Every fall, all the children and citizens in Orange Hollow get excited and giddy for Halloween, but not for the reasons you would expect. Orange Hollow is the home of Halloween. People travel from across the country to this little town in Illinois during the fall season. They have various famous traditions, including the pumpkin smash, where the whole town gathers at the local church, St. Benedict. While gathered at the church, everyone brings their favorite pumpkin of the season and smashes it in the parking lot. This sounds silly and anticlimactic, but that is far from the case. Every year at the pumpkin smash, the Pumpkin Prince comes and leaves little treats and goodies on the cars. After the community finishes smashing their pumpkins, they all head back to their cars to collect the candy and Halloween treats. People are always trying to find the Pumpkin Prince, but he is always stealthy and unseen—until the year 1997.
It was an eerie fall morning, October 28th. Orange Hollow was preparing for their infamous pumpkin smash. The whole town was eagerly awaiting the event, especially Gracie and Brian Mapleton. These two siblings were in eighth grade and eager to spot the Pumpkin Prince. They knew it had never been done before and were aware it would not be an easy task, but they were up for the challenge. On the morning of October 28th, Gracie and Brian were supposedly headed to school. The two of them lived three blocks away from the local middle school, Orange Middle, so they were trusted to walk. Although Gracie and Brian were allegedly going to school, they had different plans in mind. They were devising a plan to find the Pumpkin Prince. This was going to be a bit tricky, considering no one had ever seen him and no one ever heard anything about him except for October 30th—the night of the pumpkin smash and the evening before Halloween! Although this challenge seemed nearly impossible, Gracie and Brian were incredibly determined.
That morning at 7:30, they wished their mom a good day and headed out for their mission. Gracie had no clue where to start, but Brian had some ideas brewing in his head. Brian decided the best idea was to go into the woods; Gracie disagreed and thought the idea was silly. However, Brian tended to be very headstrong and would not give up. The two of them ended up heading into the local woods, shouting, “Hello, Pumpkin Prince!” like a couple of buffoons. Brian was convinced this was how he would locate the Pumpkin Prince. After two hours of aimlessly walking around the woods and yelling “Pumpkin Prince,” the two finally felt defeated.
Brian and Gracie headed into town to get an orange bagel from the local bakery. This was somewhat risky, considering they were supposed to be in school, but they needed a little mood booster. Brian and Gracie walked through the trail back to town, which took them about thirty minutes. Typically, they would complain about that, but due to the season, the woods looked like a magical, beautiful place. Gracie and Brian could see the end of the trail and the bustle of town, but just as they were retreating from the woods, they heard something—a big, loud sneeze! Gracie immediately turned around; Brian was confused since he was not as observant. Gracie was not excited about this; it scared her. Brian could tell she was unsettled and asked what it was. She said, in a typical scary-movie tone, “I don’t think we’re alone.” Brian might have found this scary if they were not ten feet from the middle of town, but instead of being put off like Gracie, he wanted to know who it was.
It took a lot of convincing, but Brian was finally able to bribe Gracie to go back into the forest. He promised to pay for her bagel when they were done exploring. Gracie and Brian did not know exactly where the sneeze came from, but they heard the bushes rustling to their right. The two left the trail and headed into the unknown. Gracie was growing impatient, but Brian was determined to see who was there. After twenty more minutes of venturing off the trail, they decided it was time to head back before they got lost; they had accepted defeat.
They were depressed about their defeat. They were completely silent on the way back, thinking to themselves how naive they had been. While lost in their silent reflection, Gracie saw something out of the corner of her eye—a little hut that looked almost like a log cabin. She hesitated to point it out to Brian, considering how long they had been out there with no luck, but she decided it was worth checking out. The two approached the cabin cautiously, not knowing what lay inside. They were bracing themselves to find someone, but they would never have expected to see what they did. Gracie perched herself up on a log lying on the ground to try to see inside through a little window before they went all the way in. Gracie was 5’5″, so this was a bit tricky, as the window was about six feet up, but she managed to get a peek. What she saw inside was beyond anything she could have anticipated.
Inside was a man sitting crisscross applesauce on the floor. In the cabin was a television, which looked like the first model ever made, a small mattress, some books, and seven massive barrels full of candy. The oddest part was not what was around the man but what he was wearing. He looked about six foot three (it was hard to tell because he was sitting down), and he wore a top hat resembling a magician’s, with a pumpkin stem glued on top. He was also wearing a long orange cape with a black lace bottom.
Gracie quickly motioned for Brian to come over; she just might have found the Pumpkin Prince after all. Gracie gestured confused hand signals to Brian after he peered through the window. They debated whether to walk straight in or cry out, “Pumpkin Prince.” They decided the best option was to call out his name, as he might be startled if they walked in unannounced. They were silently arguing over who would be the one to call out, when finally, Brian got fed up and belted it out. The man instantly jumped up and looked around, struggling to locate the source of the voice since he could not see them. After frantically looking around, he saw them approaching the front door. The door had no lock due to the lack of visitors, so Brian and Gracie pranced right in.
The two immediately bombarded him with questions, but the Pumpkin Prince was not having it. The only response he muttered to their questions was a “yes” to being the Pumpkin Prince, as he waved his cape back and forth. After ten minutes of Brian and Gracie talking over each other, asking questions, and explaining how they got there, the prince interrupted. He said that if they stopped talking, he would tell them his story. Gracie and Brian got so excited and instantly fell silent. The Pumpkin Prince started by warning them that this was a long story, so they needed to buckle in and get ready for the tale of a lifetime. He offered them some candy from a barrel in the corner, getting quite excited about handing out candy in person.
The prince began his story in Orange Hollow many moons ago, when he was just a young lad. He said he had always been fascinated with magic and dreamed of becoming a pristine professional magician. He went on about the glory and excitement of magic for about half an hour, describing the suspense and beauty in a good trick. He sounded so passionate, which made the next part of his story a real bummer. His parents were struggling financially and could not support his magical dreams, so they were unsupportive and shut down his idea of becoming a magician. The Pumpkin Prince was determined and tried everything. He would stand on street corners in his cape and hat begging for money, hand out flyers at school, and make numerous other attempts to make his career happen. Unfortunately, when he reached the age of 18, he had been trying for so long that he finally gave up. For years, the Pumpkin Prince hated joy, happiness, magic, and illusions, attempting to rid himself of all his magical traits. It obviously did not work.
The Pumpkin Prince explained that Halloween had always been his favorite holiday, which was not surprising given where he grew up and his love for magic. He had been bottling up his passion for the joy of illusion and Halloween fun for so long that eventually he decided to channel his love in a different way. The prince had been homeless for about five years after he ran away from his magic-hating family. He eventually built this cabin himself, and that is when he had the bright idea to become the Pumpkin Prince everyone knows and loves today. Fed up with being miserable, a week before Halloween many years ago, he stocked up on candy, expecting trick-or-treaters. But no one came, leaving him incredibly depressed and discouraged. That is when he had a bright idea: to channel his love for illusion and magic into a tradition of distributing candy. The prince plotted all year long to pull this off after his epic failure. Disguised in his cape, hat, and a mask, he put up banners all over town and eventually started what is now the pumpkin smash.
Gracie and Brian were both delighted and saddened to hear the prince’s story. Initially, they had planned to brag about meeting the Pumpkin Prince, but after this interaction, they had no urge to do so. Gracie, Brian, and the Pumpkin Prince spent time talking after his story. They asked follow-up questions, and he even showed them some magic tricks with supplies he had collected over the years. Right before Gracie and Brian left to get their bagels, he gave them some words of wisdom. The prince told them, “Illusion is meant to be confusing; magic is meant to be spectacular; mischief is meant to puzzle you. Do not go searching for too many answers about things you may not want to know. Sometimes the mystery is the beautiful part.”