And as the four creatures stepped forward, the chanting stopped. Their jack-o’-lantern heads bobbed on their shoulders. Their ragged smiles grew wider as they came near.
They held their hands waist high. In their hands, they each held a pumpkin head.
Four extra pumpkin heads!
“Oh, no!” Lee cried out when he saw them.
Tabby grabbed Lee’s arm in terror. “What are they going to do with those heads?”
Bright yellow flames flickered from the eyes and grinning mouths of the four extra heads.
“These are for you!” a pumpkin head announced in a voice that sounded like sharp pieces of gravel being rubbed together.
“Ohhh!” A low moan escaped my throat.
I stared at the empty heads, stared at their fiery eyes, their ugly grins.
“These are for you,” the pumpkin head repeated, stepping closer. “These will be your new heads!”
“No! You can’t! You can’t!” Tabby screamed. “You—”
Her cry was cut off as one of the creatures raised a pumpkin head over her. It had a hole cut in the bottom. The creature slammed the pumpkin head over Tabby’s head.
Lee tried to run.
But a creature moved quickly to block his way—and then slammed a pumpkin head onto Lee’s head.
I stumbled back, my mouth open in amazement.
Hands pressed helplessly against the sides of their pumpkin heads, Tabby and Lee ran down the street. Ran blindly. Ran screaming. Screaming into the darkness.
And then the creatures turned to Walker and me. And raised the empty pumpkin heads high.
“Please—!” I begged. “Please—no!”
28
“Please—!” I cried. “Please don’t give me a pumpkin head!”
“Please—” Walker joined in.
And then we both burst out laughing.
The two creatures set the empty pumpkin heads down on the ground. And then their own pumpkin heads started to change. The flames died out. The heads began to shrink. And change shape.
A few seconds later, Shane and Shana had their own heads back.
And then all four of us started to laugh. We hugged each other and spun around. We danced wildly, crazily, up and down the street. We tossed back our heads and laughed at the moon and stars. Laughed till it hurt.
“It worked, guys!” I exclaimed when we finally stopped celebrating. “It worked! It worked! We really scared Tabby and Lee this time!”
“They’ll be scared for the rest of their lives!”
Walker declared. He slapped Shane on the back. Then he danced another happy dance, waving his hands gleefully above his head.
“We did it! We did it!” I chanted joyfully. “We really scared them! We finally scared them!”
“That was so much fun!” Walker exclaimed. “And so easy!”
I stepped up to Shane and Shana and hugged them both. “Of course,” I exclaimed, “it helps to have two aliens from another planet as friends!”
29
“Whoa! Take it easy!” Shane warned, lowering his voice. He glanced around nervously.
“We don’t want any strangers to know that we’re not from Earth,” Shana said.
“I know, I know!” I replied. “That’s why we didn’t use your weird powers to scare Tabby and Lee before.”
“This year, we were desperate!” Walker declared.
“But we’ve got to be very careful,” Shana said.
Shane rose up and turned to all the other pumpkin-head creatures who still circled us. “Thanks for your help, brothers and sisters!” Shane called to them. “You’d better hurry home before anyone sees that we have invaded this whole neighborhood!”
Waving and laughing, murmuring happily to each other, the other pumpkin heads hurried back to their houses. In a few seconds, the street stood empty again—except for us four friends.
We started walking down the middle of the street, making our way home. Walker and I dragged our heavy trick-or-treat bags beside us.
Walker turned to Shane and Shana. A smile spread over his face. “When do you think Tabby and Lee will discover they can just pull off their pumpkin heads?” Walker asked.
“Maybe never!” Shana replied.
And we all started laughing all over again.
We didn’t stop until we reached the bottom of my driveway.
“Thanks again,” I told Shane and Shana. “You guys were great.”
“You were greater than great! You were awesome!” Walker declared. “A couple of times, you even scared me! And I knew it was you!”
“And do you know what else is great about having aliens from another planet as friends?” I said. “You two don’t eat candy.”
“That’s right,” Shane and Shana agreed.
“That means Walker and I get to keep it all!” I exclaimed, laughing.
I suddenly had a serious thought. I stopped laughing. “You know, I’ve never seen you two eat,” I told the two aliens. “What do you eat?”
Shana reached out and pinched my arm. “You’re still really bony, Drew,” she replied. “You’ll find out what Shane and I eat when you fill out a bit.”
“Yeah,” Shane chimed in. “People from our planet only like to eat very plump adults. So you don’t have to worry for now.”
My mouth dropped open. “Hey—you’re kidding, right?” I demanded. “Shane? Shana? You’re not serious—right? That’s a joke. Right? Right?”
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