by Dan Gutman
“You stepped in a pumpkin head, dork,” said Andrea.
“I knew that,” I said, finally shaking my foot free.
Any time somebody tells you that you did something dumb, always act like you did it on purpose. That’s the first rule of being a kid.
Ryan rang the doorbell. It played funeral music. I was hoping that nobody would be home, but soon we heard footsteps and the front door slowly creaked open. I held my breath.
It was Mrs. Patty. She was still dressed in her witch costume. At least she didn’t have an ax.
“Aha,” she said in a scary voice, “my last group of trick-or-treaters is finally here.”
“I love your Halloween decorations, Mrs. Patty,” said Andrea, who never misses a chance to brownnose a grown-up.
“What decorations?” Mrs. Patty said. “My house always looks like this.”
I was really sweating now.
“We better go,” I said. “It’s way past our bedtimes.”
“Isn’t there something you want to say first?” asked Mrs. Patty.
“Yeah,” I said, “how does that wart stay on your nose?”
“You’re supposed to say ‘trick or treat,’” said Mrs. Patty.
“Oh,” we all said, “trick or treat.”
“Before I give you candy,” she said, “you must pass a test.”
“No, that’s not how it goes,” said Michael. “All we have to do is say ‘trick or treat’ and you give us candy. Then we leave. That’s the way it’s supposed to work.”
“Not here,” said Mrs. Patty. “Do you want the candy or not?”
“Okay, okay,” Ryan said, “what’s the test?”
“If you go trick-or-treating,” said Mrs. Patty, “and they give out Twix bars at ten houses and Nestlé Crunch bars at five houses and Baby Ruth bars at seven houses, how many candy bars will you have altogether?”
Hey, that was totally not fair! Mrs. Patty was trying to turn trick-or-treating into math class. All day long we have to learn reading and writing and math. My brain is tired after school. I shouldn’t have to do more schoolwork. Mrs. Patty isn’t even a math teacher. She’s a secretary!
“Twenty-two,” Andrea answered right away. “You’ll have twenty-two candy bars altogether.”
“That is correct,” Mrs. Patty said as she turned around. “Come in. The candy is down in the basement.”
Down in the basement? Why couldn’t she just keep a bowl of candy in the front hallway like normal people? Mrs. Patty is batty!
I didn’t want to go down in Mrs. Patty’s basement. I didn’t want to see her husband’s head in a bucket down there. It figured that Andrea had to be so good at math. If it weren’t for her, we could have left.
Mrs. Patty opened a door and told us to go down the steps. It was dark. I could hardly see anything except some skulls on the walls with candles inside them. When we got to the bottom, we had to walk through a winding hallway. There were doors going off in different directions. I didn’t see any candy anywhere. We weren’t sure which way to go.
“We’re lost!” Andrea said.
“Ouch!” Emily said. “I hit my head on something.”
“Let’s turn around and make a run for it,” I said, “before it’s too late.”
“I’m scared,” Michael said.
“I think I’m going to pee in my pants,” said Ryan.
“If I die,” Andrea told Emily, “you can have my candy.”
“You are a true friend,” said Emily. “You can have my candy if I die.”
I wished they would both die! I didn’t even care if I got their candy or not.
We came to the end of the hallway. There was a door. A sign on the door said, “Candy in Here.” I put my hand on the doorknob.
“Don’t open that door!” Michael said, just as I was about to turn the doorknob.
“Why not?” I asked.
“In horror movies,” Michael explained, “whenever somebody opens a door, a crazy guy wearing a mask leaps out with an ax or something.”
“Don’t be silly,” Ryan said. “Open the door, A.J. We’ll get the candy and get out of here.”
I looked at Ryan. Emily looked at Andrea. Michael looked at me. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. I had to think fast. So I turned the doorknob.
Do you want to know what was behind the door?
Well, I’m not going to tell you.
Okay, okay, I’ll tell you. But you have to read the next chapter, so nah-nah-nah boo-boo on you.
10
Marvin the Headless Mummy
Behind the door was a big, dark room, and it was full of kids. I couldn’t see much, but I recognized Neil the nude kid, and Annette, and some other kids from our class. They were just sitting there, like they were waiting for us.
It was weird.
In the middle of the room was a big trunk. It was like one of those trunks that pirates used to hide their treasure.
Michael asked, “What’s in the—
But he never got the chance to finish his sentence, because suddenly the top of the trunk started to lift up. A hand was pushing it open! And then this thing got out.
It was a mummy…with bandages all over its body! But the weird thing was that the mummy didn’t have a head! Well, it had a head, but the head wasn’t on top of its shoulders where it was supposed to be. The mummy was holding its head in its hand like a football!
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeek!” screamed Emily.
“It’s Marvin!” I shouted. “Mrs. Patty’s dead husband! His ghost came to life!”
“He’s the Halloween Monster!” yelled Ryan.
“We’re gonna die!” Michael screamed.
“I told you we should have made a run for it!” I shouted.
“Bwa-ha-ha-ha!” said Marvin’s head. I had no idea how it was able to talk, but it did. It said, “Give me your candy! Put everything in the trunk, or else.”
That head didn’t have to ask me twice. I ran over and dumped all the candy from my pillowcase into the trunk. So did Ryan and Michael and Andrea and Emily and Neil the nude kid and Annette. I guess that mummy made all the kids turn over their candy, because there were about a million hundred candy bars in the trunk.
“Bwa-ha-ha-ha!” said Marvin’s head as Marvin danced around the trunk. “It’s mine! All mine! Now at long last I have more candy than anyone in town! My life is complete! Bwa-ha-ha-ha!”
“That’s what you think!”
We all turned to see who said that. A big guy stepped out of the shadows at the other end of the room. He had a crown on his head and a sword in his hand.
It was Mr. Klutz, our school principal!
“It is I,” he said, pointing his sword at Marvin the mummy. “King Louis the Fourteenth. In the name of France, surrender that candy!”
“Over my dead body!” Marvin said. (That was really weird. Everybody knows mummies are dead bodies to begin with.)
Marvin grabbed a sword off the wall with the hand he wasn’t using to hold his own head. Then he and Mr. Klutz started sword fighting, just like in the movies. It was cool.
“Get him, Mr. Klutz!” we all shouted. “Kill the Halloween Monster!”
Mr. Klutz and Marvin were dancing around, swinging their swords at each other.
“Off with your head!” Mr. Klutz said, taking a wild swing.
“His head is already off!” somebody yelled.
“Oh,” Mr. Klutz said. “Let him eat cake!”
The sword fight was really exciting. Finally, after a million hundred minutes, Mr. Klutz knocked the sword out of the Halloween Monster’s hand.
“Please have mercy,” Marvin said as he fell to his knees.
“Begone!” Mr. Klutz said. “Don’t ever steal candy from the children of Ella Mentry School again!”
“I’ll get you, my pretty,” said the Halloween Monster as it ran up the stairs, “and your little dog, too.”
“I don’t even have a dog,” said Mr. Klutz.
After the H
alloween Monster ran away, Mrs. Patty came downstairs.
“Hooray for Mr. Klutz!” she yelled. We all started cheering.
“I have defeated the Halloween Monster!” said Mr. Klutz…I mean, Louis the Fourteenth.
“We should celebrate!” said Mrs. Patty. “Let’s have a candy party!”
“Yeah!” we all yelled.
Mr. Klutz and Mrs. Patty tipped over the treasure chest and dumped all the candy on the floor. We were allowed to eat whatever we wanted and take the rest home.
I ate so much candy, I thought I was going to throw up. It was the greatest night of my life. After eating all that candy, I couldn’t fall asleep for a million hundred hours. I just lay there in bed thinking about all the cool stuff that happened.
Maybe Mrs. Patty does keep her Halloween decorations up all year round. Maybe her husband, Marvin, really is dead. Maybe she did chop his head off and turn him into a mummy. Maybe that’s why he’s so mad and he has to run around the house holding his own head. Maybe now that he lost the sword fight to Mr. Klutz, he’ll be nicer and stop taking kids’ candy. Maybe Marvin and Mrs. Patty will get back together and just be normal people again, even though one of them is dead. And maybe Mrs. Patty will be able to get that wart off her nose.
But it won’t be easy!
About the Author and the Illustrator
DAN GUTMAN has written many weird books for kids. Dan lives in New Jersey (a very weird place) with his weird wife and two weird children. You can visit him on his weird website at www.dangutman.com
JIM PAILLOT lives in Arizona (another weird place) with his weird wife and two weird children. Isn’t that weird? You can visit him on his weird website at www.jimpaillot.com
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Credits
Cover art © 2007 by Jim Paillot
Copyright
MY WEIRD SCHOOL #13: MRS. PATTY IS BATTY!. Text copyright © 2006 by Dan Gutman. Illustrations copyright © 2006 by Jim Paillot. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub © Edition DECEMBER 2008 ISBN: 9780061973338
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com
* Hey, all year long they tell us not to take candy from strangers, and then Halloween comes and you have to. What’s up with that?