Awful Alfred's Big BOO! -st

— Editor's note: Today's feature is a read-out-loud Halloween story for kids and other bumps in the night.

Night of heebie-jeebies

With a great big bag of freebies,

And a ghost with eyes like BBs hollers - "BOO!"

All the other kids sang about Halloween. But Awful Alfred only pretended. "Mumble, mumph," he faked the words. He had an awful secret.

Awful Alfred's secret was so bad that everybody would laugh at him if they found out. There was a girl with orange hair, and he just knew this girl would giggle at him something terrible.

Awful Alfred was famous for being the worst boy in Mrs. Foobah's class, and heliked it that way. He worked at it.

But if anyone knew his secret, then he wouldn't be worth a - BOO!

Here's how Awful Alfred got his name:

He picked his nose. "That's yucky, Alfred," Mrs. Foobah said.

He kicked off his shoes. "That's stinky, Alfred," Mrs. Foobah said.

He fell off his chair on purpose. "That's upsetting, Alfred," Mrs. Foobah said.

Finally, he threw a tantrum on top of a tizzy, and it beat the school record by a huff and a half. "That's awful, Alfred," Mrs. Foobah said.

The name "Awful Alfred" stuck like the gooey gobs of bubblegum he squooshed under his desk. Everybody knew Awful Alfred's name. But they didn't know his secret.

They just ran around, happy that tonight is Halloween. They sneaked up on each other and yelled - "BOO!"

Now, it so happened that somebody put an old prune on Mrs. Foobah's desk, instead of an apple.

Awful Alfred didn't do it, but he naturally got an idea. He stuck the prune to the teacher's desk with a bottle of Elmer's.

Who could blame him? Mrs. Foobah did. It wasn't fair.

He felt so awful, he jammed a green crayon up his nose, and Mrs. Foobah had to pull it out for him.

"Next time, you ought to go for the orange," she said. "It's a nice Halloween color."

Awful Alfred went, "Gulp!" He won-dered if Mrs. Foobah could guess his secret.

No, he decided. If she knew, she'd laugh at him. And yell - "BOO!"

No wonder Awful Alfred kept his secret hush-hush.

It was ... shhhhhhh, now, don't laugh. He was scared of ...

Halloween.

He was scared of jack-o'-lanterns that stared into the night with their flickery yellow eyes.

Hee-hee was scared of black cats' whiskers and hooty-hoo owls.

And hee-hee-heeeee was scared the most of ... ghosts!

Ghosts are the scariest things of all - so scary, there's nothing a ghost is scared of.

And they boo like boogabooga boom-boom clouds full of thunder - "BOO!"

- right in Awful Alfred's ear.

The big boo made him fall over.

"Who booed?" he asked, flat on the playground at recess.

"Somebody," was the answer.

He looked up, and all he could see was somebody's big grin.

It was the orangehaired girl. She had three teeth like a jacko'-lantern.

"Well, somebody better quit it," Awful Alfred said. He got up, but his knees wobbled like a cardboard skeleton's.

"You want to go trick-ortreating with me?" the orangehaired girl said.

"No!" Awful Alfred said. It was supposed to be a flat no, but it curled.

He all of a sudden noticed something very strange about her. She made orange hair and three teeth look good.

"I mean, yes," he said.

"We'll have fun," she promised. "We'll be awful scary, Awful Alfred - "BOO!"

Mrs. Foobah made Awful Alfred stay after school and scrape the prune off her desk.

"You look worried, Alfred," she said.

"I'll never glue another prune," he said.

"Oh, that's not like you," Mrs. Foobah said. "What's really the matter?" Awful Alfred didn't want to tell. But his secret felt like a burning candle in a jacko'-lantern. It felt hotter and hotter, and he had to let it go.

He told theteacher everything. He told all about the orange-haired girl - and how he wanted to go trick-or-treating with her, but he couldn't. He was scared of Halloween.

"These are awful problems," Mrs. Foobah said. "But I think I can help."

Mrs. Foobah took something out of her desk. "Look here," she said.

It was a bent old picture of a girl with orange hair and four teeth. She was dressed up for Halloween. She looked like a little dickens.

"That's me," Mrs. Foobah said.

Awful Alfred went double, "Gulp!"

The girl in the picture looked just the kind to go - "BOO!"

"You told me your secret, Alfred," Mrs. Foobah said. "Now, here's mine you'd never, never guess. Mine is, I know a thing

or two." It turned out, she did.

Awful Alfred dressed up the way Mrs. Foobah told him would do the trick, and sure enough.

That night, he got the best of Halloween.

He went trick-or-treating with the orange-haired girl,

and he wasn't scared at all.

He wound up with a bag of

treats, and not one prune in

the bag.

"I wonder who put the prune on Mrs. Foobah's desk," Awful Alfred said. "Somebody did." "Well, I'm somebody," the orange-haired girl said.

Awful Alfred had to agree. She was some

body for sure, dressed up like a jack-o'-lantern.

She said, "Boo!"

But he thought - "Whoo!" Oh - and here's how Mrs. Foobah fixed Awful Alfred's troubles:

"Let's think of all the ways you could dress up for Halloween, Alfred," Mrs. Foobah said.

"I could be a spaceman," Awful Alfred said.

"Hmm," the teacher said. "But you'd still be scared of black cats' whiskers."

"I could be pirate," he said.

"Hmm," Mrs. Foobah said. "But you'd still be scared of hooty-hoo owls. No, there's only one thing for you to be, Alfred. Can you guess what?"

She whispered what, and she was right.

All he needed was an old bedsheet with two eyeholes.

"That's awful, Alfred," Mrs. Foobah said, "and then some."

The outfit made him a ghost. And nothing scares a ghost.

He went booga-booga-boom -boom-"BOO !"

Family, Pages 33, 38 on 10/31/2007

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