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I don’t know anyone who does. But everybody
knows
what Pilgrims look like.”
    Actually I was glad to have sneakers on because not only did we have to keep Charlie and Cecil together and headed in the right direction but we also had to push Howard in his stroller.
    Howard was in costume, too, but Louella had to tell me what it was. “He’s a Chia Pet,” she said. “One of those things that grow grass when you water their heads.”
    Once you knew that was what Howard was supposed to be, you could see that it was perfect for him because his hair—now that he had some—grew right straight up in the air.
    “Of course you have to pretend his head is green all over,” Louella said. “My mother would kill me if it
was
green.”
    “Lucky for you the Herdmans aren’t here,” I said. “They’d fix that.”
    “O-o-o-h!” Louella stopped. “What if they are here? I mean, not at school, but here… . “ She pointed to the house at the corner of our street, where there were two big trees and a hedge of bushes. “There, maybe … “
    Naturally when Louella stopped, I stopped and Charlie stopped, but Cecil didn’t. He ran into Charlie, and they both stumbled around inside the slipcover until we stood them up and straightened them out.
    “Remember I can’t see very much,” Cecil said, “so if you stop you have to tell me. You have to say ‘Stop!’“
    We had to say “Stop!” a lot, till even Howard began to fuss about being jolted up and down in his stroller.
    “I’m sorry,” Louella said, “but I feel like I can see Herdmans everywhere.”
    I didn’t see Herdmans, but I didn’t really blame Louella for feeling spooky. It was almost dark now so the streetlights were on, making pools of light here and there. There was enough wind to make the dry leaves fall and rustle underfoot, and there were other kids—just shapes of bats and ghosts and outer-space bugs in the shadowy night.
    It really felt like Halloween, until …
    “I see a big light!” Cecil said—pleased, I guess, that he could finally see something out of his eyeholes.
    The “big light” was Woodrow Wilson School. It was lit up from top to bottom, all bright and cheerful, as if to scare Halloween away and leave a perfectly safe school event—free of shrieking ghosts and rattling skeletons, free of all Halloween tricks and all Halloween candy.
    And free of all Herdmans …

8
    T his
was a
new experience—being Herdman-free on Halloween—and you could tell not everyone believed it. Louella, for instance, kept looking over her shoulder for anybody who looked unusual.
    “Louella,” I said,
“Everybody
looks unusual. It’s Halloween.”
    Charlie and Cecil looked unusual as long as they stayed together, and even more unusual when they didn’t. Kenneth Jordan was a robot in aluminum foil, with Slinkies for ears and an alarm clock taped to the front of him. There were two or three television sets—Joyce Bender, with a box over her head and a red wig, was pretending to be
I Love Lucy.
Skinny Austin Hubbard was a floor lamp in brown wrapping paper, with a lamp shade on his head and a flashlight to turn himself on. Maxine Cooper was a big round yellow M&M—the only candy in sight.
    “I know,” Louella said, “but I keep thinking I’ll see some Herdmans after all, and they’ll grab Howard and shave off what little hair he’s got.”
    “You will see Imogene,” I told her, “but it won’t really be Imogene. It’ll be Joanne McCoy.”
    But Joanne changed her mind and came in a Wonder Woman costume “ … because,” she said, “if something
does
happen, and people think I’m Imogene Herdman, they’ll blame it on me.”
    It was hard to imagine what could happen here that hadn’t been planned out and arranged by the PTA and Mrs. Wendleken. The whole place looked like Back-to-School-Night.
    On Back-to-School Night there are signs on all the doors so the parents won’t get lost, the PA system is on with Mr. Crabtree giving directions