October 2009
by Scream Street author, Tommy Donbavand
Happy Halloween!
Hello and welcome to the Terror Times for October 2009!
Scream Street is now published around the world – and I want to bring everyone together for a spooktacular Scream Street Party. Everything you need, from details of how to decorate your party room, to gruesome games and fiendish food idea is below! It doesn’t matter whether you have your party on 31st October or not – you could save the fun for a birthday later in the year – just so long as you have a crazy, creepy time!
There’s also info on new Scream Street titles, an exclusive short story, and a brand new book by yours truly!
Hold onto your fangs, it’s going to be fun…
—
Scream Street Party!
The sky is dark, the moon is full, and witches, vampires, and werewolves are on the prowl… Yes – it’s Halloween again; the time of year when the shops are filled with terrifying toys and plump pumpkins, children dress up in all manner of weird and wonderful costumes, and you have to stock up on sweets to avoid having eggs or flour thrown at your windows!
Why not celebrate Halloween by hosting your own Scream Street Party – or enjoy some fiendish fun at any time of year (a Scream Street birthday party would be a scream!). Here are some suggestions as to how you can petrify your party guests – but be sure to add creepy ideas of you own.
Decoration
The most important part of any party room is the atmosphere. Scream Street is shrouded in constant night, thanks to a century-old darkness spell – and you can dim down your party room by temporarily swapping your light bulbs for lower-wattage alternatives or, even better, coloured bulbs!
Cover the walls with dismal doorways cut from card and painted to look like old wood. Now your living room looks like part of Scream Street itself.
Use a ball of black wool to create a massive spider’s web that covers a whole wall, or even the ceiling – and make a scary spider to live in it by screwing up a big ball of newspaper, painting it black and red, then adding drinking straws as legs.
Costumes
You can, of course, buy or hire creepy costumes for the party – but it can be more exciting to make your own creations, and it gives your kids an extra activity to enjoy while they wait for the big day.
Try cutting open a black bin liner and wearing it as an instant vampire cape – you’ll look just like Resus from Scream Street. Plastic fangs can be tricky to wear all night, so my tip is to paint them on your party-goer’s lower lip. When their mouth is closed in a vicious sneer, they’ll look just like the real thing!
My favourite Scream Street character is Doug the Zombie – and his costume is great fun to make! Choose some old clothes (make sure no-one will be wearing them again) and attack them with a pair of scissors to make them ragged. Now, stain them with whatever you can think of: soil, grass, ketchup – anything to give that ‘just crawled out of a grave’ look! A few dabs of face paint and you’ve joined the ranks of the undead.
Games
Try these vile variations on traditional party favourites…
Play musical statues but, instead of dancing, everyone has to lumber around the room as though they were zombies. When the music stops, everyone must drop to the floor as though their grave has opened up before them. Once the music restarts, pretend to burst back out of the ground and stagger again. No-one’s out, but everyone will be giggling.
Time to put that cardboard skeleton to good use as you pin a skull to it! Blindfold each payer in turn and, just like Pin The Tail On The Donkey, that person must try to stick the skeleton’s skull in place as quickly as they can. Don’t fancy pin holes in your wall? No problem. Hang a sheet of card behind the skeleton and attach the skull with Blu-tac.
Food
Your little monsters will be hungry after all that fiendish fun, so why not offer them some tasty, but terrifying, treats?
Make ice cubes with a few drops of red food colouring in the water. Add the cubes to glasses of clear lemonade and watch with horror as the drink slowly transforms into a vial of vampire’s blood!
Hard-boiled eggs may not be the most obvious choice in party food but, with a pupil painted on with food colouring and a few bloodshot veins radiating out from the centre – you’ve got yourself a bowl of dragon’s eyeballs!
Have fun!
—
Vampires Vs Werewolves Game Show
If you enjoy reading Scream Street – you’ll love the fast-paced, anarchic action of my Vampires vs Werewolves Game Show! I run the show in schools and bookshops all across the UK and beyond, and everyone gets chance to have their books signed afterwards. If you’d like me to come and visit your school, library or book shop, simply check with an adult first, then email me at tommy@screamstreet.co.uk and I’ll see if we can arrange something.
—
Zombie!
As you can imagine – I love Scream Street! But, I don’t just write Scream Street books. In fact, I have a new book out that’s just as spooky and is written especially for anyone who struggles with reading – Zombie!
Published by Barrington Stoke, Zombie! tells the story of brother and sister Nathan and Olivia and their trip to the local cemetery to visit their grandfather’s grave. This isn’t going to be the usual chat to a headstone, however, as the siblings quickly find themselves faced with a real, live (or should that be dead?) zombie! His name is Jake, he’s rotting away, and he’s burst out of his grave for a very peculiar reason…
You can order Zombie! here in the UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1842997084?ie=UTF8&tag=screamstreet-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1842997084
and here in the US: http://www.amazon.com/Zombie-Tommy-Donbavand/dp/1842997084/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257011274&sr=8-5
Check it out – it’s a scream!
—
Title Fight!
As you may know, Scream Street is a 13 book series – and one of the questions I’m most often asked by readers is what the forthcoming books will be called. I’ve always been a little cagey when I answer – after all, I don’t want to give away what happens to Luke, Resus and Cleo after they find all the founding fathers’ relics. But, as a special treat for Halloween, I’m giving in and revealing all…
The following books will be published over the next two to three years (depending on which part of the world you’re in) and guarantee to keep the action coming from your favourite spooky street.
Here we go…
Scream Street 7: Invasion of the Normals
Scream Street 8: Attack of the Trolls
Scream Street 9: Terror of the Nightwatchman
Scream Street 10: Rampage of the Goblins
Scream Street 11: Hunger of the Yeti
Scream Street 12: Secret of the Changeling
Scream Street 13: Flame of the Dragon
—
Trick AND Treat
As a special Halloween treat – here’s an exclusive Scream Street short story, written especially for The Times newspaper here in the UK. It appeared in the edition published on Friday 30th October but, in case you missed it, here’s the whole, horrific thing…
Trick AND Treat
A SCREAM STREET short story by Tommy Donbavand
“Come on!” cried Luke Watson, pulling on the makeshift hood of his ghost costume and bounding up the path to number 18 Scream Street. “It’ll be fun – I promise!”
Resus Negative licked his fangs nervously and exchanged a worried glance with their mummy friend, Cleo Farr. Wasn’t it bad enough that they were having to wander the streets in fancy dress without Luke getting all overexcited? “We’re not sure about this,” he said, itching at the spot on his neck where Luke had insisted on taping fake Frankenstein bolts.
Cleo dragged off her gorgon wig and straightened the bandages over her scalp. “It’s just not the way we do things around here,” she agreed. “Tonight’s more of a stay at home with the family kind of night.”
Luke sighed. Who would have imagined, now he lived among real vampires, phantoms and mummies, that Halloween would be so, well… boring? He’d pictured skeletons dancing while witches brewed up steaming potions and zombies burst out of their graves – but the most exciting thing he’d seen all night was a bat with a half-deflated balloon tied to its leg.
“Suit yourselves!” he grumbled. “All the more for me!” Spinning round, he rapped on the buckled wooden door and struck what he hoped was a spooky pose.
Limping footsteps approached along the hallway inside. Clump, swick. Clump, swick. Clump, swick. Heavy bolts were drawn back and the door opened with an agonised creak. “Yes, dear?” enquired the wrinkled face that peered out of the darkness. A thick tongue slavered over toothless gums. “What do you want?”
“Trick or treat!” beamed Luke from beneath his white bed sheet. He held out his pumpkin pail and added a ghoulish ‘Wooh!’ for good measure.
“Trick or treat?” mused the old woman. “Now, there’s a choice…” Then, without warning, she grasped a handful of hair, ripped her head from her shoulders and dumped it in the bucket.
Sticky, red liquid spurted over Luke and he backed away, pulling the soaking bed sheet from his face in horror. It was a moment before he realised it was nothing more than raspberry sauce.
Peering down into the plastic container, he found gobstopper eyes blinking up at him from beneath a mop of candyfloss hair. A stump of white, marshmallow spine protruded from the neck, wrapped in red liquorice veins.
“Never been a fan of choices myself,” cackled the confectionary head. “So why not have both?!”
THE END
—
That’s all for this month! Watch your inbox for November’s Terror Times and try not to have nightmares!