Sunday Shorts: Pumpkin Juice

Well, it's a week before the Christmas season, so it's only logical for me to cover a story set on Halloween, right? We open with our protagonist, called Charlie, and - nope. Nope, nope nope nope nope nope nope nope. I don't want to be associated with any short story protagonist, so let's call him... Billy Deep. It's about time I talked about him anyway, he really hasn't done much in the Horrorland arc recently. Anyway, Billy Deep and his best friend, Frank (who names their kid Frank?) are about to be thoroughly disappointed go trick or treating. However, Frank wants to whip up a beverage he found in a booklet earlier. Can't this wait? However, since Billy Deep is, well, Billy Deep (just go with it), he thinks, "yeah, this can't wait! Let's do it now!" The recipe is for a drink called pumpkin juice (in case you have the intelligence of a vlogger), which makes me think that they just borrowed a cookbook from Hogwarts. Hey, kids! If you want to interact with this ridiculous story, you can try making your own pumpkin juice! If you do, then what's wrong with you? here's the ingredients:

Pumpkin Juice Supreme
(Serves ages 9-12)
Ingredients:
The flesh of a pumpkin
Milk
Molasses
Butter
Garlic
Chicken Broth

If you still want to make your own pumpkin juice, then please, don't invite me round for dinner any time soon. Anyway, because he's Billy Deep, he and Frank ingest this disgusting concoction (that seems more like a soup, by the way), and they immediately turn into werewolves. Instead of going to visit an estate agent to go and set up a blog, they run around the neighbourhood, devouring all the candy in sight like a Tumblr user at an all-you-can-eat pasta buffet. Eventually, they get sick of eating candy, and rather than puke on Mr Benson's kitchen table, start eating trash and worms. Gripping. Billy Deept then spies his dog, Scout. Yeah, if you can't see where this is going, then I'm surprised you have the intelligence to read this. Does this mean that Billy Deep doesn't know what he's about to do? Luckily, we are spared this experience worse than being forced to listen to a Taylor Swift album, as Billy Deep overcomes this unsightly urge.

Eventually, Billy Deep and Frank discover the antidote, but you have to use the same pumpkin to make it. Because science and reason. They run home faster than Severus Snape confronted with shampoo (JK Rowling, please don't sue me), only to find that Billy Deep's mum has baked the pumpkin into a pie. OK, plan B: let Billy Deep and Frank eat something poisonous and die. Problem solved. Alas, because that would be slightly reasonable, it turns out that the ingredients of the pie are identical to those of the antidote.

So, the antidote is pumpkin pie made out of the same pumpkin as the pumpkin juice, then. At least, I hope so, because otherwise, I don't want to sample any of Billy Deep's mum's cooking! Thus, Billy Deep and Frank eat the entire pie and mum scolds them about it in the morning. The end. OK, not really. What actually happens is blindingly obvious. (*Reads ahead*) Ow, my eyes! (*One trip to specsavers later*) Mum comes in, and, rather than scolding the 2 of them for eating an entire pumpkin pie, she instead reveals that she tried some of the pumpkin juice, and now feels hungry! But not as hungry as me to wrap this story up.

This story sucks. Why are there even 2 characters? You could cut Billy Deep out of this story, and almost nothing would change! The overall idea of the pumpkin juice turning them into werewolves makes no sense! Why not something more pumpkin related, like a jack-o'-lantern creature? The ending is predictable, and I've just thought of something - why would the even ingest the pumpkin juice in the first place? Overall, not worth your time, my time, or even an immortal's unlimited time.