6

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.

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 come up with a plan that' will 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. 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.

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.

So we were hitting only about one house every twenty minutes. After a couple of 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