu enclosure. The emus were all standing around wearing little witch hats. I definitely wanted our picture taken with the witch-emus!

"Stand up straight, Elspeth. Don't look like an obstinate ragdoll," I could hear the man say. Elspeth looked very unhappy.

Hazel leaned closer to me. "She's scared," she said.

"Of her dad?"

"No, of the emus. One time on a first grade field trip, one of the emus leaned over the fence and yanked her hair and wouldn't let go. I guess her shampoo smelled really good."

I laughed.

Hazel didn't. "It was really traumatic. Most of us freaked out, and she was screaming and crying. Luckily, our teacher, Ms. Monroe, stayed calm. She wacked it on the beak with her umbrella and it let go!"