"but what your dad did was nothing Get this! I came home and there's my mom with the phone stretched out from the kitchen into the garage.

She tells me to come to the phone she's yakking on so I can tell my Aunt Beverly about the grand slam I hit last Saturday. All this time she's staring at the washing machine spinning the laundry around. She hands me the phone and Aunt Beverly isn't even on it! There was just a dial tone. So I said, 'Mom, were you talking to somebody?' She just said she had to watch her soap opera and turned the dial on the washer to rinse! Nuts!" he makes whirring motions with his finger around his ear and throws up his ball glove. Everybody shakes their heads.

"Hey, look at Mr. Willy!" points Pandora with her black eyes flashing. She has been listening to the stories with a very worried look on her face. At the bottom of the slope the kids liked to gather on, Mr. Willy has been raking up leaves into a pile. But just now, he has turned on the garden hose and is watering the dead leaves instead of the lawn and whistling all the while.

Everybody throws up their hands as if it is another case of the obvious. Some of the kids laugh. Horsehead Miller positively hee haws. But Pandora does not laugh, and even looks frightened.

"What's the matter, Pandora?" asks Nikki looking down at her friend and brushing back her own long brown hair. Pandora looks nervously up from her seat on the rock.

"I'm scared," she answers. "I feel like something is wrong and I don't know what it is."

"Oh, there's nothing wrong," Nikki comforts her. "It's all just the Halloween goofies. C'mon, let's go down to Sweet Slop's Shop and get some ice cream roll cake!"

"Yay!" cries Missy jumping up and down and making her blonde curls bounce. "And punch!"

The six friends all start off down the hill to Cozy Street and the ten blocks to Sweet Slop's Shop. Red circles around everybody on his skateboard and hops the curbs with big clashing leaps. Missy skips along to keep up with Nikki's long legs. Horsehead Miller pouts out and puffs like a pony bridling, while Coach tosses his baseball glove with ball up in the air.