By Dawn De Busk

Staff Writer

HAUNTED FUN — Charlotte Bruffey looks forward to the Children’s Haunted House that runs from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Bruffey — with some help from her grandma Peggy Brown and her school-aged friends — converted the home at 740 Sebago Road into a haunted house. (De Busk photo)

NAPLES — Charlotte Bruffey remembers a few Halloweens ago, when she went through a haunted house that scared her so badly she cried.

Nine-year-old Charlotte has a solution for children who are her age and younger: A haunted house that isn’t too scary, and tours that provide different levels of scariness depending on the age group.

“Level 1 is a little bit scary. Level 2 is scary, and Level 3 is really scary,” she said. “At the end, we are going to stand outside, and all take off our masks so they know it wasn’t real. So, they will know that monsters aren’t real, and they won’t get scared, because they know it won’t be real. So, they won’t have bad experience like I did.”

Charlotte added, “We were thinking that Level 1 is for five- or six-year-olds, for the kids who get really scared. After we go through each room, we’ll say, ‘Hi, how are you doing?’ Things like that.”

With a lot of help from her grandmother Peggy Brown, the log home where Charlotte lives has been converted into the Children’s Haunted House. The haunted house happens from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The Children’s Haunted House will be located at 740 Sebago Road, which is right off Route 114 near the Tricky Pond Public Boat Launch in Naples.

The haunted house is geared for children in kindergarten through “about” grade 6, she said. There will be a donation can at the end of the haunted house tour. The money raised through donations will be given to Harvest Hills Animal Shelter.

Charlotte said she wanted the donations to go to a charity, and she likes animals and knows the Harvest Hills Animal Shelter needs money to take care of the animals that live there before being adopted.

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What: Children’s Haunted House

When: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Where: 740 Sebago Road (Route 114 past Tricky Pond Public Boat Launch).

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A student at Songo Locks Elementary School, Charlotte has been planning the details of the haunted house for a few months.

“I am really excited about the haunted house,” she said. “My friend Michelle is excited, too. She is getting a lot of ideas. She is getting five ideas a day. She tells me them at recess. But, we won’t be able to use that many ideas.”

“There was a lot to choose from,” Brown said of the girls’ brainstorming process.

After all, there will be four or five haunted rooms — each with a different theme. The haunted rooms will be located on the three floors of the house.

In the basement — where the tour ends — there will be a temporary tattoo station, and refreshments and music. A group of witches will ladle up apple juice from a cauldron.

Charlotte’s grandpa put up an inflatable entryway that he placed in front of the sliding glass doors. Charlotte helped picked out the massive orange and black entryway, and she has tested walking through it a few times. This year, she had a fun time Halloween shopping with her grandmother.

One of the rooms will be set up so people can reach into bins and touch squishy stuff and fake insects, she said.

In one of the rooms, a person will come back from the dead. As the tour guide, Charlotte has scripted what she will say. Another friend will also act as a tour guide.

Charlotte has something planned that will happen during the tour, and it is hard not to want to share the “scare.”

But, she said she didn’t want to ruin the surprise.