The Celery Stalks at Midnight

by James Howe

  “Well, hello, Harold, what do you want?” she said. “This isn’t dog food, you know.”

  It is to this dog, I thought.

  Home Is Where the Heart Is

  Toby piped up, “He knows it’s not dog food, Mom. Harold loves chocolate.”

  “Really? What makes you say that?”

  I got a little nervous then, thinking that Toby was about to blow our late-night snack routine. I gave him a look, and he seemed to get the message.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he replied with a shrug. “He just ... drools a lot ... whenever I’m eating a candy bar. Why don’t you give him a piece, and we’ll find out if he likes it?” Toby winked at me.

  “I don’t know. It might be bad for him,” Mrs. Monroe said. I gazed up at the plate in her hands with an expression of desire usually found only in the pages of novels with titles like Wretched, Reckless Love or Forest Fire in the Timberland of My Heart. Mrs. Monroe smiled down at me.

  “Well, I guess one little piece of fudge once in a while never hurt anybody, now, did it?” She lowered a piece to my quivering lips, and I was in instant heaven.

  The next hour or so passed peaceably enough as the Monroes recalled the day’s events. Apparently, after our abrupt departure from the school carnival, everything had gone on as planned. Curse of the Vampires, though slightly delayed and redecorated (the portrait hanging on the wall was now of a man with a hole in his head), was a huge success. Mr. Monroe went back to his Dunk-the-Teacher booth where things went, you might say, swimmingly. And Mrs. Monroe’s friend’s carrot cake, the one Chester had demolished in his service to mankind, won first prize in the bake-off, the first time in culinary history a cake has won an award posthumously.

  And now, we were all back home, safe and sound from our various adventures. Well, safe anyway. I’m not too sure how sound one could ever expect Chester to be.

  Later that night, after everyone had gone to bed, he confided in me that he was still convinced Bunnicula had gotten loose and gone on a rampage throughout the town.

  “Otherwise, how can you explain all those white vegetables? They had nothing to do with the school carnival,” he said. “And where was Bunnicula, anyway? We know he wasn’t in his cage in the living room last night.”

  Howie dropped the bone he was carrying around the room and ran to Chester and me. “I just remembered something Pete said to Mr. Monroe tonight.”

  “What’s that?” Chester asked.

  “He said it had been a good idea to put Bunnicula in his new cage . . . you know, the Castle Bunnicula one they made for the carnival . . . so that he could get used to it. He spent the night in it in the garage.”

  “So there you are,” I said. “He couldn’t have gotten out. He was safe in the garage all night and. . .”

  Suddenly, I gasped.

  “What is it, Harold?” Chester asked.

  “Mr. Monroe came running into the house this morning with the news that the garage door had been left open all night,” I said. “So Bunnicula could have gotten out.”

  “And could have ... in fact, did ... turn all those vegetables white. Let’s hope we got them all. Because it’s night once again. Night. The time when the vampires come out to prey on the helpless, to attack, to drain their victims dry, to—”

  “All right,” I said, “enough. Let’s not get into this nonsense about a bunch of silly vegetables.”

  “Th-that’s r-r-right,” Howie said, his teeth chattering, “because you’re r-really scaring m-m-me.”

  “Let’s get some sleep,” I suggested. “It’s been a long day.”

  “Good idea,” Howie said. “Uncle Harold?” “Yes, Howie?”

  “Uh ... may I curl up with you tonight? I’m a little nervous.”

  “Why, certainly,” I replied. “As long as you have your pop’s permission.”

  “Pop!”

  Chester glared at both of us. “Spare me your feeble attempts at comedy, Harold. Good night.”

  “Good night,” I said, stretching out on the rug.

  Howie rolled up into a little ball along my belly and in no time at all was fast asleep.

  “Good night, Bunnicula,” I called out softly. Bunnicula blinked at me, a look of peace and contentment upon his face.

  I was just about to drift off, when I noticed Chester sit up suddenly in the armchair he’d chosen for his night’s slumber.

  “What’s that?” he cried in a whisper.

  “What’s what?” I asked.

  “Coming from the floor ... there, under the floorboards ... I can hear it going ’thump, thump, thump’ ... Tear up the planks!”

  “Have you lost your mind?” I said.

  “It’s coming from under the sofa.” Chester jumped off the chair and dashed to the sofa. With his paw, he pulled back the dust ruffle and batted a white object out from underneath.

  “Here, here!” he said. “It is the beating of this hideous heart!”

  “Well, how’d that artichoke heart get there?” I asked. Then with a shrug I turned to Chester and said, “Come on, Chester, let’s get some sleep.”

  “But, Harold, it’s almost midnight. Who knows what evil lurks—”

  “Cut it out, Chester. I want to sleep!”

  And that’s just what I set out to do when, moments later, I heard it.

  “Thump . . . thump . . . thump . . . ”

  My ears perked up. One eye popped open, then the other. I regarded the object lying just inches away from my nose. Could it be? I wondered. No, it was just Chester’s imagination.

  “Thump . . . thump . . . thump . . . ”

  “Chester?” I whispered. My voice seemed to echo in the darkened room.

  “Hmm?” Chester replied wearily.

  “You wouldn’t happen to have a toothpick, would you?”