3. The Gang’s All Here

3 The Gang's All Here I never did get to soap up Andrea's windows that night. But it was okay. Because the next morning it was Halloween. The best day of the year! At school, Mr. Granite was trying to teach us all kinds of stuff, but I wasn't paying attention. I couldn't concentrate on anything he was saying. All I could think about was candy. I couldn't wait for the bell to ring. It felt like the clock was going backward. But finally it was three o'clock. I ran home to put on my Halloween costume. In our town, you're not allowed to start trick-or-treating until four o'clock in the afternoon. Bummer in the summer! I would have to wait even longer to get the candy.

Me and the gang had decided we would all combine two or more things together in our costumes. I had an old Star Wars costume in the closet, and my sister, Amy, let me use the deer costume she wore last year. So this Halloween I was going to be Darth Bambi! Pretty good, huh? No wonder I'm in the gifted and talented program. One by one, the gang came over so we could all go trick-or-treating together. "Who are you?" my mother asked everybody as they came to the door. "I'm a flying robot ninja from outer space," said Michael, who never ties his shoes. "I'm a mutant zombie pirate," said Ryan, who will eat anything, even stuff that isn't food. "I'm a skateboarding hippie dinosaur,"

said Alexia, who skateboards everywhere she goes. Next came Neil, who we call the nude kid even though he wears clothes. None of us had any idea what he was dressed up as. "I'm a flying mutant pirate hobo ninja robot dinosaur," said Neil, "from outer space."

That's just too much stuff. "We're traveling incognito," I told my mom. "Ooooo, you all look so spooky!" my mom said. That's when the most amazing thing in the history of the world happened. The doorbell rang. Well, that's not the amazing part, because doorbells ring all the time. The amazing part was what happened next. "A.J., answer the door, please," my mother said. "It must be our first trick-ortreater. I'll get the candy." But it wasn't our first trick-or-treater. It was my friend Billy, who lives around the corner. Billy goes to another school. I invited him to go trick-or-treating with us. The amazing part was that when I opened the door, Billy was standing there in

his underwear! You should have been there. It was hilarious. Anything to do with underwear is hilarious. That's the first rule of being a kid. "That's your costume, Billy?" my mom asked with her hands on her hips. "You've heard of the werewolf," said Billy. "Well, I'm the underwerewolf! Grrrrrrrr!" He made scary noises and posed like a werewolf. It was still hilarious. It's hard to look scary when you're in your underwear.

The fact is, Billy goes as the underwerewolf every Halloween. If you ask me, Billy just likes to parade around in his underwear. Billy's weird. It was a quarter to four. We couldn't go trick-or-treating yet, so we went into the den to fool around with my dad's computer. I