7. Sugar Shock

7 Sugar Shock The Halloween Monster was real! I thought I was gonna die. The disgusting, horrifying creature was standing a foot away from me, staring at me with his beady monster eyes. He was holding open a big black garbage bag. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to do. I had to think fast. But I was frozen.*

"Did you hear me?" the Halloween Monster barked at me. "Your candy or your life!" "I'm thinking, I'm thinking," I said. It was a hard decision. If I gave the Halloween Monster all my candy, I wouldn't have any candy left, but I would still have my life. I had to ask myself, is life really

worth living without candy? And if I gave him my life, I would still have my candy; but I wouldn't be able to eat it, because I would be dead. I was faced with the toughest decision in the history of the world. I was thinking so hard that my brain hurt. Why is making decisions so complicated? In the end it didn't matter what I decided, because everybody else rushed forward to dump their candy into the bag that the Halloween Monster was holding. Then he grabbed my pillowcase from my hand and dumped all my candy into his bag. "Hey! That's my candy!" I yelled at him. But he didn't care. The Halloween Monster ran down the street with all our candy. This was the worst thing to happen since TV Turnoff Week! It was the worst thing to

happen since National Poetry Month! It took a few minutes for us to calm down after the Halloween Monster ran away. "That was mean!" Alexia yelled. "Why would somebody steal candy from kids?" "Just be thankful that he didn't chop us up into little pieces," said Ryan. "Wow," I said, "I didn't know the Halloween Monster was real. I just thought he was a pigment of my imagination." "That's 'figment,' dumbhead," Andrea said. "Pigment is what they use to make paint." "They should put paint on your face," I told Andrea. What is her problem? Why can't a truck full of paint fall on Andrea's head? "It wasn't a monster," said Michael. "It was just some grown-up disguised as a monster."

"He's traveling in a cognito," Ryan said. "What's a cognito?" asked Billy. "It's what secret agents travel in," Ryan told him. We were all depressed, because we had worked so hard to get that candy and now it was gone. We would have to start all over again. Bummer in the summer! We turned the corner and went to the first house on that street and got some candy there. Then we hit another house. Soon we were back in the groove, scooping up candy left and right and filling up our pillowcases with it as we made our way down the street. "Y'know, we should start eating some of this candy now," Ryan suggested. "That way the Halloween Monster won't be able to get it." "Good point, dude," said Billy. "Nobody

can steal our candy if we eat it." "I'm not eating mine," said Alexia. "I'd rather save some for a rainy day." "What does the weather have to do with eating candy?" I asked her. "I'm hungry now." "My mother told me that if you eat too much candy, you'll get sick," Andrea said. "You could go into sugar shock." Nobody tells me how much candy I can eat. And I'm sure not going to listen to a smarty-pants know-it-all like Andrea. I stuffed a 3 Musketeers bar into my mouth and swallowed it in one gulp. "Oh, yeah?" said Ryan. "Watch this!" Ryan unwrapped two Twix bars and shoved them into his face. It didn't even look like he chewed them. "WOW," everybody said, which is "MOM" upside down.