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Friday night? I hope it’s something real scary and not one of those dumb kiddie movies.”
    “Don’t worry,” said Alex. “It’ll be scary.”
    Tommy and Hector and I didn’t say anything.
    “Well, what movie?” Kyle asked.
    “The Shrieking Skull,”
Alex said.
    “Awesome,” Kyle said. “Then I won’t mind coming. I’ve seen it like a hundred times. I even have my own copy.” He looked around the table at us. “Have all you guys seen it?”
    “I
almost
saw it,” Tommy said, “but then we didn’t get to go.”

    “I saw it,” Joey said. “It was pretty freaky.”
    “The special effects are super,” said Kyle. “You know what it’s about, right, Charlie?”
    “Yeah,” I said, “sort of. This skull that eats things.”
    “Everything it can find! It eats dogs and cats and bears and then it starts eating people—men, women, kids, babies. It has blood running down its mouth and everything. It’s awesome.”
    “Cool,” said Tommy. Hector didn’t say anything. Neither did I.
    The more I heard about the Shrieking Skull, the less I wanted to see the movie. I started thinking about a bloody skull that flies around eating people. Then I thought about the Long-Fingered Man who strangles people with his long index fingers. And then I imagined a screaming skull with long fingers sticking out of its ears.
    I wasn’t getting de-scared. I was getting
re-scared!
    Kyle looked at Hector. “What about you?” he asked.
    Hector shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t seem very scared at all.
    “Have you seen it or not?” Kyle asked him.
    “No,” said Hector. “But it sounds a lot like the chupacabra to me.”
    “Me, too,” said Joey.
    “The what?”
    “The chupacabra!” we all said at the same time.
    Kyle looked at us. “What are you talking about?”
    “The goatsucker!” we all said.
    Kyle frowned and rolled his eyes. “You guys are weird. Well, I’ll see you Friday night. If you’re not too scared of the Shrieking Skull.”
    Then he got up and left.
    When we were heading back to class, Tommy asked Alex, “Is Kyle really coming Friday night?”
    Alex frowned. “Yeah, my mother told me to invite him because he lives on our street and it would be rude not to include him.”
    “Are we really going to watch
The Shrieking Skull
?” Tommy asked.
    “I don’t know for sure,” Alex said, “but it’ll be something really scary. It won’t be any fun unless we freak ourselves out.”
    “Uh-huh,” Tommy said. “Right.”
    As we walked down the hall, Alex skipped ahead.
    Tommy looked at me. “It’s probably a pretty dumb movie,” he said. I think he had guessed how I felt about it.
    “That’s okay,” I said. “I might not get that scared, since Matt is telling me stories about the Long-Fingered Man.”
    “The Long-Fingered Man? Who’s that?” Hector asked.
    I told them about Simon Purslip.
    I grabbed Tommy around the neck and yelled, “Arrrrrggggggh!”
    He laughed. So did Hector. “That’s scarier than some old shrieking skull,” Tommy said.
    I wasn’t so sure.
    But I knew I wasn’t totally de-scared yet.

13
One Serious Bat
    Ms. Bromley told me she was going to be in her room after lunch. She said I could just come down there right away and work on my costume through recess.
    I did not want to miss recess. I wanted to play soccer. But I just kept reminding myself of the movie tickets. I had decided I was going to take Tommy and Hector three times. There would be one ticket left over. Maybe I would even take the Squid to one. Or Matt.
    I’d left all the things I’d brought in for my rabid bat costume in the corner Ms. Bromley had fixed upfor me. She had set out everything else I needed—scissors, some special kind of tape, a glue called epoxy, this little puncher thing she called a grommet tool, and these little round things called grommets. She explained what I needed to do, and then she helped me mark the places for the holes on the sweatshirt and showed me how to use the