Stephanie Alpert and I haunt our neighborhood.

We got the idea last Halloween.

There are a lot of kids in our neighborhood, and we like to haunt them and give them a little scare.

Sometimes we sneak out late at night in masks and stare into kids’ windows. Sometimes we leave rubber hands and rubber fingers on windowsills. Sometimes we hide disgusting things in mailboxes.

Sometimes Stephanie and I duck down behind bushes or trees and make the most frightening sounds—animal howls and ghostly moans. Stephanie can do a terrifying werewolf howl. And I can toss back my head and shriek loud enough to shake the leaves on the trees.

We keep almost all the kids on our block pretty frightened.

In the mornings, we catch them peeking out their doors, seeing if it’s safe to come out. And at night, most of them are afraid to leave their houses alone.

Stephanie and I are really proud of that.

During the day we are just Stephanie Alpert and Duane Comack, two normal twelve-year-olds. But at night, we become the Twin Terrors of Wheeler Falls.

No one knows. No one.

Look at us, and you see two sixth graders at Wheeler Middle School. Both of us have brown eyes and brown hair. Both of us are tall and thin. Stephanie is a few inches taller because she has higher hair.

Some people see us hanging out together and think we’re brother and sister. But we’re not. We don’t have any brothers and sisters, and we don’t mind one bit.

We live across the street from one another. We walk to school together in the morning. We usually trade lunches, even though our parents both pack us peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches.

We’re normal. Totally normal.

Except for our secret late-night hobby.

How did we become the Twin Terrors? Well, it’s sort of a long story….

Last Halloween was a cool, clear night. A full moon floated over the bare trees.

I was standing outside Stephanie’s front window in my scary Grim Reaper costume. I stood up on tiptoes, trying to peek inside to check out her costume.

“Hey—beat it, Duane! No looking!” she shouted through the closed window. Then she pulled down the shade.

“I wasn’t looking. I was just stretching!” I shouted back.

I was eager to see what Stephanie was going to be. Every Halloween, she comes up with something awesome. The year before, she came waddling out inside a huge ball of green toilet paper. You guessed it. She was an iceberg lettuce.

But this year I thought maybe I had her beat.

I’d worked really hard on my Grim Reaper costume. I wore high platform shoes—so high that I’d tower over Stephanie. My black, hooded cape swung along the ground. I hid my curly brown hair under a tight rubber skullcap. And I smeared my face with sick-looking makeup, the color you see on moldy bread.

My dad didn’t want to look at me. He said I turned his stomach.

A success!

I couldn’t wait to make Stephanie sick! I banged my Grim Reaper sickle on Stephanie’s window. “Hey, Steph—hurry up!” I called. “I’m getting hungry. I want candy!”

I waited and waited. I started pacing back and forth across her front lawn, my long cape sweeping over the grass and dead leaves.

“Hey! Where are you?” I called again.

No Stephanie.

With an impatient groan, I turned back to the house.

And a huge, hairy animal jumped me from behind and chewed off my head.