Man, I forgot all about Dad, and we totally paid the price for it.Whoops!Heh,heh.When me and Rowley got inside, we laid out all our candy on the kitchen table.The only things we could salvage were a couple of mints that were wrapped in cellophane, and the toothbrushes Dr. Garrison gave us.I think next Halloween I'll just stay home and mooch some Butterfingers from the bowl Mom keeps on top of the refrigerator.

November Thursday On the bus ride into school today, we passed by Gramma's house.It got rolled with toilet paper last night, which I guess was no big surprise.I do feel a little bad, because it looked like it was gonna take a long time to clean up.But on the bright side, Gramma is retired, so she probably didn't have anything planned for today anyway.

Wednesday In third period, Mr. Underwood, our Phys Ed teacher, announced that the boys will be doing a wrestling unit for the next six weeks.

I looked out the window, and this time, I didn't see the truck.But I knew those guys were hiding somewhere and were just trying to draw us out.So we snuck out the back door, hopped over Gramma's fence, and ran all the way to Snake Road.I figured our chances were better there because there aren't any streetlights.Snake Road is scary enough on its own without having a truckload of teenagers hunting you down.Every time we saw a car coming, we dove into the bushes.It must've taken us a half hour to go 100 yards.But believe it or not, we made it all the way home without getting caught,Neither one of us ley our guard down until we got to my driveway.But right then, there was this awful scream, and we saw a big wave of water coming toward us.Splash!

The driver slammed on the brakes and he turned his truck around.Me and Rowley started running, but those guys were right on our heels.The only place I could think of that was safe was Gramma's house, so we cut through a couple backyards to get there.Gramma was in bed already, but I knew she keeps a key under the mat on her front porch.Once we got inside, I looked out the window to see if those guys had followed us, and sure enough, they did.I tried to trick them into leaving, but they wouldn't budge.Well, I guess now that we're safe in our own house, you can't get us!After a while, we realized the teenagers were going to wait us out, so we decided we were just gonna have to spend the night at Gramma's.That's when we started getting cocky, making monkey noises at the teenagers and ehatnot.Well, at least I was making monkey noises.Rowley was kind of making owl noises, but I guess it was the same general ideal.Ohh Ohh!Eee Eee!Ahh Ahh!Hoo!Hoo!I called Mom to tell her we were going to crash at Gramma's for the night.But Mom sounded really mad on the phone.She said it was a school night, and that we had to get home right that instant.So that meant we were gonna have to make a run for it.

After that, we headed back out on the road.But it was already 10:30, and I guess that's when most grown-ups decide Halloween is over.You can kind of tell because that's when they start coming to the door in their pajamas and giving you the evil eye.We decided to head home.We made up a lot of time after Dad and Manny left, so I was pretty satisfied with how much we took in.When we were halfway home, this pickup truck came roaring down the street with a bunch of high school kids in it.The kid in the back was holding a fire extinguisher, and when the truck passed by us, he opened fire.I have to give Rowley credit, because he blocked about 95% of the water with his shield.And if he hadn't done that, all our candy would have gotten soaked.When the truck drove away, I yelled out something that I regretted about two seconds later.We're calling the cops!

Before we even got out of our own driveway, we ran into our neighbor Mr.Mitchell and his kid Jeremy.So of course they tagged along with us.Manny and Jeremy wouldn't trick-or-treat at any houses with spooky decorations on them, so that ruled out pretty much every house on our block.Dad and Mr. Mitchell started talking about football or something, and every time one of them wanted to make a point, they'd stop walking.Blah Blah Blah So we were hitting only about one houses every twenty minutes.After a couple hours, Dad and Mr. Mitchell took the little kids home.I was glad, because that meant me and Rowley could take off.My pillowcase was almost empty, so I wanted to make up as much time as possible.A little while later, Rowley told me he needed a "potty break."I made him hold off for another forty-five minutes.But by the time we got to my gramma's house, it was pretty clear that if I didn't let Rowley use the bathroom, it was gonna get messy.So I told Rowley if he wasn't back outside in one minute, I was gonna start helping myself to his candy.

She cut out a big hole in the front of the helmet so he could see better, and covered him up in all this reflective tape.She made him wear his winter coat underneath everything, and she replaced his sword with a glow stick.I grabbed my pillowcase, and me and Rowley started to head out.But Mom stopped us before we could get out the door.I want you to take Manny with you!Man, I should have known there was a catch when Mom gave me that costume.I told Mom there was no way we were taking Manny with us, because we were going to hit 152 houses in three hours.And plus, we were going to be on Snake Road, which is way too dangerous for a little kid like Manny.I should never have mentioned that last part, because the next thing I knew, Mom was telling Dad he had to go along with us to make sure we didn't step foot outside our neighborhood.Dad tried to squirm out of it, but once Mom makes up her mind, there's no way you can change it.

In the past few years, the grown-ups in my neighborhood have been getting cranky about my lame costumes, and I'm starting to think it's actually having an effect on the amount of candy I'm bringing in.What're you supposed to be?A cowboy.Double baseball hats But I don't really have time to put together a good costume, because I'm in charge of planning out the best route for me and Rowley to take tomorrow night.This year I've came up with a plan that'll get us at least twice the candy we scored last year.

Halloween About an hour before we were supposed to start trick-or-treating, I still didn't have a costume.At that point I was seriously thinking about going as a cowboy for the second year in a row.But then Mom knocked at my door and handed me a pirate costume, with an eye patch and a hook and everything.Rowley showed up around 6:30 wearing his knight costume, but it didn't look anything like it looked yesterday.Rowley's mom made all these safety improvements to it, and you couldn't even tell what he was supposed to be anymore.

I did my best to keep up with what was going on on the screen, but to be honest with you, I'm not sure if Rowley was getting the full effect.I bet this part is gonna be funny.Whup!Ha!Ha!I was right!It was funny.

Tuesday Well, Rowley's grounding is finally over, and just in time for Halloween, too.I went up to his house to check out his costume, and I have to admit, I'm a little jealous.Rowley's mom got him this knight costume that's way cooler than his costume from last year.His knight outfit came with a helmet and a shield and real sword and everything.I've never had a store-bought costume before.I still haven't figured out what I'm gonna go as tomorrow night, so I'll probably just throw something together at the last minute.I figure maybe I'll bring back the Toilet Paper Mummy again.But I think it's supposed to rain tomorrow night, so that might not be the smartest choice.

I tried to show Rowley's dad our original plan to prove that we really were running a legitimate operation, but he still didn't seem convinced.And to make a long story short, that was the end of our haunted house.The good new is, since Rowley's dad didn't believe us, he didn't make us refund Shane's money.So at least we cleared two bucks today.

Sunday Rowley ended up getting grounded for that whole haunted house mess yesterday.He's not allowed to watch TV for a week, and he's not allowed to have me over at his house during that time.That last part really isn't fair, because that's punishing me, and I didn't even do anything wrong.And now where am I supposed to play my video game?Anyway, I felt kind of bad for Rowley.So tonight, I tried to make it up to him.I turned on one of Rowley's favorite TV shows, and I did a play-by-play over the phone so he could kind of experience it that way.Wow!Look at the size of that flamethrower!Oh yeah, never mind.

The Hall of Screams was basically a bed with me and Rowley on either side of it.Rah!Squeal!I guess maybe we made the Hall of Screams a little too scary, because halfway through, Shane curled up in a ball underneath the bed.We tried to get him to crawl out from under there, but he wouldn't budge.I started thinking about all the money we were losing with this kid clogging up the Hall of Screams, and I knew we had to get him out of there, quick.Eventually, Rowley's dad came downstairs.At first I was happy to see him, because I thought he could help us drag Shane out from under the bed and get our haunted house cracking again.But Rowley's dad wasn't really in a helpful mood.Poke Poke Rowley's dad wanted to know what we were doing, and why Shane Snella was curled up under the bed.We told him that the basement was a haunted house, and that Shane Snella actually paid for us to do this to him.But Rowley's dad didn't believe us.I admit that if you looked around, it didn't really look like a haunted house.All we had time to put together was the Hall of Screams and the Lake of Blood, which was just Rowley's old baby pool with half a bottle of ketchup in it.