The Best Halloween Ever Read online

  “I could ask her what she’s going to be for Halloween,” Louella said. “That might give me a clue.”

  It did.

  “What am I going to be for Halloween?” Imogene said. “Well, I’m not going to be hanging around here in some secondhand bathrobe with a lot of fake witches and spooky music on the PA and little kid games like that … “ She pointed to the second-grade room, where two PTA mothers were deciding where to hang up a sign that said “Pin the Tail on the Black Cat.”

  That satisfied Louella. “I know exactly what I’m going to do with my eight dollars,” she said. “After Halloween they’ll mark down the price on all the leftover Halloween costumes, and I’ll buy one. I don’t even care what it is, just so it’s not a Pilgrim.”

  Louella was lucky, I thought, because this year the stores were full of Halloween costumes instead of Halloween candy.

  “What did you expect?” Mother said, when Charlie came home moaning and groaning about the empty shelves at the supermarket. Charlie spends most of October checking out all the different candy, deciding what he wants most and what he doesn’t want, and what he wants my mother to buy in case there’s some left over. You’d think he never saw candy except at Halloween.

  That’s what Mother said. “You’d think you never saw candy except at Halloween, but you have candy all the time. I buy candy bars for the high school band trip every year. Your father buys me candy on my birthday. Aunt Elizabeth makes that wonderful fudge at Christmas.”

  “But that’s not like Halloween candy,”

  Charlie said. “Halloween candy is like … it’s like … “

  I helped him out. “It’s like you get to have all the candy there is, all at once. You get to look at it, and count it, and separate it into little piles … “

  “And trade it,” Charlie said, “and eat it...

  “And hand it all over to the Herdmans,” Mother said. “Don’t forget that part.”

  But what Charlie couldn’t forget was the empty shelves at the supermarket. “There isn’t anything there,” he kept saying. “No candy at all, not even healthy candy like PowerBars.”

  Mother said there was no such thing as healthy candy, and I guess she was getting tired of this subject, because she changed it. “Just wait till you get to school on Halloween night,” she said, “ … lots of surprises!”

  What surprises? I wondered. We already knew about the Mystery Swamp and the boiling cauldron and the monsters, and anything we didn’t know about Alice would be glad to tell us—unless my mother had some private surprise. Did they talk her into being a witch? Or some other gross thing?

  As far as I knew she was still on the pumpkin committee, and there were notes about it on the refrigerator: pumpkin committee meeting, Wednesday, 10:30 and call Mr. Brown about pumpkins.Still, I wanted to make sure. “How’s the pumpkin committee going?” I asked Mother. “Is it a lot of work?”

  “Well, it’s a lot of time asking people to donate pumpkins and a lot of time lugging pumpkins around,” she said, “but I don’t mind.”

  “Because you’d rather collect pumpkins,” I said, “instead of being, oh, some witch or Mrs. Ghost or something?”

  “No,” she said, “because I just want this to be the best Halloween ever!”

  My mother was going to be very disappointed, I thought. Now that the Herdmans weren’t coming for sure, the Woodrow Wilson Halloween looked a little better, but not much, and not to everybody.

  Charlie wasn’t the only one who checked out the supermarket and the empty shelves—there were kids there every afternoon, remembering where their favorite candy always used to be.

  “ … M&M’s on the top shelf at the end” … “Reese’s Pieces right in the middle, between two kinds of Hershey’s Kisses” … “Milk Duds on the bottom, beside Jujubes … “

  Boomer remembered the year there weren’t any raisin-and-nut Chunkies. “They were my favorite,” he said, “and I had to collect something else.”

  Louella missed Peanut Butter Cups and I missed Starbursts, but what we all really missed was just Halloween candy on Halloween.

  The only good thing about it was that it would be Herdman-free, which, according to Alice, was the whole idea in the first place.

  “We were wrong about the homework,” she reported. “That wasn’t why Mr. Crabtree decided to have Halloween at school. The mayor made him have Halloween at school so they could keep track of the Herdmans, my mother said.”

  “But they aren’t coming,” I said.

  “Well, the mayor didn’t know that would happen, and Mr. Crabtree didn’t know that would happen, but at least we get to have a Herdman-free Halloween!”

  Alice was so pleased with herself and her inside information that she didn’t even notice who was standing around to hear the inside information, but I did.

  Besides me and Louella, there was Boomer Malone and Gloria Coburn and Junior Jacobs. And, right outside the door, taking in every word and repeating “Herdman-free?” to herself … was Imogene.

  6

  “Now exactly how did she look?” Louella asked me. “Did she look mad? What do you think they’ll do? Do you think they’ll come after all?” She was pacing up and down the hall, really nervous. “I think they will, just to show the mayor and Mr. Crabtree and Alice’s mother.”

  Of course Louella was worried about whether to tell her mother, “ … because if I do bring Howard and then the Herdmans show up anyway, I’ll get killed, plus I won’t get my eight dollars!”

  I thought she was probably right about the eight dollars. The last time the Herdmans got their hands on Howard, Imogene and Leroy drew pictures all over his bald head and charged people twenty-five cents to look at him. Howard didn’t seem to mind, but Mrs. McCluskey had a fit. “Who knows what they’d do to him next,” she said, “if they ever got the chance?”

  Louella would have to make up her mind in a hurry, though, because Halloween was only two days away. This was all Charlie knew how to say lately. “It’s only four days away … three days away … ,” and now, “It’s only two days away, Beth. When are you going to help us with our costume?”

  Charlie had changed his mind about being a Happy Hobo, and he and Cecil Farmer were going to be the front and back of a lion. “We always wanted to be a two-person thing,” Cecil told me, “but it wouldn’t ever work with trick-or-treating. So this is our chance.”

  They used Mrs. Farmer’s E-Z Wring floor mop to be the lion’s mane—Charlie put it on his head with all the strings hanging down for me to see—and the rest of the lion would be Charlie and Cecil underneath the old slipcover.

  I had to pin it around them. “Cut some eyeholes for Cecil to see out of,” Charlie said.

  It didn’t look much like a lion, and cutting eyeholes for Cecil wouldn’t help, but of course he didn’t want to walk around all night and see nothing but the inside of a slipcover. I only had time to cut one hole because Cecil had to get back home with the mop, but he would have more time, he said, on Halloween night.

  He also said he wouldn’t do this at all if the Herdmans were going to be there. “I wouldn’t even be the front half of the lion if the Herdmans were there.”

  I didn’t blame him, but front or back, it wouldn’t matter. If the Herdmans decided to take the lion apart, neither end would be safe.

  Boomer Malone offered to be half of the lion if Cecil changed his mind. “I was going to be King Kong after all,” Boomer said, “but my grandmother sent her fur coat to the cleaners in case it had bugs, and it got stolen.” He sighed. “I even bought a gorilla mask.”

  “Then you can still be King Kong,” I said. “You could wear a sweatshirt or something.”

  Boomer shook his head. “Not without my grandmother’s coat.”

  I could understand that. In the fur coat and the gorilla mask Boomer would be a terrific King Kong, but without it he would just be a fake ape in a sweatshirt. Not too good.

  Of course he might be the only fake ape in a sweatshirt.
So far I had heard about kids who were going to be rock stars, and kids who were going to be aliens, and some superheroes, and a human fly, but no apes.

  Joanne McCoy was going to be Imogene Herdman. “Why not?” Joanne said. “They aren’t going to be there.”

  Charlie said the same thing when I told him about Boomer’s offer to be half of the lion if Cecil changed his mind.

  “Why would Cecil change his mind?” Charlie asked.

  “You know what he said ...if the Herdmans come to school on Halloween he doesn’t want to be inside a slipcover.”

  “But they aren’t coming,” Charlie said. “They all said so. They won’t be there. Everybody knows that.”

  Mrs. Hazelwood wanted to make sure. “I certainly hope we’re going to see you in costume, Imogene,” she said on Halloween morning. This was a big lie—Mrs. Hazelwood didn’t want to see Imogene at all—so she probably had her fingers crossed behind her back.

  “We can’t come,” Imogene said. “Our mother won’t let us.”

  Imogene would have to cross her fingers and her feet and her toes and her tonsils to cover that lie. Her mother probably didn’t even know there was a Woodrow Wilson Halloween party.

  If Mrs. Herdman didn’t hang around the house much, she didn’t hang around the school at all … and she probably thought PTA stood for Put Trash Away, like the signs on the trash barrels all over town.

  Mrs. Hazelwood looked relieved anyway, and she didn’t even bother to say “Oh, that’s too bad,” which would have been the normal teacher thing to say if it was anybody but a Herdman.

  “Oh, honestly!” Alice muttered. “Their mother won’t let them! What place could be safer than Woodrow Wilson School tonight?”

  Imogene—nose-to-nose with Alice—gave her a long, steady, squinchy-eyed Herdman look. “Any place will be safer than Woodrow Wilson School tonight,” she said, and then, poking Alice in the stomach with each word, “any … other … place.”

  Alice gulped and turned pale—and crosseyed, from having Imogene right in her face—but she managed to squeak out that the PTA and Mr. Crabtree and her mother would all make sure that everything would be perfectly safe. “You’ll see!” she said.

  “No,” Imogene said … poke … poke … “you’ll see.”

  Well. News about this spread from class to class in the halls and the lunchroom, and by the end of the day it was all anybody could talk about.

  Did Imogene know something mysterious

  that no one else knew? Did all the Herdmans know it, and was that the real reason they were going to stay away? And what did they know?

  And, most of all, what was going to happen, tonight, at Woodrow Wilson School?

  7

  When I got home Charlie was already there, which was surprising, and he was all upset, which wasn’t surprising.

  “Something’s going to happen tonight!” he said.

  “Well,” I said, “Halloween’s going to happen, just like it always does on October thirty-first.”

  “But the Herdmans—,” he began.

  “They aren’t even going to be there,” I reminded him, “so what could they do?”

  Actually they could do a lot. History was full of things that happened after they left—kids in the revolving door; their cat in a washing machine at the Laundromat; half-drowned turkeys at the turkey farm.

  I didn’t know what they could do at Woodrow Wilson School on Halloween night, but I did know that they were Herdmans, after all, and I had seen Imogene’s face outside the door and heard her saying, “Herdman-free?”

  Still, I knew Charlie really wanted to go to the Halloween party and be half of a lion in peace. Besides, how did I know what would happen … or might happen?

  So I said, “Don’t worry about it,” and he looked relieved.

  He was home early, he said, because “ … Miss Seaworthy let us out early, but we’re not supposed to tell anyone. She had us leave two or three at a time, down the stairs, past the boiler room, and out the back door.”

  I had never heard of one teacher, all by herself, letting her class leave early. “Why did she do that?”

  “She has to get ready to be the swamp witch, she said. Besides, our room is going to be the swamp, and that takes time.”

  “Even so, I don’t think she’s allowed to do that.”

  Charlie nodded. “I know. That’s probably why we weren’t supposed to tell anybody. But I think there was someone in the boiler room. I think someone saw us leave, so will Miss Seaworthy get in trouble?”

  I didn’t think so. Everybody had already said that the whole school should get out early so the PTA could move in and set things up.

  “All those children will be in the way!” Mrs. Wendleken had complained.

  “No,” my mother said. “We’ll be in the way. After all, this Halloween party is for them.”

  But it wasn’t, really. It was for the mayor and Mr. Crabtree and the fire chief and the police chief and all the storekeepers like Mr. Kline—everybody who wanted the Herdmans off the streets on Halloween.

  There was a note from Mother on the refrigerator. Gone to school with pumpkins, it said. If I don’t get back in time you and Charlie can come with Louella. Mrs. Coburn broke her ankle and can’t be a witch, so … Here the paper had got caught in the refrigerator door and torn off, so we didn’t know what the rest of it said.

  “She won’t be here?” Charlie said. “She won’t see our lion!”

  “She’ll see you at school,” I said.

  “But she’s always here when we get our costumes on and go out for trick-or-treating!”

  “This year is different,” I said.

  “I’ll say,” he grumbled.

  I didn’t know whether Charlie was missing Mother or missing trick-or-treating or missing the candy or just generally missing a normal Halloween, but he did cheer up when Cecil arrived with the E-Z Wring floor mop, dripping.

  “Cecil,” I said, “it’s all wet!”

  “It was a lot wetter before,” he said. “My mother forgot and washed the kitchen floor. I put the mop in the clothes dryer and that helped some, but it began to smell funny.”

  It still smelled funny, so I thought Cecil might offer to be the front half of the lion and wear the wet mop, but he didn’t offer and Charlie didn’t ask, so I went ahead and pinned them into the slipcover.

  I had to cut extra eyeholes for Cecil so he could see out in every direction, but Charlie could hardly see out at all because the wet mop strings were all stuck together.

  “It’s like being in a car at the car wash,” he said, “when those long rubbery things slap up over the windshield and you can’t see anything.”

  “You don’t have to see anything for a while,” I told him. “You can hang on to Louella or me till we get to school, and by then the mop will probably dry out and we can get the strings out of your face.”

  “And then I’ll be able to see, right?” he said. “In case something happens, right?”

  Cecil had the same thought. “If something happens,” he said, “and I have to get out of the slipcover in a hurry, can I just leave it there?”

  Louella, too. “It isn’t fair,” she said. “Either we have to worry because the Herdmans are going to be there messing everything up, or we have to worry because the Herdmans aren’t going to be there, so whatever is going to happen tonight won’t happen to them. It’ll happen to us.”

  As usual, Louella was a Pilgrim, “ … but my mother had to pin my skirt together,” she said, “so I look like a fat Pilgrim, and I don’t think there were any fat Pilgrims, except maybe on Thanksgiving Day, with the big dinner and all.”

  “Look at me,” I said. “Do you know of any belly dancers who wear sneakers?” My mother had said I absolutely could not wear flip-flops with sequins glued all over them. “Not in October,” she said.

  “I don’t know any belly dancers at all,” Louella said, “and I don’t know anyone who does. But everybody knows what Pilgrims look like.
”

  Actually I was glad to have sneakers on because not only did we have to keep Charlie and Cecil together and headed in the right direction but we also had to push Howard in his stroller.

  Howard was in costume, too, but Louella had to tell me what it was. “He’s a Chia Pet,” she said. “One of those things that grow grass when you water their heads.”

  Once you knew that was what Howard was supposed to be, you could see that it was perfect for him because his hair—now that he had some—grew right straight up in the air.

  “Of course you have to pretend his head is green all over,” Louella said. “My mother would kill me if it was green.”

  “Lucky for you the Herdmans aren’t here,” I said. “They’d fix that.”

  “O-o-o-h!” Louella stopped. “What if they are here? I mean, not at school, but here… . “ She pointed to the house at the corner of our street, where there were two big trees and a hedge of bushes. “There, maybe … “

  Naturally when Louella stopped, I stopped and Charlie stopped, but Cecil didn’t. He ran into Charlie, and they both stumbled around inside the slipcover until we stood them up and straightened them out.

  “Remember I can’t see very much,” Cecil said, “so if you stop you have to tell me. You have to say ‘Stop!’“

  We had to say “Stop!” a lot, till even Howard began to fuss about being jolted up and down in his stroller.

  “I’m sorry,” Louella said, “but I feel like I can see Herdmans everywhere.”

  I didn’t see Herdmans, but I didn’t really blame Louella for feeling spooky. It was almost dark now so the streetlights were on, making pools of light here and there. There was enough wind to make the dry leaves fall and rustle underfoot, and there were other kids—just shapes of bats and ghosts and outer-space bugs in the shadowy night.

  It really felt like Halloween, until …

  “I see a big light!” Cecil said—pleased, I guess, that he could finally see something out of his eyeholes.