Dunc's Halloween

by Gary Paulsen

  “Right.” Amos nodded. “Like, let’s not do it—how’s that for simple?”

  Dunc shook his head. “Here I am, trying to make you famous—”

  “You’re trying to make me a lamb chop, that’s what you’re trying to do.”

  “Come on, you know I wouldn’t do anything that would really hurt you.”

  Amos just ignored that one. It was too ridiculous to even notice. They were sitting on Amos’s bed getting ready to get ready to go to the costume party.

  Dunc continued. “We skip trick or treats—”

  “Skip trick or treats? After I worked on that schedule for weeks? We can make our candy ration for a year if we work it right.”

  “Think now,” Dunc said, holding up his hand. “The neighborhood will be crawling with little kids, and we’re going to try trap a werewolf. Or at least somebody who thinks he’s a werewolf. It will be too confusing, too dangerous. We have to wait, hold back until after the costume party, then set our trap. If we’re out there rumbling around before we’re ready to trap him, he might get suspicious and we’ll lose our chance.”

  As always, Dunc talked Amos into it. What was worse, at least to Amos, Dunc also talked him into going to the costume party dressed in his lamb suit. Now he was dragging him out of the house, and they were on their way to the gymnasium.

  “Oh, man,” Amos said, trotting along next to Dunc. “This is really bad. I look like I’ve been hit by a car—like a roadkill somebody scraped up.”

  “No, you don’t. It’s cute, really. Melissa will love it. Besides, there wouldn’t have been time to change after the party.”

  They were walking along the sidewalk heading for the costume party. Dunc was dressed as a shepherd, to go with Amos’s lamb costume.

  Amos stopped dead. “Dunc, you’re always telling me to stop and think. All right, now you do it. Think what you’re actually doing here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re walking along the street with somebody dressed in a lamb suit, talking about trying to catch a werewolf in a volleyball net.”

  Dunc looked at Amos. “So?”

  “Well, doesn’t that sound a little strange to you?”

  Dunc thought a moment, then scratched his head. “No—not if we catch him. It will be a first. And besides, I’m prepared.” He dug into his pocket and held up something shining silver in the streetlight. “I have the butter knife.”

  “Oh.” Amos nodded. “Oh, good. I feel much better now. I was really worried, but now it’s all right.…” He trailed off as they approached the gym.

  There were monsters and princesses and vampires and pirates and rock stars streaming in from all directions. Amos moved off to the side in the dark place next to the entrance to the gym. “Let’s hold back. I want to see if I can recognize Melissa.”

  Dunc stood next to him. “We don’t know what her costume is.”

  As Dunc studied each person going in the door, his attention was diverted from Amos. Which was just as well.

  Back in the shadows, some very strange things were happening to Amos.

  The moon had come up over the gym, and as they had walked to the door, Amos had come into the silver-blue light.

  The changes came slowly at first, almost not there at all.

  He crouched a little. Then a little more. And then his ears and nose grew a little. Then a little more. And hair grew on his hands and neck and face. Then a little more. And all of this happened and kept happening until it wasn’t Amos standing in the dark next to Dunc. It wasn’t really not Amos, but it wasn’t really him, either.

  The crouch continued until it was just more comfortable for Amos to be down on all fours, while his growing nose made it easier for him to growl and pant than to talk. It all seemed so natural, and it happened one-thing-to-another until Amos wasn’t much like Amos any longer. He looked less and less like Amos and more and more like a kind of rangy cross between a coyote and a dog pound stray.

  Except, of course, that he was wearing a T-shirt, a pair of Fruit of the Loom shorts, a moldy lamb costume, and a pair of tennis shoes.

  Dunc turned. “Amos?”

  But Amos was gone. He had dropped back into the darkness, flipped his feet to get the tennis shoes off his paws, and set off at a lope, the lamb costume trailing along behind.

  Dunc looked to his right. Amos moved around to his left, zigzagged through some people in costumes, and whipped into the gym.

  Dunc didn’t see him. “Amos? Come on now. This is no time for kidding around.”

  Dunc heard a sudden commotion inside the gym, yelling and noise, and he turned to the door.

  “Somebody catch him!” an adult voice roared. It was one of the teachers who were chaperoning the party. “They aren’t supposed to be in here!”

  Dunc moved inside the gym. At first he couldn’t see anything through the people milling around.

  Then he caught a glimpse of a furry animal zipping through legs and outstretched arms.

  Somebody’s dog had gotten into the gym, he thought. But something in him knew what it really was even then.

  “It’s a dog!” someone yelled. “Wearing a costume—a dog. Catch it, catch it!”

  That was when Dunc got a clear view and saw that the “dog” was wearing a tattered lamb suit.

  Dunc moved closer, fighting his way through the crowd.

  “It’s all right, don’t worry—I’ve got him.”

  The voice was very familiar. Dunc worked his way to where everybody was standing around in a circle and saw Melissa kneeling on the ground.

  She was holding the dog, looking up at the rest of them. “He’s very friendly.”

  “Amos?” Dunc said.

  Amos wagged his tail at Dunc, panted a bit, and leaned in to let Melissa hug him.

  “Oh, man,” Dunc said. “We’ve got to get you out of here.”

  Amos raised his lips, showed a good set of yellow-white fangs to Dunc, and growled, pushing harder against Melissa.

  “Is this your dog?” Melissa asked.

  “Well, sort of—yes.”

  “And you think it’s cute to dress him up like this and bring him to a costume party?” Melissa shook her head. “For shame—it takes away his natural dignity.”

  Dunc looked helplessly at Amos. “If you don’t get out of here, you might, you know, start to change back.”

  Amos’s head sagged.

  “What are you talking about?” Melissa asked.

  “Now!” Dunc said, pointing to the door. “Right now!”

  Amos detached himself from Melissa and slunk toward the gym door through the crowd.

  “Good dog,” Dunc said, walking beside him. “That’s a good dog.”

  “I think it’s awful.” Melissa was following next to Amos. “He’s so cute!”

  Amos wagged his tail and looked up at Melissa with pleading eyes.

  “Out!” Dunc said. “Keep going!”

  To the door, through the door. Once they were outside, Dunc led the way off into the darkness next to the gym and away from people watching. When they were in the clear, he stopped Amos.

  “Hold it right there.”

  Amos stopped and looked up at Dunc, panting gently, his tail wagging slowly from beneath the lamb costume.

  “Can you understand me?” Dunc asked. “You know, like you’re a person?”

  Amos nodded.

  “Good. And can you talk?”

  Amos shook his head slowly from side to side. Then he hesitated and bent his tongue and lips and gave it a try.

  A muffled whine came out.

  “So,” Dunc said. “At least you know what I’m saying. Apparently that werewolf got you hard enough to cause a change. As you can tell, you’ve become a dog. Or a coyote with mange.”

  Amos growled.

  “Well, not that bad—but sort of ugly.”

  Another growl.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do,” Dunc said, reaching inside his shepherd robe and pulling out the
silver butter knife. “I’ll scratch you on the forehead with this. According to my research, you’ll be back to normal in a short time.” With his other hand he crossed his fingers.

  Amos nodded.

  Dunc reached down with the butter knife, placed the point against Amos’s forehead, and began to scratch.

  Or was about to begin to.

  Amos suddenly went stiff like a poker, swiveled his head, and raised one leg, staring off into the darkness by the Dumpster.

  “You’re pointing?” Dunc said. “Is that what you are, a bird dog?”

  He turned to look.

  And found himself staring into two glowing yellow eyes that seemed about a foot apart.

  “It’s the werewolf,” he said. But it was a totally needless comment. By the time the sentence was finished, the monster was on them.

  .9

  “Run, Amos!” Dunc yelled—another needless command. Amos had dodged left, feinted right, and jumped straight in the air, and when he hit the ground, his feet—all four of them—were moving forward at close to the sixty miles an hour he would have liked for trick or treating.

  The monster hesitated, and the hesitation saved Dunc. In midstride it made for Amos, then back to Dunc, and finally tore off after Amos.

  “Lead him to the Riglettis’!” Dunc screamed at the disappearing Amos. “I’ll take a short cut.”

  He had no way of knowing if Amos had heard him, and it was silly to think of Amos leading the werewolf anywhere.

  Amos was just trying to stay alive. While Dunc cut through the alleys to make the two blocks to the Riglettis’, where the volleyball net was stretched, Amos tried to stay in front of the monster.

  At first it looked bad. The werewolf was gaining.

  Then it looked worse than bad. Amos could feel hot breath on his tail, and he knew that in another leap it would be on him.

  Just as he moved out of sight of Dunc, as he was heading around the block that Dunc was cutting off by using the alley, at exactly the point where the monster would have had him, Amos found salvation.

  They were moving along an old-fashioned picket fence, and at the end three boards were missing.

  Amos threw himself at the opening. The monster hit in back of him and burst through, but the tight fit slowed him.

  Amos gained two steps, then another half a step. He bored around the side of the house, back between the houses.

  A board fence. He gathered, leaped, and cleared the top, landing in a back yard. He still hadn’t put the picture together, didn’t know for certain where he was, until he landed in the yard.

  In the moonlight he could see that it was full of mounds and holes. That was enough.

  It was the Helmut place.

  Helmut was a bachelor who lived alone, and from what rumor said, he hadn’t cleaned his house since sometime just before the Second World War. But it wasn’t his hygiene that worried Amos.

  Helmut had two dogs.

  Sort of dogs.

  At some point somebody had given Helmut two pit bulls, which he had tried to raise as pets. Which was about like raising two Tasmanian devils as pets.

  They were completely vicious and spent all their time fighting each other and digging holes looking for something to fight and rip to pieces and kill and eat and chew up and spit out and maim and dismember.

  After due consideration, Helmut had named the dogs Death and Destruction. The names fit.

  They were not asleep, the pit bulls. Some people said they never slept but sat staring at each other with raging red eyes. Amos landed at a point almost exactly between them.

  They saw him at the same instant, but out of disbelief—nothing had ever been crazy enough to actually jump into their yard—they did not react at once.

  Which gave the werewolf the moment it needed to clear the fence and land almost perfectly on top of Amos.

  In that same split moment the two pit bulls, with grand, grateful snarls, threw themselves through the air. They too landed on Amos.

  And the werewolf.

  In reality, the fight that ensued could not be measured, and it is not possible to say who won.

  Only who lost.

  Amos.

  The fight had a life of its own. It became a thing alive. In a great, snarling, rolling, screaming ball the fight tumbled across the yard, slammed against the back fence gate and broke through, boiled and hammered and bled and foamed down the alley with pit bulls first on top, then on the bottom, and the werewolf first on top, then on the bottom, and Amos always, always, on the bottom of it all.

  It could not be said that Amos guided the whole screaming mass toward the Riglettis’. Amos was just trying to survive. The fight was so savage and confusing that, at one point, frenzied, he found himself chewing on his own foot.

  But the fight did move, it rolled and tumbled and seethed down the alley, and the direction it moved was toward the Riglettis’. When it was at the back of the Riglettis’ yard, it seemed to turn or roll sideways and head into the back yard, where it boiled almost directly on top of the waiting Dunc.

  With a mighty heave, Dunc pulled the release rope that dropped the volleyball net on all of them. It went down in a rush of screams, growls, bellows, slashing fangs, and the flash of silver as Dunc stabbed and cut at anything that moved with the butter knife.

  .10

  “Don’t pick at it.” Dunc’s voice was muffled through the bandages. “You’ll get infected.”

  “You sound like my mother.” Amos could hardly be understood himself. His entire body was wrapped in white strips of tape.

  After the police came—called by Mrs. Rigletti—and the ambulances had taken them away, the boys had spent two days in the hospital, mostly getting stitches and shots. They were now at home, and their parents had let them spend the week they would have to stay in bed at Dunc’s house together wrapped in bandages and tape.

  “Funny how things turn out, isn’t it?” Dunc said.

  “Oh, yes, hilarious. It’s all I can do to stop laughing.”

  Amos had gotten the worst of it by far—one of the doctors in the emergency room said he looked like a jumbo burger before it’s cooked. He was having trouble seeing any humor in any of it.

  “No, really. Look at it, and you’ll see how crazy it all is.” Dunc tried to ease his arm at the place where the rope from the volleyball net had wrapped and burned it when the werewolf had hit the end of the net. “Nobody knows anything about the werewolf business—they just thought all the damage was done by Death and Destruction. That they had gotten out of the yard on their own. So we don’t have to explain everything.”

  “What about Mr. Nerkovich?” Amos asked.

  Mr. Nerkovich was the social-studies-teacher-slash-football-coach. That was how he introduced himself—as a social-studies-teacher-slash-football-coach. Everybody called him Slash. It was he who had been the original werewolf. His wife had made him go on a vacation to Europe two and a half months earlier, and there he’d been bitten by what he had thought was a stray dog.

  “Slash is all right,” Dunc said. “I got him with the butter knife at the same time I got you—and Death and Destruction. It didn’t help the pit bulls, but Mr. Nerkovich is fine—the cops just thought it was all a student prank. That somebody had given him spiked punch or something.”

  Amos made a funny sound.

  “What was that?” Dunc asked.

  “It was a laugh. That’s how a laugh sounds through gauze. I just remembered the first thing Slash said to me when he changed back into a human.”

  “What was that?”

  “Before he knew where he was, naked with dogs all over him, he took a look at me and said: ‘Binder, take a lap.” ’

  Dunc giggled. “Well there, you see—there is something funny about all this. Plus, you’ve got a new record.”

  “Record—what are you talking about?”

  “Melissa. She actually hugged you. In the gym.”

  “Oh. Right. She thought I was a dog.”


  “That doesn’t change it. She actually hugged you. Dog or not, that’s a record.”

  “Well …”

  “And speaking of records—I was reading an article the other day—”

  “No.”

  “What do you mean, no? You haven’t even heard what I was going to talk about.”

  “So all right, what was it?”

  “It was an article about hang gliding—”

  “No.”

  “It seems there isn’t much of a distance record for hang gliding with two people—”

  “No.”

  “So I’ve got this acquaintance who teaches hang gliding, and I thought we—”

  “No.”

  “Amos—”

  “No.”

  Be sure to join Dunc and Amos in these other Culpepper Adventures:

  The Case of the Dirty Bird

  When Dunc Culpepper and his best friend, Amos, first see the parrot in a pet store, they’re not impressed—it’s smelly, scruffy, and missing half its feathers. They’re only slightly impressed when they learn that the parrot speaks four languages, has outlived ten of its owners, and is probably 150 years old. But when the bird starts mouthing off about buried treasure, Dunc and Amos get pretty excited—let the amateur sleuthing begin!

  Dunc’s Doll

  Dunc and his accident-prone friend Amos are up to their old sleuthing habits once again. This time they’re after a band of doll thieves! When a doll that once belonged to Charles Dickens’s daughter is stolen from an exhibition at the local mall, the two boys put on their detective gear and do some serious snooping. Will a vicious watch dog keep them from retrieving the valuable missing doll?

  Culpepper’s Cannon

  Dunc and Amos are researching the Civil War cannon that stands in the town square, when they find a note inside telling them about a time portal. Entering it through the dressing room of La Petite, a women’s clothing store, the boys find themselves in downtown Chatham on March 8, 1862—the day before the historic clash between the Monitor and the Merrimac. But the Confederate soldiers they meet mistake them for Yankee spies. Will they make it back to the future in one piece?