AN: This story will be three chapters long and was written for Gleeks09, my 300th reviewer for One Step At A Time, and my go to person when I get stuck when I am writing. She wanted this story, so here it is:) I will be posting chapter two tomorrow and the final chapter on Halloween. I will try to get a chaper of One Step At A Time up soon. Thanks:)
Halloween Horrors
Chapter One: Costumes
"I don't like that one." Nine, nearly ten year old Rachel Corcoran whined to her mother when she was showed a witch costume with a long, pointy hat and green and black tights with a black dress to go over it.
Shelby Corcoran rolled her eyes. Her youngest daughter, eight month old Beth, was sitting in her stroller, thankfully asleep at the moment. Shelby had picked out the little girl's costume nearly an hour before, not that that the baby really cared what she was wearing…as long as it wasn't overalls. Shelby had discovered that one day when she had dressed the infant in the cutest pair of pink overalls. Beth has screamed for over an hour before Shelby realized that she didn't like being in the overalls and Shelby had taken them off of her.
Shelby felt like her time in the Halloween store was never going to end. The only place that they hadn't yet looked was Target. They were apparently going to have to head there soon because nothing Shelby held up pacified the short little girl who was only worried about finding what she deemed the 'perfect' Halloween costume. Shelby was only slightly worried because the child would not tell her what they were looking for.
"Rachel, maybe if you tell me what costume you want…" Shelby trailed off when Rachel glared at her.
"I will know it when I see it."
Why had she waited only a week before Halloween to take Rachel shopping for a costume? She knew that neither Quinn nor Kurt had their costumes yet either, and she was suspicious about that fact. She figured that Rachel had something to do with it. Rachel was always in the middle of something.
"It isn't here! We have to go look somewhere else!" Rachel stomped her little foot against the floor and huffed at her mother.
Shelby sent her a glare. She and Rachel seemed to go through a similar scenario every year since Rachel had been six and wanted to be a fairy. Not just any fairy though, she had wanted to be Fawn from the Tinkerbell movies. Shelby, in the end, had had to sew the stupid costume through many tears and tantrums on Rachel's part. Shelby had been beyond frustrated that year.
"Rachel, we can go home and you can forget about me taking you, Quinn, and Kurt trick or treating." Shelby said. Oh, there it was. The pout. The sad eyes.
"No. Please, Mommy. I have to find my costume and I have to go trick or treating!"
"Then you need to behave. Understand?"
The little girl nodded. She knew not to push her mom on this one. She would end up without a costume and stuck at home on Halloween if she did.
"I have to pay for Sis's costume first, then we need to get something to eat before we go to Target to see if they have the costume you want. That is the last place we are going, so you are going to have to find something there if you want to dress up this year."
"Why are you dressing her up like a dumb ole' caterpillar? She is going to look dumb." Rachel said looking at the green and purple costume her mother was buying for her little sister. It even had antennas. To Rachel it was just stupid. Who wanted to be a bug or worm for Halloween? Of course, Rachel had seen pictures. Her mommy had dressed her up as a Toto for her first Halloween and her mommy had been Dorothy. That wasn't nearly as dumb as a caterpillar.
This was the first Halloween that it hadn't been just Shelby and Rachel shopping for a costume. In many ways, Rachel was still getting over the fact that she was sharing her mother with someone twenty-four seven. Shelby had talked to Rachel at length before she adopted Beth. And while she had not let Rachel make the decision about whether or not she was going to adopt the infant, she had let Rachel express her feelings about the topic. Rachel had been excited. Rachel loved having a sibling.
Yet, there was still some jealousy for Rachel. Shelby tried to spend one on one time specifically with Rachel throughout the week, but sometimes it was not easy because they were so busy. She was thinking very seriously about no longer working at Caramel and running the show choir there anymore. She would have a lot more time for the girls if she didn't have to worry about after school practices and competitions any longer.
"I think she looks cute in the costume. Be nice. Besides, Beth doesn't care. She is not even a year old."
"One day she is going to look at pictures and be furious."
Shelby just rolled her eyes and guided her dramatic daughter to the checkout line.
-HalloweenHorrors-
They were finally in Target. Shelby had had to fix Beth a bottle before they entered the store, much to the dislike of Rachel, because Beth hadn't wanted it while they ate lunch. She had changed her mind right before they were getting out of the car. Now, however, they were finally heading into the last store they were going into today. Shelby absolutely refused to head into another store to look at Halloween costumes and she had told Rachel as much.
"Oh! Mommy! There it is!" Rachel said, darting and weaving in between about fifteen other mother's who looked about like Shelby felt trying to get their children to pick out a Halloween costume. There were so many people down the aisle that she could even get the stroller with Beth in it down there. So, she waited for Rachel to bring the costume to her.
And bring it she did. Shelby looked down at the costume her child had in her hands in horror, the entire time Rachel looked up at her with a smile.
"Are you serious?" Shelby asked as she took the costume from Rachel to have a close look.
She nearly died when her child nodded her head in the affirmative.
It was a school girl costume. A naughty school girl costume to be correct. Shelby hadn't even known that they made such an outfit in a size girls seven/eight, which was the size Rachel needed.
It was a white shirt that stopped several inches above the belly button and tied in the front, a red, plaid tie, with a matching, short, plaid skirt. And white knee socks. She was positive that the tiny skirt would not even cover Rachel's little tush. It was highly inappropriate. On so many levels.
Her child wanted to be a naughty school girl. What in the holy hells was her child even thinking? How had she come up with this idea? When had Shelby made Rachel think that this type of outfit was okay?
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see one of the mothers look at her curiously. Apparently, she held a similar costume in her hands that her own daughter, a girl who looked about twelve or so, wanted to wear.
"Absolutely not, Rachel Barbra. You are not getting this costume." Shelby said, handing the costume back to Rachel so it could be put back on the shelf.
The smile on Rachel's face immediately faded. It was replaced with one of angry defiance.
"Yes I am! You said I could be whatever I wanted, and this is it! I saw the costume on a commercial and it is what I want to be!" Rachel all but yelled at her mother.
Shelby took the costume that Rachel now had clutched in her hands and pried it from her. She placed it on a nearby shelf and then turned back towards her daughter.
"Rachel, I would advise you to pick another costume, else you will not get one at all. I told you that you could be whatever you wanted within reason. This is not within reason. Stop your whining. This is ridiculous!" Shelby hissed. Beth started to fuss at that moment, her bottle empty and her need for her pacifier was intense. She didn't care what was going on as long as she had her pacifier so that she could go back to sleep.
Shelby stuck her hand down the side of Beth's carseat that was attached to the top of the stroller and found the pacifier and stuck it in the little girl's mouth.
"You are being completely unreasonable!" Rachel yelled. She then turned around to storm off. Anything to be away from her mother at this moment when the woman refused to see reason.
Shelby stood in shook for several moments as she watched her child stomp off away from her. Something the nine year knew she was most certainly not supposed to do whether they were at home or in public, but especially in public where someone could easily snatch her up.
Shelby looked up at the other mother who was now also sticking to her guns and not letting her daughter have the costume. Her daughter was taking the information much better than Rachel was though, and that was not lessening Shelby's anger at her petite nine year old.
Shelby sighed and with one hand pushed the stroller so that she could catch up to her belligerent daughter.
Then, with her free hand she grabbed Rachel's arm as the little girl tried to continue her storm off.
Rachel's reaction was not what Shelby expected. It had been a long time since Rachel had thrown a temper tantrum in public, so she was shocked when Rachel first let her body go slack, loosening Shelby's grip as she fell to the floor, and then yelled at Shelby.
"You are being so unfair! I don't know how you can be unfair! You said that we would get the costume that I wanted and you lied! You are such a mean Mom!"
Shelby stared at her daughter. This was a good tantrum, even for her. Rachel knew that Shelby did not ever give into tantrums, ever, so Shelby wasn't quite sure why she was trying to get her way by throwing one now.
Shelby also refused to be embarrassed. In her view, it was Rachel who should be embarrassed by her actions and it was Rachel who was about to be disciplined for them.
"We are going to the bathroom." Shelby said, leaning down to her daughter and looping her arm around her waist, hoisting her up so that she was firmly under her right arm, the stroller at her left hand.
"I don't care! I ain't afraid of you! You are being stupid!" Rachel yelled as she kicked her legs in an attempt to get out from under her mother's arm.
Shelby held her glare and made her way to the back of the store where she knew there was a single, family bathroom that would accommodate both of them plus Beth and the stroller. Plus it would give her the privacy that she needed to do what needed to be done. Some of the mothers in the Halloween aisle sent her sympathetic glances. They had all been there, so it was nothing new. It came with motherhood.
Shelby was thankful that the bathroom was close because Rachel was fighting her the entire way. Shelby refused to swat the girl until they were in that bathroom though. Rachel was just making it worse on herself when they finally got down to it.
Finally, though, finally, they were in the bathroom. Shelby opened the door and maneuvered everyone inside and then quickly looked the door behind her.
Shelby quickly made sure the bathroom was clean, and then sat on the toilet seat, moving Rachel so that the girl was lying over her lap.
The first swat shocked Rachel. She had been so into her tantrum that she had not even really realized what was going on.
The third swat made her realize that maybe, just maybe, throwing a fit in the middle of Target had not been such a good idea.
By the ninth, Rachel was just glad that it was the ninth and final…only her mommy didn't stop at the ninth swat, completely breaking the one swat per year rule. Rachel thought that that was completely unfair.
'I am sorry! Mommy, I am sorry. I am sorry that I was bad!" Rachel cried. This spanking was not fun and she was truly sorry now.
At swat twelve, Rachel was stood up in front of her mother. Shelby looked at her little girl and bit back her need to cuddle with her. She needed to talk to her first before she comforted her so that Rachel understood that what she had done was inexcusable.
"Rachel, that was unacceptable. That costume was inappropriate, and I am not about to let you go anywhere dressed like that, ever. Not now, not in ten years. Once I told you 'no', you should have said okay and then went and tried to pick a different costume. Rachel, you are nearly ten. You are too old to be acting this way in public. Do you understand?"
Rachel sniffed and stepped further in between her mother's legs so that she could hold onto her mommy's shirt.
She nodded as tears fell down her little cheeks.
"I am sorry. Can I please pick out another costume? If you say no to it, I won't be bad. I promise." Rachel said, fiddling with the edge of the shirt in her hands.
"I don't know, Rachel. Do you think you deserve to go trick or treating after your behavior?" Shelby asked her, trying to impress on her what could happen because of her bad behavior.
"I will listen to you and be really good, Mommy. I am sorry." Rachel teared up again. She had to go trick or treating! She just had too!
"I will give you one more chance. You tell me, right now, what you might want to be, and we can go get that costume. But if you are not on your best behavior between now and Halloween, you will not be going trick or treating. You will stay at home. Understand?"
Rachel nodded tearfully and said, "Yes, ma'am. I promise I will be good."
"Good girl. Come here." Shelby said, and Rachel threw her arms around her mother. That was what she wanted. The hug at the end told her that everything was okay now.
"Do you know what you might want to be?"
"Spongebob." Rachel sniffed. Shelby smiled.
"That is a much better idea, baby girl. We will see if we can find you a SpongeBob costume."
Much better indeed.