In honor of this creepy holiday, here’s a “spooky” short story I wrote a few years ago. 🙂

The Crumptons were your average, happy family with one boy, one girl, three dogs, a ferret, and a toad named Phillipo. They lived in a charming two story house, complete with a delightful brick fireplace. The father would work, the mother would teach her children, and the animals would wreck good-natured havoc throughout the day. They lived by routine, right down to the very sandwiches they ate for lunch, which, of course, always consisted of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

And such peanut butter and jelly sandwiches you have never seen! The peanut butter was thick and crunchy, the jelly freshly made from the berries that grew in the backyard, and both of them spread between thick pieces of freshly baked bread.

There was one for each of the family: Mother, Father, Daughter, Son….and one always left at the table after they finished dining. Everyone knew well enough to leave that one alone. There it sat until no one was left in the kitchen – not even the animals – but by dinner time, when everyone gathered around the table again, the sandwich was gone.

Well, I’d like to tell you that this delightful family lived in this house for many years, watching the Son and Daughter grow up, seeing the grandchildren come in, maybe having the house get passed on to one of them. But alas, with the new raise offered to Father, one would be silly to stay in that rickety old house any longer…or so Mother said. So off packed the kids, the parents, the dogs, the ferret, and even poor Phillipo, who put up such a croak that it was necessary to pad his box with foam so as to block out his moans.

And the lovely peanut butter and jelly sandwiches no longer appeared on the table.

So it happened that the Whipples came to live at this charming abode. Now this family did nothing by routine. The Father worked night shifts, the mother sold Avon at the house, and the lone daughter, between classes, band, tennis, chess club, a boyfriend, and a scholarship to maintain, lived more at school than at home.

And this family had no peanut butter, they had no jelly, they had no bread. For they were gluten-free, you see….and severely allergic to nuts. Whenever there was lunch – which they all ate at random times – there was nary a sight of a sandwich to be seen and all of that lovely crunchy peanut butter and juicy sweet jelly was gone forever.

That’s when the Whipples discovered they were being haunted.

When Mother would come downstairs early in the morning to make coffee, she was certain she heard a chilly voice following her down, whispering, “Peanutssssss…..”

And when Father would bring out his newspaper to read at lunchtime, he could have sworn he heard someone say, “Jell-lel-lel-lel-yyyyy…..”

And when Daughter ran on the treadmill as she trained for the track team, she thought someone was running along beside her saying, “Pbj..pbj…pbj…pbj…”

Whenever they made their gluten-free bread, the temperature in the oven would mysteriously turn up and burn it. Or if they tried to heat up nut-free meals in the microwave, the food would end up bubbling over and make a terrible mess. Food would go missing and turn up mysteriously in the lawn, in the trash, and even on top of their cars the next morning.

Mrs. Whipple gave Mrs. Crumpton a call. “Did you have a pest control problem in your house?”

“No, why do you ask?”

Mrs. Whipple told her about the latest events.

Mrs. Crumpton laughed. “Well, my dear, you’ve forgotten to take care of Scudamore.”

“Scuda-who?”

“Oh my! We must have forgotten to leave you a note about him! Scudamore is the ghost who lives there.”

“G-Ghost?!” Mrs. Whipple was quite alarmed.

“Oh he won’t do you any harm, but he has an insatiable desire for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. You must give him one a day at least. He will be quite discrete.”

“Discrete?” Mrs. Whipple felt pale, if one could actually feel pale….

“Try it, my dear.”

So Mrs. Whipple told Mr. Whipple who told the daughter and though they all felt disturbed at having both peanut butter and bread in their house, they couldn’t stand the thought of any more of their gluten-free chocolate chip cookies getting burned in the oven.

The next day, they made their first peanut butter and jelly sandwich, placed it in the middle of the table, and waited.

Nothing happened.

That night, the microwave blew up.

Mrs. Whipple called Mrs. Crumpton.

“You can’t wait for him to take it! Scudsy is shy! Just leave it out for him; he’ll come along after he’s done haunting the attic.”

So the next day, they made the sandwich, left it on the table, and went on their merry way.

The sandwich was gone by dinner.

So it went, every afternoon a peanut butter and jelly sandwich was left out and by every dinner, the sandwich would be gone. And the Whipples and Scudamore were on quite friendly terms from then on….feeding and invisibly eating all day long.

And if you, dear reader, should find yourself wondering if you are being haunted, remember the pb and j remedy…for the way to a ghost’s heart is through his stomach.