Page 1 of Trick or Tease

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SABRINA

The scarecrow slumped forward, taunting us with its complete and total lack of presence. This thing wouldn’t be able to scare a sparrow, let alone any of the guests who would attend our haunted event this year. And that just couldn’t stand.

Lucy and I had been working on setting him up near the entrance to the corn maze on Hogan Hill Farm, but all our efforts over the last several hours had led to this. A deflated, dull, unimpressive scarecrow in a flannel shirt and jeans stuffed with hay. If he had a name it would be a boring one.

Like Gary.

At least he smelled kind of good, like fresh hay and fall. Lucy and I probably smelled foul after all the heavy lifting we’d been doing all day prepping the farm.

“Hold the spine,” Lucy said, making one last-ditch effort to prop the scarecrow up.

“That’s gross,” I muttered.

“Would you prefer me to call it the stick up his ass?” she asked in a deadpan voice.

“Alright, spine it is.”

I gripped the wooden pole while Lucy tried to wrestle the scarecrow’s torso into position. The thing weighed more than I’d expected. We might have gone a little overboard with the straw. We packed it in tight and made it as dense as a hay bale with limbs.

“Okay, on three,” Lucy said, hoisting the scarecrow’s shoulders. “One, two⁠—”

The ancient jeans we’d stuffed with straw chose that exact moment to give up the ghost. The waistband split clean in half, and suddenly we had a half-naked scarecrow raining straw all over the ground.

“Oh no!” Lucy burst out laughing as the scarecrow’s bottom half emptied itself at our feet. “He’s having a wardrobe malfunction!”

I tried to catch the falling straw but only managed to get some down my shirt. “Great, now I’m itchier than a dog with fleas.”

Lucy doubled over, tears streaming down her face. “Look at his little stick legs! Looks like our scarecrow forgot leg day!”

The poor thing hung there, all torso and no bottom, with two pathetic wooden stakes poking out where his legs should be. A gust of wind caught more loose straw and sent it swirling around us like confetti.

“We need better pants,” I said, spitting out a piece of straw. “These jeans are older than Moses.”

“Or suspenders,” Lucy wheezed.

“Let’s put them on backward,” I suggested. “The ass is intact.”

“Hold on. I brought more jeans. Hold him up.”

“Why is it a he?” I asked while she walked back to the little Gator we had driven out to the cornfield.

She returned a few seconds later with another pair of jeans with the knees torn out. All year we tossed clothing into a pile for the scarecrows we would build for the corn maze every October.

“Hold him steady,” she said.

I held the spine, while Lucy jerked the jeans over the sticks that served as legs. Together, we stuffed straw down the pant legs.

“Okay,” she said. “Much better.”

“We’ll call him, Hollow Hank,” I said.

“Why do we name them?”

“One, because it’s fun and fun never needs an explanation, and two, it’s easier to refer to the various sections in the maze by the scarecrow watching over that section,” I said. “If I say Hollow Hank’s section, the staff knows exactly where I’m directing them.”

She cocked her eyebrow. “They all have names?”