Magic that gets sweets out of pumpkins

Kate Chambers, 9, leads the Halloween raiders in Balmoral, but not everyone can offer goodies. Picture / Dean Purcell

Take a balmy Halloween evening, add six Balmoral School girls clad as witches and devils and stir gently in a quiet suburban neighbourhood.

It's 5.30pm when Auckland City councillor Glenda Fryer, this group's calm supervisor, takes the eager 8- to 11-year-old girls up Burnley Tce, Balmoral.

Their carry-bags are empty and they're keen for candy.

"That's the whole point of Halloween," says Rebecca Perkins, 9, a self-described "groovy devil" complete with top-hat and sunglasses.

"We only dress up to get sweets."

Ms Fryer disagrees slightly: "It's all about the children having a good time."

That it is an American tradition has nothing to do with it, she says.

The neighbourhood is speckled with Halloween decorations - Jack-o'-lanterns, pictures of ghosts, fake cobwebs, real cobwebs.

Ten-year-old Hinemaia Hanks, the self-proclaimed "pretty devil", spies some cobwebs at a house across the road and leads a rampage to the front gate.

It's enough to give any parent a heart attack, but the watchful eye of Ms Fryer demands they all look before leaping.

But it's a peaceful neighbourhood, which eases safety concerns, says Ms Fryer.

"The road's pretty quiet, and there are lots of parents out."

Furthermore, these girls know to approach only Halloween-decorated houses, and they go wild when they see a picture of an orange pumpkin on a front door.

As Julie Koke from the Burnley Babysitters' Club explains, the pumpkin initiative was set up four years ago to signal a home willing to open the door to sugar-deprived children.

"Not everyone does it. Some of them don't believe in it for whatever reason and that's fine," Mrs Koke says. "We're a street community and we have fun."

The group don't find success at every household. Around the block they find a sign that reads: "Please no trick-or-treaters. Children sick. Thank you."

But their spirits are not deterred and they continue, mixing as they go with the various ghouls, ghosts, pirates - even tennis players - that they meet along the way.

Further down the road, they hit the jackpot - a tombstone on the front lawn, a maze of cobwebs weighing down the flower bed, and a skull on the front gate.

At the front door, they meet 14-year-old Madeleine Woodruffe, wearing pink fishnet stockings, a short leopard-skin skirt and bright red lipstick.

"Are you Barbie?" one of the group asks.

Not exactly, she replies.

At the end of the street, before completing the circuit back to Burnley Tce, the group get a photo request from Japanese woman Natsuko Hanaishi.

"We don't have Halloween in my country. They look very cute."

Ms Fryer agrees. "It's all about having fun."