Once upon a time in a charming small town named Sleepy Hollow, where the maple trees blazed orange and red in the autumn glow, there lived a resident ghost named Cedric. He was friendly, but his ghoulish visage gave folks quite a start.
Every Halloween, he’d eagerly wait for children to come trick-or-treating, only to inadvertently scare them away. One day, Cedric had a brilliant idea. “What if I make myself a costume too?”
Using bits and bobs he found in the attic, Cedric made himself a costume. A mask made of an old portrait frame and a friendly-looking porcelain doll’s face, complete with rosy cheeks and curly hair.
When Halloween came, children knocked on the door, and Cedric greeted them wearing his cheery disguise. They giggled, praised his fun costume, and graciously accepted the sweets he offered.
As the night wore on, the townsfolk began noticing something strange. Their children were all insisting that the real ghost of Sleepy Hollow was nothing more than a nice gentleman with an eye for arts and crafts.
And so, from that Halloween forth, the only thing that haunted Sleepy Hollow was the paradox of a ghost who’d successfully tricked everyone into treating him as human!