voice but the girls managed to hear her say That boy should be locked up in a cage in the basement Meanwhile the Hooper kids had worked their way from the top of the building down to the second floor Benjamin dressed as a spaceship was having some trouble with the narrow halls His sisters one on each side helped to steer him They had just spent half an hour fixing a display he had bumped into Six plastic skeletons and a full-size Frankenstein outside the Murplestein apartment had toppled and scattered along the hallway against their apartment door whimpering Why can’t you dress like something normal Lucy Hooper grumbled Like Batman or Raggedy Andy Or a peanut Emma Hooper added Hubert and Hetty Croop costumed as salt and pepper shakers had only managed to get down to the end of their own hall when everything went dark They would have grabbed onto each other for support but that was not especially easy for salt and pepper shakers to do Hubert tripped over Hetty’s feet fell and began to roll this way and that Hetty tried to get down on her knees to help but the stiff cardboard of her costume made that difficult Some eerie shrieks sent them scrambling back along the hall By the time the lights came on they were both huddled
Nothing rats in the alleys teens pierced like pincushions loose dogs or whiskered bin-divers was going to stop them from filling their stash-bags with candy In Blatchford there weren’t a lot of houses with their porch lights on to welcome roving ghouls and goblins but the twins knew exactly where to find them After what seemed like hours combing the streets Dwight The door opened Mrs Croop gasped Come here Sylvester she called to her husband Our children have been attacked The Fergus twins Dwayne and Dwight were faster than any other children in the building They had already visited all the floors of the Blatchford Arms Their pillowcases were half-filled with treats when they burst out the front doors lifted up his rubber Scream mask to get a breath of air What time is it Who cares Dwayne poked his brother with the long spiky fingernails on his Freddy Krueger glove Dwight scooped up a half-eaten apple someone had dropped on the sidewalk and chucked it at Dwayne It fell into his bag of treats Hey Dwayne yanked Dwight’s mask until it stretched out to nearly twice its size Then he let it snap back
If the boys hadn’t been so busy arguing they might have noticed a car creeping along the street beside them Inside the car Carolina Giddle sighed and shook her head so that the crystal globes dangling from her ears spun around The truth was she was lost As she tried to look at a street map and steer she wasn’t moving much faster than the boys The streets in Blatchford always confounded visitors leading them to dead ends along the park or onto bridges that spanned the very place a person wanted to be When Carolina Giddle had last been in Blatchford many years ago she hadn’t owned a car She had taken a rickety old bus to visit her great-aunt Beulah in the Blatchford seniors home Since then Aunt Beulah at 102 had passed on Shortly before she died she wrote her niece a letter Carolina Giddle kept it tucked in her back pocket like a good-luck charm She knew it by heart Dear Niece Carolina Hope you are well and as they say the hens are all laying and the creek ain’t run dry I wanted to let you know that I was able to visit the Arms where I used to live before I was married I’d been having a strong notion to go there so Gertie wheeled me over in my chair
You remember me telling you about my friend Grace who died from the consumption When Gertie went to get herself a coffee Grace came and sat with me in the sunroom I told her about how you were on the prowl to find a place these days Grace was looking good I thought for someone who’s been dead for 83 years Anyway she said You tell your niece to come on here soon as there’s a vacancy The rent’s cheap She said she can always use a friend with a good sense of the spirit world and there’s a passel of families that’d shuck out good money for someone to mind the children when there’s a need So I’m passing on her message I’d ask you to come and live with me at the home but the rooms are about the size of a tea bag At the Arms though you’ll be close by for visits With love Aunt Beulah That had been the last letter from Aunt Beulah And now there would be someone else living in her tiny room at the seniors home Carolina Giddle came to a full stop She sighed again and dabbed at a tear Then she patted something about the size of a shoebox on the seat beside her It was covered with a
