by Nancy Krulik
This time there was no mistaking who Principal McKeon was talking about—she was staring right at Louie.
Still, George was pretty sure Louie wasn’t ever going to apologize to him. Louie never apologized for anything.
“Anyway, I did promise that there would be consequences for people’s actions,” Principal McKeon continued.
George gulped. Consequences? Uh-oh. Usually he was at the receiving end of Principal McKeon’s consequences. And that often meant a phone call home to his mother.
But this time, Principal McKeon was smiling at him. “George Brown showed amazing creativity in solving this mystery,” the principal told the crowd of kids. “He should be rewarded for it. This year, George will lead our parade!”
“WHAT????” Louie shouted. “That’s not fair! My costume is going to be incredibly creative. Wait until you see! It cost my dad a fortune!”
“Now, Louie, don’t be so upset. Everyone will still see your costume,” Mrs. Kelly assured him. “Just not at the front of the line.”
“Wow! That’s your best Toiletman costume yet,” George complimented Chris as they all lined up for the Halloween parade.
“Thanks. My mom got me a new toilet seat to use as a shield,” Chris replied happily. “And I also have my new plunger.”
“Is that real mold?” Julianna asked Alex. At least that’s what George thought she asked. It was hard to hear what she said from underneath the big football helmet she was wearing.
“No. My mom said it was too dangerous.” Alex held up a jar filled with green and black dots. “This is rice with food coloring.”
Just then Sage came running over. At least George thought it was Sage. Who else would come to school dressed as a pink-and-white polka-dot ghost?
“Georgie, who are you supposed to be?” she asked him.
She was probably batting her eyes up and down under the sheet. George was glad he couldn’t see that.
George had on a skeleton mask. Over the mask he was wearing a baseball cap with brims in the front and the back. And he was carrying a giant magnifying glass.
“I’m Sherlock Bones,” George said proudly. “Halloween detective.”
Sage jumped up and down excitedly. “Ooo. Perfect,” she squealed. “We’re a Halloween couple after all.”
Oh brother. “You’re a polka-dot ghost,” George said. “What does that have to do with Sherlock Bones?”
“You can call me Nancy Boo,” Sage said. “I’m a ghost detective.”
George rolled his eyes. Sage was a real pain. But he wasn’t going to let her bother him. Not today. Not when he had the satisfaction of looking back at Louie, dressed as a giant pinball machine complete with flashing lights, at the very end of the line. All those lights just made it easier to see the jealous scowl on his face. Nope, nothing could ruin this day.
Grumble rumble.
Uh-oh. Not the burp. Not now! Not when he was about to lead the Halloween parade.
Grumble rumble.
George’s tummy was definitely making some loud noises. But those weren’t burp bubble noises. That was just George’s stomach telling him he was hungry. So George reached into his pocket and pulled out a Nutty Nugget bar.
“I thought your mom said you couldn’t have any of those until Halloween,” Alex reminded him.
“My mom said this was my reward for solving the mystery of the Phantom,” George told him. “Good thing, too. I need some Nutty Nugget energy.”
Just then, music began to play through loudspeakers on the playground. “The foot bone’s connected to the ankle bone. The ankle bone’s connected to the leg bone . . .”
“Hey, they’re playing my song!” said “Sherlock Bones” to his pals. “Come on. I have a Halloween parade to lead.”
Then everyone—except Louie—began to sing.
“The leg bone’s connected to the hip bone. The hip bone’s connected to the backbone. Let’s shake those Halloween bones!”
“Have you guys ever seen a pumpkin this big?” George asked his friends Alex, Julianna, and Chris one sunny Sunday afternoon in October. The kids were visiting Julianna’s cousin’s farm to find pumpkins for Halloween jack-o’-lanterns. Ever since the big parade at school, the kids hadn’t been able to think of anything but Halloween! Now George had just found a pumpkin so huge it came up to his knees. It was the biggest Halloween pumpkin in the patch!
“It is really big,” Julianna agreed. “But don’t forget that you have to be able to carry it home.”
“It’s also lopsided,” Alex pointed out. “And it’s got a green spot.”
“Yeah,” George agreed. “I’d better keep looking. I know the perfect pumpkin is out here somewhere.”
Chris reached down and picked up a medium-size pumpkin. “I’ve found mine,” he said.
“Me too,” Julianna said. She held up her pumpkin and spun it by the stem. “I can’t wait to get home and start carving.”
“It’s really nice of your grandmother to let us carve the pumpkins at your house,” Alex told her.
“Yeah,” George agreed. “My mom hates when we carve pumpkins at our house. Pumpkin guts make a real mess.”
“Grandma doesn’t mind messes,” Julianna told the boys. “She even baked her famous pumpkin pie for us.”
“What’s it famous for?” Alex asked.
Julianna shrugged. “Being eaten, I guess.”
“Are your parents going to be there?” George asked.
Julianna frowned and shook her head. “They’re in some mountain village near Russia, studying the eating and sleeping habits of people who live to be a hundred years old.”
Julianna’s parents were anthropologists. They were always traveling around the world, studying the way other people lived. While they were gone, Julianna’s grandmother stayed with her and her older sister, Sasha.
“You mean they’re just sitting there, watching old people sleep?” George asked her. “That sounds kind of boring.” He picked up a pumpkin. Nope. This one had a brown spot near the bottom. Better keep looking.
“It’s not boring to them,” Julianna replied. “They like watching people do things. I talked to my parents last night,” Julianna continued. “They said they’re bringing me back a balalaika.”
“A bala-whatka?” George asked.
“Balalaika,” Julianna repeated.
“It’s sort of like a Russian guitar,” Alex told him. “Except it’s shaped like a triangle.”
George looked at Alex with surprise. “How’d you know that?”
Alex shrugged. “I don’t know. I must have read it in a book.”
“Are you going to take balalaika lessons?” Chris asked Julianna.
“I don’t think there are any balalaika teachers in Beaver Brook,” Julianna replied. “I’ll probably just put it on a shelf with the rest of the things my parents have brought back from their travels.”
George reached down to pick up another pumpkin. And that’s when he felt it. Something traveling inside him. Something bing-bangy. Something pling-plangy.
The magical super burp was back, and it was on the move! Already it had blasted its way out of his belly and sideswiped past his spleen. Now the bubbles were leaping off his liver and lunging toward his lungs. George shut his lips tight, and tried to keep the burp locked inside him.
But the burp was strong. The bubbles were ganging up on his gums. They were . . .
Suddenly, George let out a burp. A huge burp. A burp so big and so loud, it could drown out a band of balalaika players all the way over in Russia!
George opened his mouth and tried to say, “Excuse me.” But that’s not what came out. Instead he shouted, “Feet don’t fail me now!” Then he began to race through the pumpkin patch at top speed.
“Dude, no!” Alex shouted.
Dude, yes! The magical super b
urp was free. And it wanted to play in the pumpkin patch!
George began leaping over giant pumpkins like an Olympic track star jumping hurdles.
“Don’t go too far,” Julianna called to him. “The hayride truck will be here soon to pick us up and bring us back.”
Even if the super burp had heard Julianna, it wasn’t about to listen to her. It was too busy making George leap over pumpkins.
And then, suddenly, George’s feet stopped running. His eyes spotted a row of scarecrows in the middle of the field. George’s mouth smiled. His eyes danced. His hands picked up a bowling ball–size pumpkin.
“Dude, don’t . . . ,” Alex shouted.
George’s hand reached down toward the ground. His eyes stayed glued to the row of scarecrows. He reached his hand back. Aimed. And then . . .
WHEEEE! George rolled the bowling ball–size pumpkin right at the row of scarecrows. The pumpkin slammed right into the middle scarecrow. The scarecrow teetered back and forth. It shook from side to side. And then . . .
Bam! The scarecrow fell to the ground. On its way down, it knocked over the scarecrow right beside it.
“It’s a split!” George shouted out. He picked up another pumpkin and walked back to the foul line.
“George, don’t!” Julianna called. “My cousin is going to be so mad.”
But the super burp didn’t care about Julianna’s cousin. All it cared about was bowling a spare in the middle of a pumpkin patch.
George’s hand reached down toward the ground. His eyes stayed glued to the row of scarecrows. He reached his hand back. Aimed. And then . . .
Pop. George felt something burst in the bottom of his belly. All the air rushed out of him. The super burp was gone. But George was still there. In the middle of a bowling alley . . . er . . . in the middle of a pumpkin patch.
His friends came running over.
“George, what were you doing?” Julianna asked him.
George opened his mouth to say, “Bowling for scarecrows.” And that’s exactly what came out. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I was just . . . um . . .” George didn’t know how to finish that sentence. He didn’t want to tell Julianna and Chris about the magic super burp. It was embarrassing enough that Alex knew about it.
“It’s not a big deal,” Alex assured Julianna. “We just have to stand them back up and stick the poles back in the ground. It won’t take long.”
George shot Alex a grateful smile. His best friend had saved him—again. But Alex couldn’t save him forever. One day, the burp was going to burst out and cause some real trouble. Trouble he couldn’t get out of.
George didn’t know when and he didn’t know how. He just knew it would happen. And that’s what made it really scary.
“Whoa! What are those?” George asked Julianna as they walked into her house later that afternoon. He pointed to a bunch of scary-looking masks hanging on the wall in the front hall.
“Mayan masks,” Julianna said. “My parents brought them back from Mexico a couple weeks ago. They represent Mayan gods. They’re made of jade.”
George smiled and opened his eyes so wide they almost bulged out of his face. He looked a lot like one of the masks on the wall.
“This one looks cross-eyed,” Alex said. He tried to cross his eyes, too. Then he shook his head. “That makes me dizzy.”
There was always something new to see in Julianna’s house. Walking through her house was like going through a crowded maze of weird—but cool—objects from all over the world. Every time George came over, he noticed something new. Like the bronze statue of a baboon with a baby on its back.
“Where’s that from?” he asked Julianna.
“Africa, I think,” Julianna said. “Just like that antelope carving next to it on the shelf.”
George looked at the wall beside him. There was a sword hanging next to a tapestry that had sticks and cotton woven into it. There was a papier-mâché sculpture of an old, wrinkled man sitting on a shelf. And next to that was something that looked like a cross between an elephant’s trunk and a flute.
“Where are you going to fit that balalaika your parents are bringing home?” George asked Julianna.
She shrugged. “I’m sure we’ll be able to cram it in somewhere. We always do.”
“Hey, look at us,” Chris called out suddenly.
George turned around. Chris was standing on Alex’s shoulders. They looked a little like the totem pole that was propped up in the corner.
“The wooden totem pole is from Alaska,” Julianna told George. “The other totem pole is just made up of some weirdoes from Beaver Brook.”
“Hey, who you calling a weirdo?” Alex said, crouching down to let Chris off of his shoulders.
Julianna laughed. “Anyone who would rather stand around in my hallway looking like a wooden totem pole than go in the kitchen and carve pumpkins is pretty weird.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Alex agreed.
“Ooo, yeah, talk about gooey guts,” George said, as he reached down deep into his pumpkin and pulled out a huge hunk of warm, slimy, stringy pumpkin mush.
“I’m glad pumpkin doesn’t taste like guts when you eat it,” Chris said. “I wouldn’t want to eat a gooey guts pie.”
George grinned. That reminded him of a song they used to sing at one of his old schools. “School food’s made of ooey, gooey gopher guts . . . ,” he began to sing. “Mutilated monkey meat. Chopped-up canary’s feet. All rolled up in all-purpose porpoise pus. And I forgot my spoon.”
“Dude, that’s gross,” Alex said. He started to laugh.
“I’m glad we’re not eating pie right now,” Julianna added.
“Me too,” Chris agreed. He pulled some ooey, gooey pumpkin guts out of his pumpkin. “Okay, I’m ready to start carving. My pumpkin’s hollow.”
Julianna handed him some paper and a few pins. “Cool. All you have to do is draw your jack-o’-lantern design on the paper. Then you pin the paper onto your pumpkin and use these pumpkin-carving tools to carve along the lines.”
Julianna pointed to some small, sharp carving knives on the table. They were all different sizes and shapes. “But we gotta wait for my grandma to get here before we actually carve. She wants to supervise.”
Chris started drawing right away. But George had no clue what he wanted his jack-o’-lantern to look like. Then he looked up on the kitchen wall. There was a metal sculpture with pointy gold teeth and whirly, swirly green metal eyes. Yes!
That mask was the perfect inspiration for a jack-o’-lantern.
Then again, so was the middle face on the totem pole in the hallway. Or the Mayan mask George had seen when they first walked in. Or the face that was painted on the Egyptian mummy case propped against the side of the refrigerator. Wow! There was so much to choose from!
The only things that decorated George’s house were paintings of sunsets his grandmother had done in her art class, beaded fruit and silk flowers his mom had made at her craft shop, a lamp his dad had made from a soda can in his high-school shop class, and a bunch of family photographs. Bo-ring!
George wished his house was more like Julianna’s. Because living in a house like this would make every day feel like Halloween!
“You made another jack-o’-lantern?” George asked Chris as they arrived at school on Monday morning.
“Yup.” Chris nodded. “I had so much fun at Julianna’s that I decided to carve another one when I got home.”
“But why’d you bring it to school?” Alex asked.
“I thought it would get our classroom in the Halloween spirit,” Chris explained. “I carved Edith B. Sugarman’s face into the pumpkin.”
“That woman’s face is so creepy,” George said. “I don’t know why they named our school after her.”
“But it’s the perfect face for a jack-o’-lantern!”
Chris said.
Just then, Louie came rolling up to the boys on his wheelie sneakers. George laughed. Speaking of faces that are perfect for jack-o’-lanterns . . . , he thought. But he didn’t say it out loud. That wasn’t the kind of thing a new improved George Brown would say. And George was really trying to be new and improved.
“Here,” Louie said, shoving envelopes into George, Alex, and Chris’s hands. “You’re all invited to my Halloween party Sunday night.”
George looked at Louie curiously. Louie hated George. He had since the very day George had arrived in Beaver Brook. He hated him so much that for a month he hadn’t even called him by his name. He’d just called him New Kid.
“My mom said I had to invite the whole class,” Louie told the boys.
Oh. That explained it.
“And she said to tell you she’d be keeping her eye on you, George,” Louie continued.
George wasn’t surprised. Louie’s mom had seen George do some really weird things—like practically ruin Louie’s birthday party at a water park. George pinched people’s butts while they were floating in the lazy river in inner tubes. And then there was the time George had tried to ride the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer decoration on Louie’s front lawn.
Of course, none of those things had been George’s fault. It had all been the magic super burp. But there was no way George was telling Louie that. Louie thought George was weird enough as it was.
“It’s going to be the best Halloween party ever,” Louie told the boys. “We’re going to have music and games, and a piñata filled with candy. Everyone’s going to be talking about my party.”
Just then, Max and Mike walked over. They stood on either side of Louie.