by Dan Gutman
BEWARE:
This book contains scary stuff! Oooh!
Close your eyes! Hide under the covers!
The Halloween Monster is coming!
Contents
1. Tomorrow Isn’t Now
2. My Secret Plan
3. The Gang’s All Here
4. The Rules of Halloween
5. Ghosts, Goblins, and Ghouls
6. The Halloween Monster
7. Sugar Shock
8. Nightmare of the Living Teachers
9. A Bunch of Squirrels
10. The Expanding Universe
11. The Return of the Halloween Monster
12. The Big Surprise Ending!
Bonus: Weird Extras!
Back Ads
About the Author and Illustrator
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
1
Tomorrow Isn’t Now
My name is A.J., and I hate October 30.
If you ask me, October 30 is the worst day of the year. You know why? Because I’m not allowed to eat any candy on that day. We have these giant bags of candy all over the house, and my mom won’t let me touch them.
“No candy, A.J.!” she always says on October 30. “That candy is for the trick-or-treaters.”
“Oh, come on, Mom! Can I have just one piece?”
“No! You can have all the candy you want tomorrow.”
“Yeah, but tomorrow isn’t now!”
I hate tomorrow. Tomorrow is the worst day of the week, because it isn’t here yet. Waiting for tomorrow feels like forever.
The good thing is, tomorrow is also the best day of the week, because the day after the worst day of the year is the best day of the year: Halloween! You can eat all the candy you want, and nobody can stop you!
The other reason I don’t like October 30 is because it’s Mischief Night. Teenagers in our town go around throwing eggs, soaping up windows, ringing doorbells, and doing other mean stuff.
At seven o’clock I went to peek out the front window to make sure our house was safe. And you’ll never believe in a million hundred years what I saw outside.
Our trees were covered with toilet paper!
Somebody TP’d our house! Can you believe that? What a mean thing to do! And I knew exactly who did it, too.
Andrea Young.
She is this girl with curly brown hair in my class at school.* It had to be Andrea! She hates me. Last year me and the guys TP’d her house. Now she was getting me back.
Well, two can play at that game, Andrea. Revenge will be mine, and revenge will be sweet.
2
My Secret Plan
I grabbed a bar of soap from our bathroom sink. My secret plan was to go over to Andrea’s house and soap up her windows. That would show her who’s boss. Nobody TP’s my house and gets away with it.
I knew that my mom would never let me go out so late to soap up Andrea’s windows. I would have to come up with another reason to get out of the house.
“Mom, can I go over to Ryan’s house for a few minutes?” I asked. “I need to get our homework assignment for tonight.”
“Okay,” she said, “but why do you have a bar of soap in your hand?”
“Uh . . . I may have to wash my hands,” I lied.
“A.J., I’m sure Ryan has soap at his house.”
“I don’t like Ryan’s soap,” I told her. “It smells stinky.”
“Why don’t you just wash your hands right here and then go over to Ryan’s house?” Mom asked.
“My hands might get dirty while I’m over there,” I explained. “Ryan’s house is really filthy.”
“Just go, A.J.,” my mom said as she rubbed her forehead with her fingers.
Yes! I win! If you can get your mom or dad to rub their forehead with their fingers, they’ll agree to just about anything. That’s the first rule of being a kid.
Ryan lives down the street from me. I ran over to his house as fast as I could so I wouldn’t be attacked by any monsters along the way. You never know when there might be monsters out, roaming the streets.
I told Ryan my secret plan to soap up Andrea’s windows. He told his mom that he needed to go to my house to get tonight’s homework assignment. It took some convincing, but finally she rubbed her forehead with her fingers and said he could go. Little did she know that we were going to Andrea’s house to do a little mischief.
Ryan and I sneaked down the street like secret agents, hiding behind cars and trees so we wouldn’t get caught. It was cool.
“I’m traveling incognito,” I whispered to Ryan.
“What’s a cognito?”
“How should I know?” I said. “But secret agents always travel in them.”*
After walking a million hundred miles, we finally reached Andrea’s street.
“This is gonna be great!” Ryan whispered.
“Shhhhhhhh!”
We crept up to Andrea’s front window.
I reached into my pocket.
I took out the bar of soap.
And just as I was about to rub the soap all over the window, I saw the most horrible, revolting, disgusting creature I have ever encountered in my life.
It was Andrea!
“Ahhhhhhh!” Ryan and I screamed.
“What are you doing over here, Arlo?” asked Andrea as she lifted up the window. She calls me by my real name because she knows I don’t like it.
“Uh . . . nothing,” I said. “We were, uh . . . bird-watching.”
“Yeah,” Ryan agreed. “We were watching birds. I think I just saw a yellow-bellied sapsucker in that tree over there.”
“You were going to soap up my windows!” Andrea said, pointing her finger at me.
“Who, me?” I said. “Don’t be ridiculous! I would never do a thing like that.”
“You would too, Arlo!”
“Would not!”
“Would too!”
We went back and forth like that for a while.
“If you didn’t come over here to soap up my windows, then what are you doing standing outside my window with soap in your hand?” Andrea demanded. “Arlo, this is probably the first time you ever used soap in your life.”
“Oh, snap!” said Ryan. “She just said you’re a dirty, disgusting pig. But not in those words. Are you gonna take that, A.J.?”
“You TP’d my house!” I said, pointing my finger at Andrea.
“I did not!”
“You did too!”
We went back and forth like that for a while, until Andrea turned around and started shouting to her parents.
“Mom! Dad! Some creepy boys are outside on the front lawn!”
“Run for it!” I shouted to Ryan.
We bolted out of there as fast as we could go.
3
The Gang’s All Here
I never did get to soap up Andrea’s windows that night. But it was okay. Because the next morning it was Halloween. The best day of the year!
At school, Mr. Granite was trying to teach us all kinds of stuff, but I wasn’t paying attention. I couldn’t concentrate on anything he was saying. All I could think about was candy. I couldn’t wait for the bell to ring. It felt like the clock was going backward.
But finally it was three o’clock. I ran home to put on my Halloween costume.
In our town, you’re not allowed to start trick-or-treating until four o’clock in the afternoon. Bummer in the summer! I would have to wait even longer to get the candy.
Me and the gang had decided we would all combine two or more things t
ogether in our costumes. I had an old Star Wars costume in the closet, and my sister, Amy, let me use the deer costume she wore last year. So this Halloween I was going to be . . .
Darth Bambi!
Pretty good, huh? No wonder I’m in the gifted and talented program.
One by one, the gang came over so we could all go trick-or-treating together.
“Who are you?” my mother asked everybody as they came to the door.
“I’m a flying robot ninja from outer space,” said Michael, who never ties his shoes.
“I’m a mutant zombie pirate,” said Ryan, who will eat anything, even stuff that isn’t food.
“I’m a skateboarding hippie dinosaur,” said Alexia, who skateboards everywhere she goes.
Next came Neil, who we call the nude kid even though he wears clothes. None of us had any idea what he was dressed up as.
“I’m a flying mutant pirate hobo ninja robot dinosaur,” said Neil, “from outer space.”
That’s just too much stuff.
“We’re traveling incognito,” I told my mom.
“Ooooo, you all look so spooky!” my mom said.
That’s when the most amazing thing in the history of the world happened.
The doorbell rang.
Well, that’s not the amazing part, because doorbells ring all the time. The amazing part was what happened next.
“A.J., answer the door, please,” my mother said. “It must be our first trick-or-treater. I’ll get the candy.”
But it wasn’t our first trick-or-treater. It was my friend Billy, who lives around the corner. Billy goes to another school. I invited him to go trick-or-treating with us.
The amazing part was that when I opened the door, Billy was standing there in his underwear! You should have been there. It was hilarious. Anything to do with underwear is hilarious. That’s the first rule of being a kid.
“That’s your costume, Billy?” my mom asked with her hands on her hips.
“You’ve heard of the werewolf,” said Billy. “Well, I’m the underwerewolf! Grrrrrrrr!”
He made scary noises and posed like a werewolf. It was still hilarious. It’s hard to look scary when you’re in your underwear.
The fact is, Billy goes as the underwerewolf every Halloween. If you ask me, Billy just likes to parade around in his underwear.
Billy’s weird.
It was a quarter to four. We couldn’t go trick-or-treating yet, so we went into the den to fool around with my dad’s computer. I wanted to go on YouTube and watch videos of cats playing the piano, but Michael had another idea. He went to Google Maps and typed in the address of my house.
“Okay, here’s my plan for maximum candy accumulation,” Michael said as he moved his finger across the screen. “People on Maple Street give out the best candy, so we should head over there first. Then we can turn left on Pine Street and hit Hickory, Elm, and Sycamore Street. The people on Evergreen Avenue never have any good candy, so we should skip that street. . . .”
Michael is a genius when it comes to trick-or-treating strategy. After he was finished plotting our route, we printed out the map so we wouldn’t get lost.
It was a few minutes before four o’clock. My mom gave us old pillowcases we could use to hold our candy. Billy gathered us all around him like a football team in a huddle.
“Okay, dudes,” he said. “What do we want?”
“Candy!” we all shouted.
“I can’t hear you! What do we want?”
“CANDY!” we shouted louder.
“When do we want it?” Billy asked.
“Now!”
“How much candy do we want?” Billy asked.
“A lot!”
“Where do we want it?” Billy asked.
“In our mouths!” we shouted. “In our tummies!”
“That’s right!” Billy said. “This is going to be the greatest Halloween in the history of the world!”
The clock in the hall struck four.
“It’s time!” we all screamed as we charged out the door. “Let’s go! Candy! Candy! Candy!”
4
The Rules of Halloween
We followed Michael’s map until we came to the first house on Maple Street. We all ran up the front steps. Alexia rang the doorbell. A bald guy opened the door.
“Oob!” we all shouted.
“Oob?” the bald guy said. “Don’t you mean boo?”
“‘Oob’ is ‘boo’ backward,” I told him.
Saying stuff backward is cool.*
“Treat or trick!” yelled Ryan.
“I guess you mean trick or treat,” the bald guy said. “Well, what’s the trick?”
We all looked at each other. Nobody knew any tricks. It had never come up before. People always gave us candy, no questions asked. Maybe this guy just came to America a few days ago, and he didn’t know how Halloween worked yet.
“You’re supposed to give us candy,” I explained to the guy. “Then we leave.”
“What if I don’t have any candy?” the guy asked. “You’re supposed to play a trick on me.”
“We don’t have any tricks,” Neil told him.
“Well, I don’t have any candy,” the guy replied.
“How can you not have candy?” asked Alexia. “It’s Halloween.”
“Yeah, don’t you know the rules of Halloween, mister?” I asked.
“I ate all my candy yesterday,” the guy told us. “I have a sweet tooth, and I couldn’t resist.”
Some people just don’t get Halloween. I bet that guy had plenty of candy, but he just wanted to give us a hard time. I’m not sure I would want his candy anyway.
We got out of there fast. That guy was weird.
5
Ghosts, Goblins, and Ghouls
“Oob!” we shouted when we came to the next house. “Treat or trick!”
The old lady who answered the door was wearing an apron. She held out a big basket full of candy.
“You can each take one,” she said.
“Can I take two?” Ryan asked.
“Okay, okay, you can take two,” she agreed.
“Can I take three?” I asked.
“No.”
That lady was mean.
We went up and down Maple Street, grabbing fistfuls of Kit Kats, M&M’S, Smarties, Warheads, Hershey’s bars, Jolly Ranchers, Life Savers, Reese’s Pieces, York Peppermint Patties, Mounds, Jelly Bellies. . . .
Well, you get the idea.
I wanted to start eating my candy right away, but Michael and Billy said we should get a whole bunch of candy before we started eating any of it. After we cleaned out all the houses on Maple Street, we moved on to Pine Street.
“My pillowcase is getting heavy!” complained Alexia.
“Mine too,” agreed Neil the nude kid.
“I say we should eat some of our candy now,” suggested Ryan. “Then our pillowcases won’t feel so heavy.”
What a genius! We could eat candy and lighten our pillowcases at the same time. Ryan should get the No Bell Prize for that idea. That’s a prize they give out to people who don’t have bells.
We stopped on the corner and took a break. I had a Laffy Taffy. Ryan had a Mars bar. Billy had a Snickers. Michael had some Tootsie Rolls. Neil had some Starburst. Yum!
I still can’t get over the fact that on Halloween people just hand you candy, and you don’t even have to pay for it or anything. What a scam! We all agreed that Halloween is the best holiday of all the holidays, and this was the greatest day of our lives.
By now the streets were filled with lots of kids out trick-or-treating. We saw some pretty scary-looking costumes. There were kids dressed like ghosts, goblins, ghouls, zombies, and hunchbacks.
I saw these two kids who were really scary. One of them didn’t have a head, and the other one had two heads! That was weird.* But right after that, I saw the most hideous, horrifying creature in the history of the world.
It was Andrea Young!
Ugh, disgustin
g! She was walking toward us. And she was with her crybaby friend Emily. Just once I wish I could go someplace without bumping into those two.
“I’m a witch,” Andrea announced, as if we couldn’t figure it out from the pointy hat, broomstick, and wart on her nose. She spun around so we could see her costume in all its glory.
“You look even uglier than usual,” I told Andrea.
“Oh, snap!” said Ryan.
“I’m a witch too,” said Emily, who always does everything Andrea does.
“We’re good witches, not bad witches,” Andrea informed us.
“You should put bread on either side of you,” I suggested. “Then you’d be a sandwich.”
“Very funny, Arlo,” Andrea said, rolling her eyes.
“I’m a mutant zombie pirate,” said Ryan. “Arghhhh!”
“I’m the underwerewolf!” said Billy. “Grrrrrrrr!”
“My mom told me that violent costumes are inappropriate for children,” Andrea said. “They could lead to violent behavior.”
“Your mom is weird,” I told Andrea.
“Look,” Michael said. “We don’t have time to make chitchat with you two. There’s a lot of candy out there, and we want to go get it.”
“Oh, I don’t care about getting a lot of candy,” Andrea told us. “I’m going to donate any candy I collect to the poor. There are a lot of children who can’t afford candy.”
“They don’t have to afford candy!” Alexia said. “It’s free!”
“Yeah,” I said. “They can go out on the street and get it, just like us!”
“That’s not the point, Arlo,” Andrea said. “The point is to help people. Hey, why don’t you join us, and we’ll donate all our candy to poor people?”
“Are you crazy?” Neil said. “We’re keeping our candy. The candy we get tonight is going to last us all year.”
“Yeah,” said Michael, showing Andrea the map he made. “We have a plan for maximum candy accumulation.”
“That’s too bad,” said Andrea. “This morning I was in the computer room at school, and Mrs. Yonkers told me to make sure I come and trick-or-treat at her house. She said she would have a magical Halloween surprise treat that we couldn’t get anywhere else in the world.”