Off The Record
I Helped A Poor Girl Get A Halloween Costume—Years Later She Walked Down The Aisle Toward Me
A teacher and a young girl in need are connected by a small act of compassion on a busy Halloween morning. Their relationship changes their lives in ways neither of them could have predicted years later. An enduring tale of compassion, second chances, and unwavering love.
The school auditorium was a flurry of glitter, plastic tiaras, and superhero capes on a Halloween morning. Wild, vibrant, and on the verge of disaster, laughter echoed through the atmosphere like wind chimes caught in a storm.
At the time, I was 48 years old, middle-aged, a little gray around the edges, and still desperately holding onto the label of “cool art teacher.”
The children were excited and sugar-fueled, giddy with pride over their costumes and ravenous for attention.
The stage was transformed into a spooky art exhibition complete with neon jack-o’-lanterns, glitter-glued haunted houses, and googly-eyed skeletons.
I saw her when I was correcting a crooked paper bat on a ladder.
Ellie.
She folded into the room, like a shadow creeping under the door, rather than simply entering it. Her eyes were fixed on the ground, and her shoulders were bent. She was dressed in a simple white T-shirt and gray jeans. Her ponytail appeared to have been pushed together in a hurry since it pulled back too tightly.
There was no excitement emanating from that little girl, no spark, no costume. She actually resembled a pencil drawing in a room full of vibrant paintings.
And I had a gut feeling that something about this day would matter even before the first nasty laugh was heard and the taunts began to roll up in the air like smoke.
That the reverberation would be longer and louder than I could have ever imagined in this brief instant, this one hallway morning in a long career of hallway mornings.
Then I heard it.
Across the gym, a boy yanked at her ponytail and smirked cruelly, asking, “What are you supposed to be, Ugly Ellie?”
Ellie winced as if she had been struck. Some of the girls looked around. A loud snort came from one, and a high, derisive chuckle from another. The room’s volume changed, and the laughter instantly became more abrasive.
Another boy added, “Did your dad forget about you again?” “Typical.”
My heart fell. I was aware of Ellie’s father’s condition, the financial hardship, and the reserved manner in which that lovely daughter handled everything.
There were more children present. There was a circle developing, the kind that forms around a target or a conflict.
A girl stepped forward with her arms folded.
“Maybe just stay home next year,” she commented. “And save us all… and yourself, the embarrassment.”
Then, maybe the worst of all, someone else chimed in.
“Even your makeup can’t fix that ugly face.”
Before I could stop it, the chorus had started.
“Ugly Ellie! Ugly Ellie! Ugly Ellie!”
With trembling hands, I quickly descended from the ladder. My first impulse was to yell at them, to scatter them like pigeons in shock. However, Ellie didn’t require attention to her embarrassment. She needed a dignified and unobtrusive way out.
She required an individual to select her.
Cutting sideways to avoid notice, I made my way through the crowd and crouched next to her beside the bleachers. Her eyes were clenched shut, tears streaming down her cheeks, and her hands were firmly placed over her ears.
“Ellie,” I whispered softly while lowering myself. “Sweetheart, look at me.”
Startled, she opened one eye.
“Come with me,” I murmured softly, without seeming forceful. “I’ve got an idea. A good one.”
She paused. Then she gave a nod. I put a gentle touch on her shoulder and led her into the supply closet behind the art room, past the lockers, down the back corridor.
After one flicker, the lightbulb steadied.
The fragrance of tempera paint and aged chalk filled the air. From the shelf over the sink, I took two rolls of toilet paper.
With wide eyes, Ellie questioned, “What’s that for?”
“It’s for your costume,” I informed them with a smile. “We’re about to make you the best one in the whole school.”
She blinked up at me and murmured, “But I don’t have a costume, Mr. B,”
“You do now,” I responded, lowering myself just enough to meet your gaze.
The pain still seemed to be new and hanging to her, as if she hadn’t made up her mind about her safety. However, I also noticed a tiny but strong glimmer of optimism there.
“All right,” I said, squatting down next to her and removing the first sheet. “Arms up, Ellie!”
I started using delicate, exact motions to wrap the toilet paper around her torso as she gently raised them. First around her waist, then her arms, legs, and shoulders.
I felt terrible for this young girl. I was aware of how vicious children could be and how emotionally damaging and long-lasting their taunting might be.
I made sure that the toilet paper layers were both secure enough to remain in place and flexible enough to move. I stopped every few seconds to check on her.
With wide eyes and quivering corners of her mouth, Ellie nodded.
“Oh, this is going to be amazing!” I said. “You know mummies are one of the most powerful creatures in Egyptian mythology, right?”
“Really?” she said in a voice that was almost audible.
I tapped the roll softly against her shoulder and said, “Oh yeah, little miss,” in response. “Feared and respected. People used to believe they held magic… and that they were guardians.”
For the first time, she grinned.
I took a red marker out of my pocket and smeared a few faint, unsettling bloodstains on the paper. Then I retrieved a tiny plastic spider that I had hidden among last year’s decorations by reaching up to the top shelf. I delicately clipped it close to her collarbone.
“There,” I replied as I took a step back. “Now you’re a terrifying, unbeatable, Halloween mummy.”
She gasped as she looked at the mirror on the back of the door. She touched the layers of her face with her fingers.
With delight, she exclaimed, “Is that really me?!”
When I remarked, “You look incredible,” “Seriously. You’re going to knock them dead out there.”
She let out a squeal and flung herself into my arms, giving me such a strong hug that I almost fell.
She yelled, “Thank you, Mr. B!” “Thank you so much!”
The cacophony subsided when we got back to the gym. Some children gazed. In fact, one of the older males moved aside.
Ellie straightened up, her chin raised, and her eyes clearly had a gleam once more.
Not only did that moment save her Halloween, but it also changed something inside of her.
Additionally, I believe it changed something inside of me without my knowledge.
Ellie and I became closer in subtle, unsaid ways after that day. Sometimes she would stay silent after class, rinsing paintbrushes long after everyone else had gone.
At other times, she would perch on the edge of my desk and ask questions about oil pastel blending or color theory. Even though I understood it wasn’t truly about the art, I always responded.
Her family life started to deteriorate. I could tell Ellie’s father was getting worse by the way she walked: her shoulders were stiffer, her eyes were tired, and her fingers were tense. The flickering flame behind her eyes grew dimmer.
She once informed me, “I had to make dinner again last night,” while cleaning a palette. “But I burned the rice.”
“You’re learning,” I remarked slowly. “You’re doing more than most adults your age.”
It was me she phoned when her father died in her sophomore year. Over the phone, her voice wavered.
“Mr. Borges… he’s gone. My dad…”
She held on to my sleeve like a lifeline at the funeral. I stood quietly and steadily next to her without saying much. Throughout the service, I held her hand while remembering my niece Amelia before she left for New York.
I leaned down and murmured to the man in the coffin at the grave.
When I answered, “I’ll take care of her, sir,” “I promise. She’s like one of my own.”
I meant it, too.
I had lost the woman I was going to marry in a car accident years prior. Our daughter was six months along in her pregnancy. I had never been able to shake the grief that had crept into the corners of my existence.
I never imagined that I would experience such love again.
However, Ellie ended up becoming the daughter I never had.
I put her old sketches in a box and sent her off to Boston on a scholarship. I expressed my pride in her to her. Then, as soon as she left, I sobbed into my coffee cup.
But like clockwork, a card came every Halloween. It consistently featured the same hand-drawn mummy with the same bolded text:
“Thank you for saving me, Mr. B.”
I was sixty-three and retired fifteen years after that first Halloween. My days had slowed to lengthy walks, crossword puzzles, and cold tea on the ledge.
Evenings were more subdued than I wanted to acknowledge. No more clamorous art rooms or tables covered in paint. Only the hum of remembrance and silence.
Then one morning the door was knocked on.
Anticipating either a neighbor in need of assistance with their sprinklers or a delivery of my knee medication and compression socks, I shuffled to open it.
I discovered a box waiting for me instead.
There was a velvety charcoal gray three-piece suit inside, expertly tailored. The fabric seemed silky to the touch, the type of material you don’t wear until it’s an important time. A wedding invitation was folded under it and secured with a satin ribbon.
“Ellie Grace H. Marrying Walter John M.”
Ellie, getting married to her true love.
For a long time, I gazed at her name. Like her, the lettering was sure but delicate.
A handwritten note on cream paper was tucked away in the box’s corner.
“To Mr. Borges,
You gave courage and strength to a scared little girl fifteen years ago, and I will always remember that.
In addition to being my instructor, you have also served as my friend, mentor, and, in the end, the closest thing I have ever had to a father.
Would you be so kind as to accompany me down the aisle?
-Ellie”
Pulling the suit against my chest, I sat on the couch. And I started crying, hot and heavy, for the first time in years. Not for what I had lost, though.
I started crying because of what I had been given.
Ellie was glowing on her wedding day. Her grin was gentle yet confident, and her outfit glistened in the afternoon sun. Everyone’s eyes were on her as she walked into the church.
She just glanced at me, though.
I extended my arm, and she accepted it without question. Like she had done countless times before, when the world had felt too heavy, her fingers curled around my sleeve.
Whispering, “I love you, Mr. B,” her eyes gleamed. I’d repeatedly encouraged her to call me something else, but I gave in because Ellie had found solace in that name.
I said, “I love you too, kiddo,” and leaned in to give her a head kiss.
Slowly, step by step, we made our way down the aisle as a family, not as teacher and pupil.
I suddenly understood that I hadn’t saved her all those years before.
I had also been saved by her.
Years went by.
I soon became “Papa B” to Ellie’s two little children, who were like sunshine on a dreary day—bright-eyed, giggling whirlwinds who rushed into my house. Before they could even pronounce “banana” correctly, they nicknamed me that, and the moniker stuck.
It made me feel younger somehow. It felt as though the world had turned back on itself and offered me another opportunity to experience love.
We saturated my living room with noise, glitter glue, crayons, and toy dinosaurs. I taught them how to draw spiders, similar to the one I had previously clipped to their mother’s shoulder on Halloween.
They protested if they weren’t delighted and squealed with delight.
Once, Luke yelled, “Not scary enough!” and I would act scared, writing larger eyes or curvier legs until they were happy.
Ellie came in from the kitchen one afternoon as we were coloring on paper that was laid out on the floor.
She smiled as she continued, “Dad, don’t forget the red marker.”
Saying, “Wouldn’t dare,”
“Same man, same magic,” Ellie remarked. “And dinner will be ready in 10 minutes. Chicken soup and garlic bread.”
I occasionally find myself standing by the window, cup in hand, watching the twilight descend over the neighborhood once the house is silent again, after their shoes have been put by the door and their backpacks have been zipped.
And I do recall.
The gray trousers. The white T-shirt. The invocation… Near the bleachers, her small shoulders trembled. going to the supply closet. And that little spider, the ink, and the toilet paper.
She might have been broken that day. And to be honest, I believe it was quite close.
However, it didn’t. Since Ellie got back up. And I did, too, in a weird, surprising way.
My granddaughter once nestled up next to me on the couch and said, “Papa,” “Why do you always tell the Halloween story?”
I grinned as I gazed down into her gentle eyes.
“Because it reminds me what one small act of kindness can do. How it can change someone’s life.”
“Like how you changed Mommy’s?”
“And how she changed mine, my little love,” I replied.
The moment that makes all the difference doesn’t always come with much fanfare. It’s only a whisper at times. A quick look. The decision to say… and a silent invitation into a lost room… “You matter.”
And sometimes all you need is a red marker, a roll of toilet paper, and a caring heart.
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