Boo! A Halloween Treasure Hunt

What Happens

Pip is the little ghost who lives in your house, and every Halloween Pip looks after the candy. Tonight something jumped out and said BOO, and Pip got such a fright that she went POOF. Ten of her Halloween things flew all over the house.

The children find all ten: a pumpkin, a bat, a cat, a witch's hat and six more. Then Pip's letter tells them that three of the ten are not things at all. They are Pip's ghost friends, hiding. They find the ghosts, tell you the numbers, do the ghost spell (flap like a bat, meow like a cat, stir the cauldron, shout BOO), and Pip's map appears from behind your back with the candy at the X.

You are the Escape Master. There are no padlocks in this and nothing to buy, because you are the lock. When they solve something, you hand over what it unlocks. At five that lands harder than any padlock could: a grown-up saying "you found them!" needs no reading, no patience and no small fingers.

Nobody needs to read. Every one of the ten things has a picture on it, the ghosts they hunt for are a shape rather than a word, and the spell is four pictures and four actions. You read every line out loud.

It is not frightening. Pip is the one who is scared, and the children are braver than the ghost, which is the right way round at five. It plays with the lights on.

Twelve pages to print on plain paper, and about fifteen minutes of setup plus a walk round the house to hide things. Your pages tell you what to say, when to hand things over, and what to do when it stalls: the last thing nobody can find (there are two blank spares), the ghosts nobody can spot, and the child who gets frightened anyway.

For two to ten players, five and up. It works best straight after dinner on Halloween, with their empty trick-or-treat bags as the treasure.