{"id":4125,"date":"2016-10-26T21:02:58","date_gmt":"2016-10-27T02:02:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faithhopeandfiction.com\/content\/?p=4125"},"modified":"2020-09-05T03:42:48","modified_gmt":"2020-09-05T08:42:48","slug":"the-offering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faithhopeandfiction.com\/content\/the-offering\/","title":{"rendered":"The Offering"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"post-display-none\"><div class=\"kgvid_gallerywrapper kgvid_textalign_left\" id=\"kgvid_gallery_0\" data-query_atts=\"{&quot;gallery_orderby&quot;:&quot;menu_order ID&quot;,&quot;gallery_order&quot;:&quot;ASC&quot;,&quot;gallery_id&quot;:1,&quot;gallery_include&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;gallery_exclude&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;gallery_thumb&quot;:&quot;380&quot;,&quot;gallery_thumb_aspect&quot;:&quot;false&quot;,&quot;view_count&quot;:&quot;true&quot;,&quot;gallery_end&quot;:&quot;next&quot;,&quot;gallery_per_page&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;gallery_title&quot;:&quot;false&quot;}\"><\/div><\/div>\n<div class=\"home-display-none\"><div id=\"kgvid_kgvid_1_wrapper\" class=\"kgvid_wrapper\">\n\t\t\t<div id=\"video_kgvid_1_div\" class=\"fitvidsignore kgvid_videodiv\" data-id=\"kgvid_1\" data-kgvid_video_vars=\"{&quot;id&quot;:&quot;kgvid_1&quot;,&quot;attachment_id&quot;:4133,&quot;player_type&quot;:&quot;Video.js v8&quot;,&quot;width&quot;:&quot;960&quot;,&quot;height&quot;:&quot;540&quot;,&quot;fullwidth&quot;:&quot;false&quot;,&quot;fixed_aspect&quot;:&quot;false&quot;,&quot;countable&quot;:true,&quot;count_views&quot;:&quot;quarters&quot;,&quot;start&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;autoplay&quot;:&quot;false&quot;,&quot;pauseothervideos&quot;:&quot;false&quot;,&quot;set_volume&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;muted&quot;:&quot;false&quot;,&quot;meta&quot;:true,&quot;endofvideooverlay&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/faithhopeandfiction.com\\\/content\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2016\\\/10\\\/the-offering_short-story-movie-trailer.png&quot;,&quot;resize&quot;:&quot;true&quot;,&quot;auto_res&quot;:&quot;automatic&quot;,&quot;pixel_ratio&quot;:&quot;true&quot;,&quot;right_click&quot;:&quot;on&quot;,&quot;playback_rate&quot;:&quot;false&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;The Offering | Short Story Movie Trailer&quot;,&quot;skip_buttons&quot;:[],&quot;nativecontrolsfortouch&quot;:&quot;true&quot;,&quot;locale&quot;:&quot;en&quot;,&quot;enable_resolutions_plugin&quot;:false}\" itemprop=\"video\" itemscope itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/VideoObject\"><meta itemprop=\"thumbnailUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/faithhopeandfiction.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/the-offering_short-story-movie-trailer.png\"><meta itemprop=\"embedUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/faithhopeandfiction.com\/content\/?attachment_id=4133&#038;videopack%5Benable%5D=true\"><meta itemprop=\"contentUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/faithhopeandfiction.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/the_offering_short_story_movie_trailer.mp4\"><meta itemprop=\"name\" content=\"The Offering | Short Story Movie Trailer\"><meta itemprop=\"description\" content=\"The Offering | Short Story Movie Trailer\"><meta itemprop=\"uploadDate\" content=\"2016-10-27T04:59:34-05:00\">\n\t\t\t\t<video id=\"video_kgvid_1\" playsinline controls preload=\"auto\" poster=\"https:\/\/faithhopeandfiction.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/the-offering_short-story-movie-trailer.png\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" class=\"fitvidsignore video-js kg-video-js-skin\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<source src=\"https:\/\/faithhopeandfiction.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/the_offering_short_story_movie_trailer.mp4?id=1\" type=\"video\/mp4\" data-res=\"1080p\">\n\t\t\t\t<\/video>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<div class=\"kgvid_below_video\" id=\"video_kgvid_1_below\"><div class=\"kgvid-viewcount\" id=\"video_kgvid_1_viewcount\">25 views<\/div><div class=\"kgvid-caption\" id=\"video_kgvid_1_caption\">The Offering | Short Story Movie Trailer<\/div><\/div>\t\t\t<div style=\"display:none\" id=\"video_kgvid_1_meta\" class=\"kgvid_video_meta kgvid_video_meta_hover kgvid_no_title_meta\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class='kgvid_meta_icons'>\t\t\t\t<span id='kgvid_kgvid_1_shareicon' class='vjs-icon-share' onclick='kgvid_share_icon_click(\"kgvid_1\");'><\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<div id='click_trap_kgvid_1' class='kgvid_click_trap'><\/div><div id='video_kgvid_1_embed' class='kgvid_share_container kgvid_no_title_meta'><div class='kgvid_share_icons'><span class='kgvid_embedcode_container'><span class='kgvid-icons kgvid-icon-embed'><\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<span>Embed: <\/span><span><input class='kgvid_embedcode' type='text' value='&lt;iframe src=&#039;https:\/\/faithhopeandfiction.com\/content\/?attachment_id=4133&amp;videopack[enable]=true&#039; 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background-color:#444444\">P<\/span> umpkins never went under the knife at their house. More than the threat of a sharp blade or making a mess all over the sink and counter, the issue was pumpkins classified as food, so wasting them was wrong. Every October, as Halloween approached, Janice and Buddy drew crayon faces that could be scrubbed off later when their mother split and stewed those big orange gourds for pie filling and soup. But no matter how hard they pressed on their black crayons, even crushing them against the rind, the waxy triangle-shaped eyes and noses never passed for real cutouts. A drawn-on, jagged-tooth mouth couldn\u2019t compare to the gaping grin of a hollow head.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text-indent\">\n<p>In the fall of 1970, when Janice was ten and Buddy nine, they began to wonder if their mother\u2019s refusal to let them make jack o\u2019 lanterns was due to meanness. One stinking pumpkin, for crying out loud, they\u2019d complain to each other. But Janice had begun to notice other things, too, which hadn\u2019t bothered her before. They bought day-old bread, and the butcher always gave them soup bones that still had a little meat on them. Boxes arrived from out-of-town cousins filled with hand-me-down clothes, some that fit and some that didn\u2019t, plus ratty-haired Barbies and scuffed-up GI Joes.Being deprived of a pumpkin to carve hit a hungry spot where Janice buried what she didn\u2019t want to look at or feel; like when she stole a quarter from her mother\u2019s purse, or wished that the popular girls would fall on the playground, then the delightful horror when one of them did and went to the nurse\u2019s office with a bloodied knee. Those girls, with their Brady Bunch families and outfits that matched, pointed at her and asked if shopped at the Salvation Army. Before fifth grade none of that had mattered, but now it did. The boys chased the prettiest girls around the schoolyard at lunchtime, while Janice sat on the teeter totter with her friend, Arlie, who breathed through her mouth and smelled like bologna.<\/p>\n<p>The way those other girls looked at her, Janice knew they could tell she and Buddy didn\u2019t have a father. Even the straggly kids who lived way out in the sticks had two parents. Maybe their dads didn\u2019t have jobs or got caught hunting deer out of season, but at least they had fathers to talk about. All Janice had been told was that, when she was eighteen months old and Roy Jr. (soon to be called Buddy) was three months old, their father took off. That made him sound like a dog who bolted for the woods and lost the scent for home.<\/p>\n<p>They lived in a small house that had belonged to their maternal grandparents who were dead. Uncle Bobby, their mother\u2019s younger brother, stayed most of the time in a trailer on the edge of the property. He\u2019d take care of storm windows, relight the hot water heater, and fix whatever sagged or broke, but being only twenty-six, he stayed mostly to himself\u2014working on his Mustang and going out with his girlfriend. The latest was called Honey, on account of her blond hair.<\/p>\n<p>Their mother had a friend for a while\u2014Gary, who was a patient from the dental practice where she did some office work. He drove a two-door Pontiac Grand Prix and had long sideburns. For a few months, their mother lightened her hair, wore makeup, and took to humming a little as she cleaned the house. When Gary came to dinner, Janice and Buddy swore to be on their best behavior and almost nothing got spilled. By the end of September, they didn\u2019t see Gary anymore. Noticing her mother\u2019s sad eyes, Janice knew better than to ask if he\u2019d run off, too.<\/p>\n<p>Now it was October, just three weeks to Halloween. Janice had been a princess for four straight years; the dress didn\u2019t fit anymore and the mask barely covered her face. The elastic band snapped on Buddy\u2019s Tweety Bird. But their old station wagon needed more repairs than Uncle Bobby could do by himself, and she and Buddy both grew out of their school shoes. Janice knew they couldn\u2019t ask for new Halloween costumes. They\u2019d have to make do.<\/p>\n<p>On Saturday, Arlie came over, but while they were jumping rope on the driveway, she tripped and chipped a tooth. Arlie went home with an ice cube pressed to her mouth, and Janice had nobody to play with except Buddy. With nothing else to do, they rode their bikes down the road, past neighbors\u2019 houses spaced far apart, the Methodist church with the crooked steps, and the cemetery where the headstones leaned at all angles. When they stopped at the fork, their usual turnaround point, Janice saw them: orange globes peeking out of the high grass in a yard, beside a house so old and rundown, it could have been abandoned, except wash flapped on the line.<\/p>\n<p>The ditch dipped low to a trickle of water and rose steeply up the other side. Janice and Buddy walked with their backs rounded, trying to keep themselves small and unseen, moving faster as they passed the front windows.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou think they can see us?\u201d Buddy whispered.<\/p>\n<p>Janice studied the dirty panes and shook her head. She tried to keep from imagining a face behind the lace curtains hanging limply inside.<\/p>\n<p>Weeds overgrew the garden, and half-rotted tomatoes littered the ground. They counted eight pumpkins in the patch, which the mice and squirrels would probably get to before long. They only took two, a little smaller than bowling balls and nearly as round.<\/p>\n<p>Riding one-handed, pumpkins under their free arms, made for slow progress. The noise of an approaching car sent Janice bumping off the pavement, sure that whoever lived in that old house had seen them, but the car passed without slowing down. They made it home, pumpkins intact, and hid their treasure under a bushel basket in the garage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t talk to nobody about the pumpkins,\u201d Janice scolded. \u201cNobody!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Buddy double crossed his heart and swore to die. But at dinner, pushing peas and macaroni around his place, Buddy asked their mother what she liked better\u2014smiling jack o\u2019 lanterns or scary ones.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, I suppose the happy ones,\u201d she replied. \u201cWorld is scary enough without adding to it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Janice kicked Buddy under the table, and when she got caught tried to explain it was an accident or that she was only kidding. She had to do the dishes by herself that night, while Buddy got excused. Later, she pinched him until his eyes watered. \u201cShut up about the damn pumpkins,\u201d she hissed, feeling the power of that four-letter word, which she heard plenty from Uncle Bobby, but had never said aloud before.<\/p>\n<p>For days, Janice imagined a knock on the door\u2014someone asking if two kids lived there, the pumpkins being discovered in the garage. <em>The police come, sirens on and lights flashing, the school principal with them. She and Buddy are forced to make signs that say \u201cPumpkin Thief\u201d and wear them around their necks, even to school. The popular girls point and laugh. Even Arlie won\u2019t play with her any more\u2026 <\/em>With each scene added to her own private horror movie, Janice felt another cut, hollowing her out inside.<\/p>\n<p>But they couldn\u2019t give the pumpkins back. So the next Saturday, when their mother went over to her friend Donna\u2019s to get a home permanent, and their Uncle Bobby was changing the oil in his car, Janice decided it was time. She and Buddy waved to their uncle as if they didn\u2019t have two kitchen knives and a marker up their jacket sleeves, and carried the bushel basket like they did that every day of the week. When Uncle Bobby slid under his car, they ran around the back of the garage and into the field.<\/p>\n<p>Janice told Bobby to stand back while she stabbed the pumpkin, expecting the rind to be wooden. The blade pierced easily, and she sawed around the crown. When she grabbed the stubby stem and yanked off the top, strings of pulp and seeds came with it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCome on, let me cut,\u201d Buddy begged.<\/p>\n<p>Janice sent him inside the house for a long-handled spoon, then told him to start scooping.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBrain and guts,\u201d Buddy kept saying with every splatter against the ground. They got most of them out, figuring that was good enough.<\/p>\n<p>Janice drew the eyes and nose, then gave in to let Buddy do the mouth, which he messed up, and she had to spit on the rind to wash off the crooked line. Cutting the eyes was hard, but when the first triangle shape popped out, they marveled at the empty socket.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere\u2019d you get the pumpkins?\u201d Their uncle\u2019s long shadow darkened the ground around them.<\/p>\n<p>Janice looked up. \u201cFound them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cReally?\u201d Uncle Bobby wiped his hands on an oily rag.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah,\u201d she shrugged. \u201cIn a field.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Uncle Bobby\u2019s mouth curled up on one side. \u201cSounds like you robbed the pumpkin patch. Your ma\u2019s going to tan your butt if that\u2019s true.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt isn\u2019t,\u201d Janice said. \u201cFound them fair and square.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Buddy started nudging her before Uncle Bobby was out of sight, and Janice punched her knuckle into her brother\u2019s skinny bicep.<\/p>\n<p>Fear of getting caught made the second pumpkin less fun to carve. Janice let Buddy do the eyes, but he didn\u2019t cut them evenly, giving the jack o\u2019 lantern a squint. When they finished, they snuck the two carved pumpkins back into the garage and under the bushel basket. It was nine days before Halloween.<\/p>\n<p>Uncle Bobby ate dinner with them that night, but nothing was said about the pumpkins. A few days later, Janice got the brilliant idea of telling their mother they\u2019d won the pumpkins at school and that they\u2019d carved them to surprise her. But when she and Buddy retrieved the jack o\u2019 lanterns from the garage, the faces had started to shrivel like shrunken heads, and mice had gnawed around the eye holes, leaving a trail of orange confetti. They carried the bushel basket into the woods behind their property and chucked the pumpkins as far into the trees as they could.<\/p>\n<p>The day before Halloween, when they came home from school on the bus, they found a pumpkin sitting on the counter. \u201cOne of the patients brought it,\u201d their mother said. \u201cYou can carve this one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Buddy\u2019s eyes widened and Janice hung her head. \u201cS\u2019okay,\u201d she said. \u201cWe can color it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut you\u2019ve been wanting to. Come on. We\u2019ll do it together.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Their mother made the incision around the top, and set the pumpkin on several sheets of newspaper covering the floor. She put a roasting pan beside it. \u201cPut the pulp in there. I\u2019ll roast the seeds,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Janice scooped until her hand got tired and made Buddy take a turn. \u201cA little more,\u201d their mother told them. Finally, nothing was left inside.<\/p>\n<p>Taking the marker out of the drawer, the same one they\u2019d used in secret, Janice asked their mother to draw the face.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSmiling or scary?\u201d their mother asked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUh, smiling?\u201d Buddy\u2019s mouth, though, turned down.<\/p>\n<p>Their mother let them do the cutting under her supervision, but helped with the pointy corners of the grin. It was a good jack o\u2019 lantern, better than the ones they\u2019d carved. But when a stump of a candle was put inside and lit, the glowing face taunted Janice with the secret knowledge that she and Buddy had stolen those other pumpkins and, even worse, had wasted them.<\/p>\n<p>The next evening, they put on their costumes and their mother drove them into town where they joined other kids going house-to-house, which was easier in the city than out in the country. Back home, their mother inspected their candy and threw away a perfectly good sucker just because the cellophane wrapper had split open. Janice took inventory of everything she got, counting four 100 Grand miniatures with their red wrappers; Buddy only had three.<\/p>\n<p>That night in bed, her chocolate breath wreaked to her. <em>Maybe there were kids inside that house who didn\u2019t get any pumpkins. Maybe that\u2019s all that family had to eat. Maybe they sold the pumpkins, and that was all the money they had in the world. <\/em>When she finally fell asleep, she dreamt of being locked in a room full of pumpkins and having to carve every one of them, scooping seeds and cutting faces until her arms throbbed. Every time she finished, they changed back to pumpkins and she had to start again.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"flourish aligncenter wp-image-996 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/faithhopeandfiction.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/double-flourish-content.png\" alt=\"The Offering \u2014 Fiction by Patricia Crisafulli\" width=\"88\" height=\"31\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Buddy didn\u2019t want to go back, but Janice said they had to. They lost their nerve about going up to the house, and instead, they opened the mailbox at the edge of the road. On top of yellowed flyers and junk mail, they left the note they\u2019d written: \u201cFor two pumpkins. Sorry.\u201d Buddy extracted a small Milky Way and a tiny Snickers from his pocket and put them on the paper. Janice fingered the red wrappers of two precious 100 Grand bars then offered them up.<\/p>\n<p>When the farmhouse house was out of sight, Janice grinned at her brother and said she\u2019d race him. They pedaled fast and free, all the way home.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"hdivider hr-double hr-long\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"small-text\">\n<p>Videography by Pat Commins<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Patricia Crisafulli Original Fiction<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,18,1],"tags":[102,139,163,38,167,145,168,166,25],"class_list":["post-4125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-original-online-fiction","category-patricia-crisafulli","category-uncategorized","tag-children","tag-guilt","tag-halloween","tag-holidays","tag-jack-o-lantern","tag-movie-trailer","tag-pumpkin-carving","tag-repentance","tag-short-story"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v15.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Offering | Faith Hope &amp; 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