The Best Halloween Ever Read Free

fact, no candy at all.”
    There was one loud groan all over the school and a babble of complaints, but Mr. Crabtree ignored it. “This is owing,” he went on, “to widespread misconduct by, I’m sorry to say, some of our Woodrow Wilson students.”
    “He means the Herdmans,” Alice Wendleken hissed, as if everybody didn’t already know that. Then Alice turned around and glared at Imogene Herdman, which Alice would never do if she wasn’t four rows and seven seats away.
    “No Halloween!” Imogene yelled, so I guess the Herdmans didn’t read the newspaper. “Who says?”
    Mr. Crabtree was still talking, so Mrs. Hazelwood said, “Sh-h, Imogene … the mayor says … now sh-h-h.”
    “The mayor and who else?” Imogene looked at the PA speaker. “Him?”
    “Everybody else,” Alice said, “and it’s your fault. You and Leroy and Gladys and Claude and all of you and your misconduct!”
    I thought Alice was being too brave for her own good—now she would have to stay after school and clean the blackboard or dust erasers or mop the floor or write half a book or something till the coast was clear of Herdmans.
    But maybe not, because Imogene didn’t lunge across four rows and seven seats and smack Alice flat, right on the spot. She didn’t even look mad. She looked really pleased with herself, as if misconduct was a hobby and the Herdmans were very good at it … which they were.
    “ … have never encouraged these activities in the past,” Mr. Crabtree was saying. “However, this year … “ The PA system crackled and hummed and quit and came back on, which is normal for it to do. “ … going to have Halloween right here at Woodrow Wilson School on October twenty-ninth, and … “ There were more crackles, as if somebody turned the microphone upside down, and you could hear voices all over the school … “got it wrong … date … wrong? … that’s the wrong date!”
    This was the first clue to what was going to happen to us. Mr. Crabtree didn’t even know when Halloween
was.
It was hard to believe. “How could he not know?” Stewart Walker said. “Unless he’s so old that they didn’t even have Halloween when he was a kid.”
    “I don’t think he ever
was
a kid,” Louella McCluskey said, and you could almost believe this. Of course Mr. Crabtree had to start out like everybody else, as a baby, but after that, once he got up on his feet, he was probably just like a small principal right from the beginning.
    Nobody could figure out why Mr. Crabtree, of all people, would suddenly think Halloween was great and we should celebrate it.
    “Why don’t you just ask him?” Mrs. Hazelwood said, and then, “I’ll make that an assignment—interview Mr. Crabtree for extra credit.”
    This is how teachers’ minds work. They see extra credit in everything. Danny Filus once had to eat frogs legs in a restaurant, and Mrs. Hazelwood made him describe that for extra credit. Danny did a good job—only two kids got sick to their stomachs, but they were kids with pet frogs, so you could understand that.
    “Volunteers, please, to interview Mr. Crabtree?”
    No volunteers … except, of course, Alice Wendleken, who must have “I volunteer” tattooed on her chest.
    “Thank you, Alice,” Mrs. Hazelwood said, moving right along, “but I think … Stewart Walker might like the chance to earn some extra credit.”
    That was the last thing Stewart wanted to do, so he was practically under his desk, pretending to hunt for something on the floor, but it didn’t do him any good. Mrs. Hazelwood can see around corners and through walls when she’s on the trail of an extra credit.
    I guess Stewart
tried
to interview Mr. Crabtree, but he probably didn’t try very hard, and after a couple of days it didn’t matter. After a couple of days everybody knew what Mr. Crabtree suddenly saw in Halloween.
    Homework!
    In every class, on every blackboard, there were special assignments and papers to write and things to look