Mrs. Patty Is Batty!

by Dan Gutman

  Everybody was pointing and laughing. It was hilarious! A real Kodak moment. And we saw it live and in person. You should have been there. I hope my mom took a picture.

  “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeek!” Emily screamed. “A.J. stepped on my train!”

  “It’s a train wreck,” I said. “Get it?”

  But Emily didn’t think my joke was very funny. She started crying (of course) and went running off the playground. I don’t even know where she went.

  Well, nah-nah-nah boo-boo on Emily. That’s what she gets for dressing up like a dumb queen anyway.

  5

  “I Rule the School!”

  We marched around the playground for about a million hundred hours. Finally the dumb parade was over and we could go home.

  Or at least I thought we could go home. First we all had to go back inside the school and sit in the all-purpose room. There was a fancy chair up on the stage. It was like one of those chairs you see in a palace.

  When all the classes were seated, music started playing and some tall guy came into the all-purpose room dressed up like a king. He was wearing a gold cape, and he was holding a big sword.

  It was Mr. Klutz, our principal! Even though he was wearing a crown on his head, I knew it was him because he is completely bald. I mean completely.

  “Off with their heads!” Mr. Klutz shouted as he marched down the center aisle. “Let them eat cake!”

  Miss Daisy told us that, in the old days, kings were constantly chopping off people’s heads and making them eat cake. That must have been a cool time to live. I like to eat cake, but I don’t think I would like the chopping-off-your-head part very much.

  “I rule the school,” Mr. Klutz announced as he sat in the fancy chair. “Quiet down or you will be thrown in the dungeon in the basement.”

  That was a complete lie. Everybody knows the dungeon is on the third floor.

  “Cool costume, Mr. Klutz!” some kid yelled.

  “Silence!” Mr. Klutz hollered. “I know not this Klutz person of whom you speak. I am King Louis the Fourteenth of France.”

  “Why are you dressed up like a king?” Ryan asked.

  “As king,” he replied, “I need not worry about parent-teacher conferences and behavior problems and head lice and bus schedules and test scores. I am all powerful. What I say goes.”

  Mr. Klutz was talking just like a real king. It was cool.

  After he finished acting all kinglike, he talked to us about Halloween safety. He told us to have fun trick-or-treating, but to look both ways before we crossed the street. He said we shouldn’t go inside any strange houses, and we shouldn’t eat any candy that isn’t wrapped up.

  “What should we do if we come to a house and they don’t give us any candy?” asked one of the third graders.

  “Off with their heads!” said Mr. Klutz.

  “What if some kids don’t get any candy?” asked one of the first graders.

  “Let them eat cake!”

  Mr. Klutz enjoyed being king a little too much, if you ask me.

  I couldn’t wait to get out of school because, well, I can’t wait to get out of school every day. But this day was special because we would be going trick-or-treating and getting candy.

  Finally the bell rang and we got out of jail…I mean, school. Everybody poured out the front door.

  “Free at last!” Michael shouted.

  “It’s candy time!” Ryan yelled. Mrs. Patty was standing on the front steps of the school in her witch costume. Her wart still didn’t fall off. She told us again that we should make sure to trick-or-treat at her house because she has more candy than anyone in town.

  “And remember,” she said, “don’t let the Halloween Monster catch you.”

  The what?

  “I’ve never heard of the Halloween Monster,” I said.

  “Oh sure,” said Mrs. Patty. “Every year the Halloween Monster chops up kids, steals their candy, and keeps it for himself.”

  Yikes! The Halloween Monster? I looked at Michael. Michael looked at Ryan. Ryan looked at me. Then we all tore out of there as fast as we could.

  6

  Giant Bananas and Two-headed Astronauts

  This was the first Halloween that me and Michael and Ryan were allowed to go trick-or-treating without our parents. We went home to drop off our backpacks and get pillowcases to hold all the candy. Then we met up again at Michael’s house.

  “Let’s go!” Ryan said. “If I don’t eat a Twizzler in about five minutes, I’m gonna die.”

  “Not so fast,” Michael said, opening up a big map he had drawn. “I worked it all out so we’ll have the maximum candy accumulation.”

  Wow! Big words. Michael should be in the gifted and talented program.

  Me and Ryan looked at Michael’s map. Michael doesn’t like to just walk up and down the street collecting candy like a normal kid. He always plans a careful route so he can go to all the houses that have good candy and not waste any time at the houses where people turn off their lights and pretend they’re not home.

  Michael is weird.

  “We’ll save Mrs. Patty’s house for last,” Michael said. “She says she has more candy than anybody in town. Let’s go!”

  I was thinking about what Mrs. Patty said earlier at school.

  “Do you think there really is a Halloween Monster?” I asked the guys as we headed up the street.

  “Of course not,” Michael said. “Mrs. Patty was just yanking our chain.”

  “We’d better be careful just in case,” Ryan said.

  We set off on our candy quest. There were lots of kids in weird costumes walking up and down the street. Giraffes! Darth Vaders! Two-headed astronauts! Princesses! Cowboys! Ghosts! Four kids dressed up as a bunch of giant bananas! What a freak show!

  We saw teenagers dressed up like bums. Teenagers always dress up like bums on Halloween. That must be an easy costume to make, because teenagers dress like bums even when it isn’t Halloween.

  “Trick or treat!” we shouted when we got to the first house on Michael’s map. A lady opened the door.

  “Ooh, you boys are scary!” she said, even though she totally didn’t look scared at all. “What are you supposed to be?”

  “We’re a zombie football player, a zombie hockey player, and a killer zombie penguin,” Michael said.

  “From outer space,” I added.

  “You can each have a piece of candy,” the lady said, holding a bucket out for us.

  “Can we take two?” I asked, grabbing a Milky Way.

  “Well, okay…”

  “Can we take four?” I asked, grabbing a Butterfinger.

  “No,” the lady said, pulling back the bucket.

  That lady was mean. We went to the next house and got candy there. Then we went to the house around the corner and got candy there.

  Before we went to the next house, each of us took a piece of candy out of our pillowcase and ate it. There’s no reason you have to wait until the end of trick-or-treating to start eating your candy. You need to start eating your candy right away, so you’ll have enough energy to get more candy. That’s the first rule of being a kid.

  Michael led us a few blocks away to the next house on his map. He rang the doorbell, and the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened. A lady answered! Well, that wasn’t the weird part, because ladies answer doors all the time. The weird part was who the lady was.

  She wasn’t a regular person. She was Mrs. Cooney, our school nurse!

  It was weird. I thought Mrs. Cooney lived in the nurse’s office. But she lives in a regular house just like a regular person.

  “Trick or treat!” we shouted.

  “Ooh, I’m scared,” Mrs. Cooney said, even though she totally didn’t look scared at all.

  Mrs. Cooney brought out a bowl filled with apples, carrots, and nuts. Apples, carrots, and nuts?

  Who gives out apples, carrots, and nuts for Halloween? That’s health food!

  “You can each take one,” Mrs.
Cooney said.

  “Uh, do we have to?” I asked.

  “Don’t you have any candy?” asked Michael.

  “Candy isn’t good for you,” said Mrs. Cooney. “It rots your teeth.”

  “I’d rather have rotten teeth than no candy,” I said. But we each took a bag of nuts anyway because that was the closest thing to candy, and we didn’t want to hurt Mrs. Cooney’s feelings. She doesn’t know the first thing about Halloween. You’re not supposed to give out healthy food!

  Mrs. Cooney is loony.

  Luckily, most people gave us candy. But at one house a man gave each of us a quarter instead. He said he ran out of candy. Getting a quarter is almost as good as getting candy because you can use it to buy candy.

  We had been trick-or-treating for some time when we walked past a spooky graveyard. That reminded me of the Halloween Monster again.

  Nothing scares me. I would fight a bear. I would fight a lion. I would fight an elephant. (Well, I don’t think elephants fight. If one of them did, I would beat it up.) But I really didn’t want to see the Halloween Monster.

  It was starting to get a little dark and scary out.

  “Hey, if you guys get chopped up by the Halloween Monster,” I asked Ryan and Michael, “can I have your candy?”

  “There’s no such thing as the Halloween Monster, dumbhead,” Michael insisted.

  But just in case, we made a deal. If one of us was chopped up by the Halloween Monster and the other two survived, they would split the dead kid’s candy. And if two of us were chopped up, the kid who lived would get all the candy.

  I wondered if Ryan and Michael were secretly hoping that I would get chopped up by the Halloween Monster so they could split my candy. I figured they were probably thinking that, because I was secretly hoping they would get chopped up by the Halloween Monster so I could keep all their candy.

  It really didn’t matter, because each of us was filling our pillowcases with about a million hundred tons of candy. Mine was getting heavy. It would be hard to eat all that candy in one night. But my mom tells me I can accomplish anything if I put my mind to it.

  “I’d better eat some more of this candy,” I said, reaching into my pillowcase. “It’s getting too heavy to carry.”

  “You’ll still be carrying it,” Michael said. “It will just be in your stomach.”

  “But it weighs less in your—”

  I never got the chance to finish my sentence because at that very moment, the most terrifying thing in the history of the world happened. A horrible creature jumped out from behind a wall right in front of us.

  It was the Halloween Monster!

  7

  The Halloween Monster!

  “Boo!” the horrible creature yelled at us. He was waving his hairy arms around in the air.

  “Ahhhhhhhhh!” we screamed. I think the three of us jumped about ten feet high.

  “Take our candy!” Ryan yelled. “Take it all! Just don’t kill us.”

  It was a hideous creature with thick brown hair all over its body. It even had a hairy mask on its face. The only thing the creature was wearing over all that hair was a pair of underwear. Tighty whities.

  I thought I was gonna die.

  “Are you…the Halloween Monster?” I asked, trembling.

  “No, dumbhead,” the thing said as it took off its mask. “It’s me.”

  It was my friend Billy who lives around the corner!

  “Hey, that costume is cool!” I told Billy.

  “What are you supposed to be?” Ryan asked.

  “Take a guess,” Billy said.

  “A vampire?” guessed Michael.

  “Nope.”

  “A werewolf?” guessed Ryan.

  “Nope,” said Billy. “I’m the under wear-wolf! Get it? A werewolf in his underwear is an underwearwolf!”

  Well, the only thing funnier than getting someone to say “underwear,” or seeing someone in their underwear, is a kid dressed up as a werewolf in his underwear.

  Billy is weird.

  “Where are you guys heading?” he asked us. “I’m finished trick-or-treating.”

  “We’re going to 176 Norman Road,” Michael said, showing Billy the map. “Our school secretary lives there.”

  “Oh, you don’t want to go there,” Billy warned us. “That house is haunted.”

  “Haunted?” we all asked.

  A chill went down my spine. I’ve been to haunted houses in amusement parks, but I’ve never been to a real haunted house.

  “Oh yeah,” said Billy. “That lady is a witch. She poisoned her husband, Marvin, and chopped his head off. He came back as a ghost, and he’s been driving her insane ever since. She still keeps his head in a bucket down in the basement.”

  “How do you know all that?” I asked.

  “I know everything,” Billy claimed. “I’m in the gifted and talented program at my school.”

  “Wait a minute,” Michael said. “Why did she chop his head off if he was already poisoned?”

  “For the fun of it,” Billy said. “I told you she’s a witch. I’m warning you, stay away from that house.”

  It was hard for me to imagine Mrs. Patty poisoning her husband or chopping his head off. Every time I get sent to the principal’s office, she seems so nice. One time she even gave me a lollipop.

  I really wanted to see what kind of candy Mrs. Patty was giving out. But if she chopped my head off, I wouldn’t be able to eat the candy anyway. I didn’t know what to do.

  “I don’t believe you,” Ryan told Billy. “Mrs. Patty isn’t a witch. And she’s got more candy than anyone in town. That’s what she told us.”

  “She just told you that so you’ll come to her house,” Billy said. “Go see for yourself. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. When she poisons you and chops your heads off, don’t come running to me.”

  Billy left. I put my hand over my neck. Maybe Halloween isn’t my favorite holiday after all.

  8

  The Most Horrible, Dreadful, Disgusting, Repulsive Creature That Ever Walked the Earth

  “Maybe we should go home now,” I told Michael and Ryan. “We have plenty of candy.”

  “Go home?” Michael said. “Are you crazy? We haven’t been to Mrs. Patty’s house yet. She has more candy than anyone in town.”

  “But what if she chops our heads off?” I asked. “Stuff like that happens all the time, you know.”

  “She’s not going to chop our heads off,” Ryan said. “Your friend Billy doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

  “Yeah,” Michael said, “and Mrs. Patty told us over and over again that we have to trick-or-treat at her house. She might chop off our heads if we don’t show up.”

  Good point. Michael really should be in the gifted and talented program.

  We kept walking down the street. It was dark now, and scary. I was looking all around, just in case the real Halloween Monster jumped out from behind a wall.

  “Do you think Mrs. Patty’s headless husband, Marvin, still lives with her?” I asked the guys.

  “Ghosts have to live some where,” Michael said. “They’re just like regular people, except they’re dead.”

  “I feel sorry for ghosts,” said Ryan. “They’re like homeless dead people.”

  We turned the corner onto Norman Road, where Mrs. Patty lives. That’s when I saw the most horrible, dreadful, disgusting, repulsive creature that ever walked the Earth.

  It was Andrea Young! She was with her annoying little friend Emily, and they were dressed in their girly costumes. Emily’s mom must have sewn that dumb queen outfit together again.

  “What are you two doing here?” I asked.

  “We’re trick-or-treating, dumbhead,” Andrea said. “Just like you.”

  Andrea and Emily said they were heading for Mrs. Patty’s house. I didn’t want to walk with them, but it did feel safer with five of us walking together.

  Finally we got to 176 Norman Road. It was a big house. It looked really old, like o
ne of those haunted houses in the movies. There was an iron gate on the outside and some dead trees by the driveway.

  “Wow!” Andrea said. “I didn’t know school secretaries lived in mansions.”

  When we got closer, we peeked through the gate and saw Mrs. Patty’s Halloween decorations. There were tombstones sticking out of the lawn. A foot was poking out of a window. There were jack-o’-lanterns with evil faces, spiders hanging from strings, and cats with eyes that lit up. Smoke was coming out of a big pot. Spooky music was coming out of speakers. There was a dummy sitting on a chair on the front porch. (I hope it was a dummy, anyway. If that thing moved, I decided, I was going to make a run for it.)

  “This place is creepy,” said Emily.

  Andrea shivered. “Mrs. Patty sure goes all-out when it comes to Hallo—”

  But she didn’t get to finish her sentence, because suddenly the front gate squeaked open. Nobody even touched it or anything.

  “Come inside…,” said a weird man’s voice. “If you dare….”

  9

  Mrs. Patty’s Weird House

  “Who said that?” Michael asked after we heard the weird man’s voice. “Headless Marvin?”

  “It wasn’t a person,” Ryan said. “It was one of those computer voices.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” said Emily, “before it’s too late!”

  She sounded like she was about to cry, as usual. I wanted to cry too, but I didn’t want to look like a baby.

  “I—I’m not scared,” I said.

  “M-me neither,” said Michael.

  We went through the gate and climbed the front steps. You could hardly see anything. Even though I was walking on my tiptoes, the stairs squeaked with every step.

  I was trying to find the doorbell when I walked into some spiderwebs. They were all over my face. Yuck! Then I put my foot in something. It was stuck! I couldn’t get it out!

  “Aaaah!” I screamed, shaking my foot.