CHAPTER 1
STRANGE DOINGS

Something spooky was happening in the neighborhood.

It was a hard thing to put a finger on, but the kids were telling stories every day, now, about how goofy their parents were acting-it seemed like all the grown-ups were goofy over "things."

"Like, there he was," recounts Red in the clearing where all the kids liked to gather. "I said, 'hey, Dad, what are you doing?' "

"There he was-he had the canoe from the garage in the middle of our living room and he was sitting in it fishing! There were night-crawler worms squirming all over the rug! He had his waders on; he had his safari hat with his favorite lures on the brim; he had a couple frozen baloney sandwiches, and he was eating them while he made casts down the hall into the bathroom with the fish wallpaper! I said, 'Dad, what are you doing?'

But he just waved his baloney sandwich telling me to be quiet and pointing at the rug like I would scare all the fish, and he pats this broken fishing rod he got from one of the junk piles!"

"Wow," and "ooh," the kids all coo like doves. "That's too weird!" brays Horsehead Miller. "I would never eat a frozen baloney sandwich! Did the mayonnaise freeze too?" he asks showing his buck teeth.

"But get this!" Red goes on. "Then my mom, who always nags at him about everything, she comes in and says how nice it was for him to stay at home this weekend, and dusts the painting of the lake over the fire place!" More oohs. More ahhs.

Yes, something very scary was happening in the neighborhood.

At first the kids all just thought it was part of the usual "doings" of Halloween-the town had a custom at the end of harvest-time. Everybody could load all the clippings, newspapers, broken tools and toys, furniture, crocks and pans, books and newspapers and magazines, house repairs and disrepairs out to the street. Then the city would pick it all up with trucks and tractors for the big Trick or Treat bonfire and celebration on Halloween.