Halloween Helpers Read online

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  Published by

  Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers

  a division of

  Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

  1540 Broadway

  New York, New York 10036

  Text copyright © 1997 by Judy Delton

  Illustrations copyright © 1997 by Alan Tiegreen

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.

  The trademarks Yearling® and Dell® are registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-80005-3

  v3.1

  For Amy La Roche:

  It’s not nearly as much fun without you.

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by Yearling

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1 Missing: One Pee Wee Scout Leader

  2 A Tight Ship

  3 Good-bye, Mrs. Peters; Hello, Army Life!

  4 Welcome, Ms. Bubble Gum

  5 One Slimy Mess

  6 Cleanup Time

  7 Substitute Leader Number Three

  8 Mrs. Duff Saves the Day

  9 The Backward Halloween

  10 Tricks or Treats, Pee Wee Style

  11 Badges for All

  CHAPTER

  1

  Missing: One Pee Wee Scout Leader

  “Halloween is my favorite holiday in the whole world,” said Sonny Stone.

  “Mine too,” said Tim Noon.

  “I think they should take all the other holidays like Veterans Day and Easter and Christmas and turn them into Halloween,” said Tracy Barnes. “Then we could go trick-or-treating about ten times a year, instead of just once.”

  Rachel Meyers looked at Tracy.

  “That’s really dumb,” she said. “Tricks or treats on Christmas? And Hannukah and the Fourth of July? What about Frosty the Snowman and the Easter parade and hiding eggs and all that stuff?”

  “One Halloween is enough,” said Molly Duff. “If it’s a good one.”

  The rest of the Pee Wee Scouts agreed. They were sitting in Mrs. Peters’s backyard waiting for their troop meeting to begin. Mrs. Peters was their troop leader. The thirteen Scouts met in her basement every Tuesday afternoon. But today she had not arrived, and her house was locked.

  It was October and there was a chill in the air, even though the sun was shining. Winter was on the way. But first, of course, there was Halloween.

  “I’m going to get the scariest costume ever,” said Sonny. “I’m going to scare all of you really bad.”

  “Ha,” laughed Roger. “You’ll scare yourself, Stone, more than anybody. You’re a scaredy baby about everything.”

  “He is, you know,” said Mary Beth Kelly. She was Molly’s best friend. “My grandma would say he’s scared of his own shadow.”

  “It isn’t his fault. His mom babies him,” said Molly.

  Sonny’s mother was the assistant Scout leader. And she did baby Sonny, even though she had adopted baby twins who were a lot younger than he was.

  Sonny was chasing Roger around the picnic table with an angleworm. He was trying to put it down Roger’s shirt, but Roger was too fast for him.

  “I hope Mrs. Peters has a big Halloween party planned for us,” said Lisa Ronning. “The Pee Wee party is always the most fun.”

  “Unless we have go to the nursing home and do good deeds again,” groaned Roger.

  “That was one of the best parties ever!” said Lisa.

  “Roger didn’t like it because when we bobbed for apples he fell in the tub up to his neck!” said Patty Baker.

  All the Pee Wees remembered and began to laugh. Roger turned bright red. He liked to laugh at others, but he hated it when other people laughed at him.

  “Where is Mrs. Peters?” asked Kenny Baker, who was Patty’s twin brother. “She’s late.”

  “Mrs. Peters is never late,” said Molly to Mary Beth. “I wonder where she is.”

  There was no sign of Mrs. Peters. Or Mr. Peters. Or even Mrs. Stone, who always served the cupcakes at meetings.

  “Maybe she’s playing a joke on us,” said Tim. “Like April Fools’.”

  “It’s not April,” scoffed Rachel.

  Some of the Pee Wees were getting restless. They were what Molly’s mother would call “acting up.”

  Rachel stood up and clapped her hands the way Mrs. Peters always did. When Mrs. Peters clapped her hands everyone was quiet. Rachel clapped her hands again. It was still noisy. “Quiet!” Rachel shouted.

  The Pee Wees stopped acting up and looked at her.

  “Since Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Stone are not here, I am next in line to be in charge,” she said.

  Roger snorted and asked, “Who died and made you troop leader?”

  Rachel glared at him and said, “I’m the oldest. Sit down and be quiet.”

  Roger said, “Make me,” but he sat down anyway. So did everyone else.

  “We’ll begin our meeting by singing our Pee Wee song,” said Rachel.

  The Pee Wees sang. A little off key, but they sang. When they finished, Rachel said, “Now we’ll tell our good deeds for the week.”

  “Good,” said Tracy. “Then we won’t have to do it when Mrs. Peters gets here. We can get right to the cupcakes.”

  “And our new badge,” said Molly.

  Some of the good deeds people were describing were not real. Molly could tell. She was sure that Roger had not saved three children from a burning building. Mrs. Peters would not have let that get by. But then, Rachel probably didn’t want to argue with Roger. She had no proof that he hadn’t done it.

  After fifteen minutes of good deeds, Molly began to worry about Mrs. Peters. Rat’s knees, where was she? Things were all backward. Adults usually worry about children when they’re late. Children aren’t supposed to worry about adults.

  Mary Beth looked at her watch.

  “Maybe some aliens kidnapped her and took her to another planet,” said Roger. The boys made alien noises and rocket motions in the air.

  Molly was positive it wasn’t aliens. But something was wrong, that was for sure. Mrs. Peters would not leave thirteen Pee Wees at her house unattended. Rachel was trying to carry on with the meeting, but she looked worried. And the Pee Wees were not going to mind Rachel much longer. Soon Roger would rebel, and then what would happen?

  CHAPTER

  2

  A Tight Ship

  “What are we going to do?” whispered Mary Beth to Molly.

  “Maybe we should call the police,” said Molly.

  Lisa shook her head. “You have to be missing for twenty-four hours before they’ll do anything,” she said. “I heard it on Emergency 911.”

  “I think we should sit tight,” said Kenny. “That’s what my mom says when there’s a problem. Sit tight.”

  “How do you do that, Baker?” ro
ared Roger. He put his arms around his own body and tried to hug himself tightly. “Hey,” he called. “I’m sitting tight. Look at me, you guys!”

  Soon the other Pee Wees began to stretch into strange positions in order to sit tight.

  But Molly did not think it was a laughing matter. It could be serious. Who had stolen their leader, and why?

  Just when Molly was thinking about running out in the street and breaking the glass box that said BREAK IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, one of Mrs. Peters’s neighbors came running around the side of the house toward them. The Pee Wees recognized Mrs. Wood. She had a man with her. A man who was not a neighbor. The man walked stiff and straight as if he was used to marching. Even though he had a regular suit on, he looked as if he were wearing a uniform, thought Molly.

  “This is Mrs. Peters’s cousin,” said Mrs. Wood, who was slightly out of breath from running. “He has the key to the house and will carry on for Mrs. Peters today.”

  The neighbor left, and the man gave a slight bow. Then he raised his hand to his forehead and saluted the Pee Wees.

  “My name is Captain Spencer,” he said. “I have some good news for Troop 23, and some bad news.”

  The Pee Wees stopped what they were doing and sat, frozen.

  “The bad news is that Mrs. Peters was suddenly called away because of a family emergency. The good news is that I have been drafted as Scout leader until she returns. I am Mrs. Peters’s second cousin once removed, recently honorably discharged from the army.”

  “Why does he talk so funny?” whispered Patty to Lisa.

  “It’s army talk,” said Kenny.

  Sonny and Roger began shooting make-believe guns at each other.

  “Mrs. Peters wouldn’t let them do that,” said Mary Beth to Molly.

  Without warning, the captain shouted, “Attention! There will be no talking while I am talking. I run a tight ship here.”

  The Pee Wees all jumped. Captain Spencer was scary. And what was this talk about a tight ship? Tight was a popular word today. Sit tight. Tight ship.

  Captain Spencer took a key out of his pocket and said, “Fall in.”

  He marched to the Peterses’ back door and unlocked it. When he turned around, the Pee Wees had not fallen in. They had not moved.

  “Fall in, I said.”

  “Fall in what?” asked Roger.

  “A puddle? A hole?” giggled Sonny, who suddenly seemed very brave.

  “Fall in rank!” shouted Captain Spencer.

  No one knew what rank was. Molly felt like crying. How could Mrs. Peters do this to them, and for how long?

  “Line up!” boomed the general.

  The Pee Wees never lined up. They usually just ran into the house and down the basement stairs. But the captain lined them up, a line of boys and a line of girls. “Stomach in, chest out,” he said. “Breathe deeply, forward march.”

  The Pee Wees marched. One, two, three, and down the steps.

  The only one who didn’t march was Jody George, because of his wheelchair.

  When everyone was downstairs, Captain Spencer said, “I can see there is a lot of work to be done to get you in shape. Scouts are like soldiers. They need rules and order.”

  “Scouts are helpers, Scouts have fun!” shouted Tim. “That’s what our song says.”

  Captain Spencer sighed. “Life is not fun and games,” he said. “Life is work. Scouting prepares us for life. It gives us rules and regulations to live by.”

  “It gives us new badges,” said Sonny. “And where’s my mother? She’s assistant Scout leader.”

  “Mrs. Stone has had an emergency of her own,” said the captain. “One of her youngsters swallowed a foreign object and had to have it removed.”

  All the Pee Wees looked alarmed, including Sonny. What was a foreign object, and how could one of the twins have swallowed it? Molly knew foreign meant another country. Could one of the twins have swallowed a country?

  She asked Rachel because Rachel usually knew everything the other Scouts did not.

  But Rachel didn’t know. She did know it was not a country. “It must be something from Germany,” she said. “Like part of a cuckoo clock. We have a cuckoo clock from Germany. Maybe he swallowed the cuckoo bird.”

  “Sauerkraut is German,” said Tracy. “Maybe that’s what he swallowed.”

  The captain was now busy making name tags for everyone. The tags had only the last names of the Pee Wees on them. He pinned one to each Pee Wee’s collar or T-shirt.

  “We know our names,” said Kevin.

  “But I don’t,” said Captain Spencer. “Now then, Duff, could you stand, please?”

  The Pee Wees giggled. The captain frowned. Duff stood.

  “Could you please tell me the operational procedure?” the captain asked.

  Everyone stared. This man used big words. He was worse than any teacher. Didn’t he know anything about kids?

  All of a sudden Sonny burst into tears. “I don’t want an operation! I want my mother!”

  Some of the other Pee Wees began to cry too.

  “I want Mrs. Peters,” said Tim.

  Captain Spencer looked puzzled. Molly was sure he was not used to being around children. He patted the crying Pee Wees on the shoulder, but it didn’t seem as if his heart was in it. Sonny threw his arms around the captain’s neck and sobbed.

  “Now, now, Stone,” said the captain. “No need to panic. I just want to find out your modus operandi here.”

  Now even more Pee Wees wept. Rachel finally went up to Captain Spencer and tugged at his sleeve.

  “Sir,” she said. “You need to use words we understand.”

  The captain frowned, as if that was something he would have a hard time doing.

  “What do you do at your meetings?” he finally asked.

  Well. Now he was making some sense.

  “We eat cupcakes,” called Lisa.

  “We sing,” said Tracy.

  “We tell about our good deeds,” said Jody.

  “We get badges,” said Mary Beth.

  “We have fun and help others,” said Molly.

  “Just like the army!” said Captain Spencer. “Just like the army!”

  CHAPTER

  3

  Good-bye, Mrs. Peters; Hello, Army Life!

  Things went a little more smoothly after that. But Roger and Sonny got silly and could not settle down. And even though Captain Spencer was tough and called them White and Stone, they wouldn’t listen. They weren’t scared anymore.

  “He could throw you in the brig,” whispered Rachel. “Or put you on KP duty. I saw it in a movie once.”

  “I’d go AWOL,” laughed Roger.

  The meeting was not off to a good start. There was no Mrs. Peters. And there were no cupcakes or treats. And worst of all, there was no mention by Captain Spencer of badges or Halloween!

  “This guy probably doesn’t even celebrate Halloween,” grumbled Kevin to Molly.

  Not celebrate Halloween? That was almost un-American! Anyone in the army should be more patriotic, thought Molly.

  “We can’t earn a badge without Mrs. Peters,” sighed Tracy. “All our badges come from Mrs. Peters. No stranger can do that.”

  Even Jody was forced to admit that the scariest thing about Halloween this year was the absence of their Scout leader.

  “We didn’t appreciate her when we had her,” he said wisely.

  After talking about how to survive in the woods by boiling bark and cooking meat over an open campfire, Captain Spencer showed them how to tie a rope into fourteen different kinds of knots.

  “Boring,” said Lisa. “Why do we have to know this dumb stuff?”

  “Captain Spencer must think that’s what Scouts do,” said Mary Beth. “Army stuff.”

  After that, Captain Spencer passed out some sheets of paper with words to circle and pictures to color. He put some crayons on the table, told them to color inside the lines, and sat down at Mr. Peters’s workbench to read an army manual.

 
; “This is busywork,” said Rachel. “It’s kindergarten stuff!”

  When the Scouts were finished, they were bored and restless. Roger made mouth noises and threw crayons. The captain asked him to step into the laundry room. But when he came out, Roger was laughing and was just as annoying as ever.

  “Mrs. Peters knew how to handle Roger,” said Mary Beth. “Not many people do.”

  Molly didn’t like the word knew. It implied that Mrs. Peters was gone for good. And that this man was here to stay.

  “Captain Spencer is going to have trouble with Roger and Sonny,” said Rachel.

  Roger and Sonny did seem to be out of control. They were making paper airplanes out of their busywork and sailing them over the captain’s head. Captain Spencer’s face turned red, and finally he said, “At ease, men. Class dismissed.”

  Even though it was early and there had been no treats, Captain Spencer ended the meeting. Thirteen very sad Pee Wees marched in two straight lines up the basement steps and out the back door.

  All the way home the Pee Wees talked about their bad luck.

  “It isn’t fair,” said Rachel.

  “How could Mrs. Peters desert us?” said Mary Beth.

  “What kind of family emergency could there be?” asked Molly.

  “Maybe Mrs. Peters is sick,” said Lisa.

  “Maybe she’s going to have another baby,” said Patty wisely.

  Molly thought about that. There could be worse things. Another baby would keep Mrs. Peters busy, but she could still be Scout leader. Mrs. Peters’s first baby, Nick, had not stood in the way of the Pee Wee Scouts.

  Ashley shook her head. “Having a baby is not a family emergency,” she said.

  “Maybe Mr. Peters got transferred to another city,” said Tim.

  Jody shook his head. “They wouldn’t move that fast,” he said. “Without saying good-bye.”

  Jody was right, thought Molly. Mrs. Peters would be back. It had to be a temporary emergency. Their leader would not abandon them.

  When Molly got home, all her questions were answered. Her mother met her at the door and said, “I just heard the news. Mrs. Peters had to rush to Milwaukee to care for her mother, who is ill. How was the new leader?”