Description

The Halloween Tree.The narrator (Ray Bradbury) describes one small town's preparations for Halloween night. Four friends are shown at their respective homes donning costumes excitedly: Jenny as a witch, Ralph as a mummy; Wally as a monster; and Tom as a skeleton. They plan to meet up with their best friend Pip but he doesn't appear. They go to Pip's house and see him being loaded into an ambulance. He has written them a note explaining that he is going to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy and that they should celebrate without him. They feel they cannot start Halloween without him, so they follow the ambulance to visit him at the hospital. Tom suggests a shortcut through the spooky woods: the dark and eerie ravine. They see what looks like a translucent Pip running along the ravine trail, and Tom leads them on, convinced that Pip has designed an elaborate hoax for them. The group races after Pip, who disappears near a towering and darkened mansion. A man named Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud greets them inside. Moundshroud expresses disappointment that none of the children know what their costumes symbolize. He reveals that he is after the ghost of Pip. Pip seeks and steals a pumpkin with his face carved into it from Moundshroud's Halloween Tree of jack-o'-lanterns. Tom begs Moundshroud to let them come with him and help bring back Pip. Moundshroud initially refuses but relents: if they can keep up with him before dawn, then they might be able to retrieve the pumpkin and get Pip back, while also going on a scavenger hunt of sorts to learn about the significance of their costumes and the origins of Halloween. They begin their pursuit of Pip, traveling back in time...