Mrs. Patty Is Batty! Read Free Page B

Butterfinger.
    â€œNo,” 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 thenext 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.
    â€œTrick or treat!” we shouted.
    â€œOoh, 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!

    â€œYou can each take one,” Mrs. Cooney said.
    â€œUh, do we have to?” I asked.
    â€œDon’t you have any candy?” asked Michael.
    â€œCandy isn’t good for you,” said Mrs. Cooney. “It rots your teeth.”
    â€œI’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 spookygraveyard. That reminded me of the Halloween Monster again.

    Nothing scares me. I would fight abear. 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.
    â€œHey, if you guys get chopped up by the Halloween Monster,” I asked Ryan and Michael, “can I have your candy?”
    â€œThere’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 iftwo 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.
    â€œI’d better eat some more of this candy,” I said, reaching into my pillowcase. “It’s getting too heavy to carry.”
    â€œYou’ll still be carrying it,” Michael said. “It will just be in your stomach.”
    â€œBut it weighs less in your—”
    I never got the chance to finish my sentence because at that very moment, the