Tim: In the pros, yes. High school and college ball go a lot faster. My question for you?
Gemma: Yes?
Tim: What’s the difference between hockey skates and ice skates?
Gemma: Two words. Toe pick.
Tim: That doesn’t sound very hygienic.
Gemma: *Laughing emoji* It is. Search it out on the internet.
Tim: I will.
Gemma: Talk to you soon.
Tim: *Grinning emoji*
Closing out the messenger app on her mobile, she opened the library app and continued readingBaseball for Beginners.
* * *
Covering a yawn with her hand, Gemma wiggled her mobile to reveal the time. It was nine forty-five. She still had about fifteen minutes before she was meant to call Tim. Setting it beside her, she threw her head back into the fluffy mound of pillows and tucked two under her right side. Her hip was cranky, but a hot bath had helped.
Double and triple show days are torture. At least I have my talk with Tim to take my mind off things.
Gemma: Just letting you know I’m settled in at the hotel. We can talk anytime.
Getting up from the bed, she walked over to the room’s balcony and slid open the glass door. The cool night breeze tickled her face. She shivered. Checking on her pumpkin, she was pleased to see the tealight candle inside still flickering and casting an eerie glow.
“I can’t wait for Tim to see you.”
Inside again, she noticed the screen on her phone lighting up.
Tim: Anytime is good. Just decorating my classroom.
Gemma frowned. Hadn’t he already decorated it? She tapped his name. A moment later, the screen lit up with his face.
“Hey, stranger,” he called out. She could hear him, but all she could see on the video was a flash of a red plaid shirt.
“Hiya, Tim. What are you up to? Didn’t you send me photos of cobwebs, pumpkins, and paper bats hanging from your classroom’s ceiling already?”
He picked up the mobile, cracking a cheesy grin. “I did, but tomorrow is actual Halloween, and that means I can go all out. It’s the only day of the year my principal allows me to fully express my creativity.”
“And by that you mean?” she asked, curiosity piqued.
“Let me flip the camera. I think seeing my haunted hideaway will help you understand.”
Gemma gasped when the video turned around. “This is your classroom?”
He laughed. “Yes, this is the Haunted Casa de Mr. Lyons.”
The windows of the classroom were covered with yellow paper and stringy spiderwebs. His desk, also covered in spiderwebs, held a mega-sized cauldron filled with candy and two light-up plastic pumpkins.
The back wall of the room, adjacent to the bookshelf, was concealed with cutouts of the silhouette of a tree, a full moon, white ghosts, a haunted house with eerie yellow windows, and thirty-five pumpkins, each bearing a student’s name. From the ceiling, Tim had also suspended flickering LED pumpkin lights, and about thirty more bats than the day before.
“I still have a long way to go, but it’s getting there.” He touched the camera, returning the focus to his face. The beginnings of a five o’clock shadow had started to grow in, and he wore a pair of stylish black glasses.
“What else do you plan to do? It looks like you’ve done a lot already.”
