told me about the teachers’ room. “I think he did,” I said.
As usual, Alice was right. There
was
a hole in the floor, and Boomer was at the bottom of the hole, along with “ … Danny and Junior and a lot of first-grade kids, and Charlie’s here… . “
“We’re in the boiler room,” Cecil chimed in, “but we took off our costume before we slid down, and left it … “
Slid down?
Suddenly the lights came on again and we could see the hole and, inside it, the missing kindergarten slide, and down at the bottom …
“What’s down there?” Albert said. “It looks like—”
“Candy!” Charlie whooped. “Halloween candy! The whole boiler room is full of Halloween candy. I th-th-think it’s … I think it’s … “ He was so excited, he was stuttering. “I think it’s all the candy in the world!”
12
T hat’s what it looked like—wall-to-wall candy, big piles of candy, the floor covered with candy, all kinds, all colors, all wrapped—a giant trick-or-treat supply for the rest of your life.
Milk Duds, Sugar Babies, PEZ, Milky Way, Snickers, DumDums, 3 Musketeers, Hershey’s bars, Swedish Fish, Jujubes, KitKats, Twizzlers, Crunch bars, Twix, Tootsie Rolls, Mounds bars, Starbursts, Smartees, Reese’s Pieces, M&M’s, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, PayDay bars, Almond Joy, Baby Ruth, 5th Avenue,
Mr. Goodbar, Rolos, Butterfingers, Caramello, Candy Dots, Hershey’s Kisses, Skor bars, licorice whips, Heath bars, Raisinets, Mallo Cups, Charleston Chew, Chunkies, Clark bars, Krackel, Whoppers, Sugar Daddies, Oh Henry!, Bit-O-Honey, DoveBar, Goobers, Sno-Caps, Junior mints.
We had all come down the kindergarten slide—even Albert in his laundry basket and Louella holding Howard—so it was pretty crowded in the boiler room with all of us and all the missing kids.
Anybody who had pockets in their costume was stuffing them with candy and anybody who didn’t was welcome, Albert said, to borrow part of his laundry basket.
“That’s really nice of you, Albert,” I said. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Yes, I do,” he said. “If I took all the candy for myself, I’d have to go to fat camp again this summer.”
“I wish I had Howard’s stroller,” Louella said. “It has a big pocket at the back and we could fill it up.” She sighed. “I guess Pilgrims didn’t have pockets.”
“Neither do belly dancers,” I said, but I didn’t really care. It was almost enough just to
be
there in a sea of candy.
Of course you had to wonder where it all came from, but it was a lot easier to figure out where it
didn’t
come from, which would be the PTA or Mr. Crabtree or the mayor or—this was Charlie’s idea—some kind of Halloween tooth fairy.
I guess that sounded good to the first-graders, because when Mr. Crabtree showed up and yelled,
“Where did all this come from?”
Missy Reed told him that it came from the Halloween tooth fairy.
It’s a good thing Missy was a first-grader, and cute, because Mr. Crabtree’s ears turned red at the top the way they had when Ollie
Herdman wrote the dirty words on Rhoda Gallagher’s turtle.
This was a lot worse than that, though, and Mr. Crabtree’s ears were a lot redder. After all, Rhoda could just pick up her turtle and get it out of sight and then Mr. Crabtree could pretend that there wasn’t even any turtle in the first place with or without dirty words … but here were a lot of missing kids, and the missing kindergarten slide, and a room full of candy that had to be missing from somewhere, and Mr. Crabtree didn’t know how to explain it or who to blame.
Of course neither did anyone else. “Who to blame” had never been a problem at Woodrow Wilson School—when something happened you just looked around for a Herdman. But on Halloween night at Woodrow Wilson School there weren’t any Herdmans around.
Mr. Crabtree
could
have blamed Alice for the blackout, but by the time Alice lit herself up there were already kids missing and the
As usual, Alice was right. There
was
a hole in the floor, and Boomer was at the bottom of the hole, along with “ … Danny and Junior and a lot of first-grade kids, and Charlie’s here… . “
“We’re in the boiler room,” Cecil chimed in, “but we took off our costume before we slid down, and left it … “
Slid down?
Suddenly the lights came on again and we could see the hole and, inside it, the missing kindergarten slide, and down at the bottom …
“What’s down there?” Albert said. “It looks like—”
“Candy!” Charlie whooped. “Halloween candy! The whole boiler room is full of Halloween candy. I th-th-think it’s … I think it’s … “ He was so excited, he was stuttering. “I think it’s all the candy in the world!”
12
T hat’s what it looked like—wall-to-wall candy, big piles of candy, the floor covered with candy, all kinds, all colors, all wrapped—a giant trick-or-treat supply for the rest of your life.
Milk Duds, Sugar Babies, PEZ, Milky Way, Snickers, DumDums, 3 Musketeers, Hershey’s bars, Swedish Fish, Jujubes, KitKats, Twizzlers, Crunch bars, Twix, Tootsie Rolls, Mounds bars, Starbursts, Smartees, Reese’s Pieces, M&M’s, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, PayDay bars, Almond Joy, Baby Ruth, 5th Avenue,
Mr. Goodbar, Rolos, Butterfingers, Caramello, Candy Dots, Hershey’s Kisses, Skor bars, licorice whips, Heath bars, Raisinets, Mallo Cups, Charleston Chew, Chunkies, Clark bars, Krackel, Whoppers, Sugar Daddies, Oh Henry!, Bit-O-Honey, DoveBar, Goobers, Sno-Caps, Junior mints.
We had all come down the kindergarten slide—even Albert in his laundry basket and Louella holding Howard—so it was pretty crowded in the boiler room with all of us and all the missing kids.
Anybody who had pockets in their costume was stuffing them with candy and anybody who didn’t was welcome, Albert said, to borrow part of his laundry basket.
“That’s really nice of you, Albert,” I said. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Yes, I do,” he said. “If I took all the candy for myself, I’d have to go to fat camp again this summer.”
“I wish I had Howard’s stroller,” Louella said. “It has a big pocket at the back and we could fill it up.” She sighed. “I guess Pilgrims didn’t have pockets.”
“Neither do belly dancers,” I said, but I didn’t really care. It was almost enough just to
be
there in a sea of candy.
Of course you had to wonder where it all came from, but it was a lot easier to figure out where it
didn’t
come from, which would be the PTA or Mr. Crabtree or the mayor or—this was Charlie’s idea—some kind of Halloween tooth fairy.
I guess that sounded good to the first-graders, because when Mr. Crabtree showed up and yelled,
“Where did all this come from?”
Missy Reed told him that it came from the Halloween tooth fairy.
It’s a good thing Missy was a first-grader, and cute, because Mr. Crabtree’s ears turned red at the top the way they had when Ollie
Herdman wrote the dirty words on Rhoda Gallagher’s turtle.
This was a lot worse than that, though, and Mr. Crabtree’s ears were a lot redder. After all, Rhoda could just pick up her turtle and get it out of sight and then Mr. Crabtree could pretend that there wasn’t even any turtle in the first place with or without dirty words … but here were a lot of missing kids, and the missing kindergarten slide, and a room full of candy that had to be missing from somewhere, and Mr. Crabtree didn’t know how to explain it or who to blame.
Of course neither did anyone else. “Who to blame” had never been a problem at Woodrow Wilson School—when something happened you just looked around for a Herdman. But on Halloween night at Woodrow Wilson School there weren’t any Herdmans around.
Mr. Crabtree
could
have blamed Alice for the blackout, but by the time Alice lit herself up there were already kids missing and the
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