Pumpkin Juice

Charlie and Frank are preparing to go out trick-or-treating. Before they leave though, Frank wants to whip up a special beverage from a recipe he found in a booklet. If only Jack Chick had thought ahead and included recipes in his tracts, he could have completely cornered this market. Frank's tract has the needlessly verbose title of Monster Brews to Bring Out the Best in You on Halloween, and the recipe he is dying to try out is called, you guessed it, Eggnog.

I know what you're thinking, How can I make my own Pumpkin Juice?

Pumpkin Juice Supreme

(Serves ages 9-12)

Ingredients:

The flesh of a pumpkin

Milk

Molasses

Butter

Garlic

Chicken Broth

I know what you're thinking, How can I not make my own Pumpkin Juice?

This disgusting mixture causes the children to turn into what else but hungry werewolves. They go from door to door in the neighborhood, ingesting candy and eventually trash and worms and raw meat. Great. Charlie then spies his dog Scout. Overcome with something stronger than Sweetheart Fever, Charlie tries to enjoy a Scout nibble. Thankfully the reader is spared a child eating a dog.

Turns out the only way to reverse the effectiveness of the Pumpkin Juice is to concoct another recipe---only you must use the flesh of the same pumpkin! Charlie and Frank race home, only to discover Charlie's mom had baked the pumpkin into a pie. The kids discover the pie's ingredients are identical to the antidote, and the two greedily gulp the whole thing down. Once they finish, Charlie's mom tells them how much she loved their juice, but boy is she hungry! Wait, a werewolf story that ends with someone else being turned into a werewolf? Well, now there's a lace-lined gold-lettered invitation to sarcasm!

• Trick or Treat? Trick

Attack of the Tattoo

Jeannie is a little disappointed in her trick-or-treating haul this year. No big candy bars, cool toothbrushes, or unwashed fruit. But she did get a really gnarly looking fake tattoo of a snake! Unfortunately, she can't get the tattoo to stick to her skin. After much time spent with the small slip of paper, she notices a special 3-D message telling her that the only way to get it to stick is to use water warmed by the sun. She carries a bottle of water outside and sure enough, she affixes the tattoo. Unfortunately, unlike most like real tattoos, Jeannie's fake tattoo causes horrible snakes to crawl out of her skin. Nothing she attempts successfully removes the horrible snake-spawning design from her arm, not even closing her eyes and wishing really hard.

Finally, her friend suggests she look at the tattoo's instruction slip for instructions on how to remove the tattoo. Well, I know that sounds like a long-shot but it actually totally works. Unfortunately, though she removes the tattoo using water exposed to a full moon (What fourth grade poetaster wrote these instructions?), all her classmates overheard how she initially got her tattoo to stick. The story ends with everyone else in her class having affixed their horrible Halloween tattoos of gross creatures. Pity the poor wisenheimer who applied his barb wire fake tattoo to his genitals.

• Trick or Treat? Trick

The Wish

Poor Max is constantly being hounded by his older brother Eugene. Though he thinks he'll be able to sneak past his brother during the neighborhood trick-or-treating canvass, his Max costume ultimately proves to have been a poor choice. His older brother pummels the boy and demands Max hand over all his candy.

Despite his boy-ow-ow, Max still wants candy. All the houses have turned off their porch lights and the other kids have gone home. He wanders the streets until he finds a lit house. An old woman answers the door and grabs him by the wrist, insisting he take his "treat": an old rock. Seeing as how a rock is not even sort of almost candy, he goes home and tosses the rock out his bedroom window. This rock-tossing coincides with Max wishing he were an only child.

The next morning, when he leaves the house, everyone in the neighborhood becomes frightened and chases after him. After finally being corned by everyone and hogtied, the old woman holds up the rock and taunts him. The story ends with Max in a zoo because he is now an "Endangered Species"---the only child on Earth.

• Trick or Treat? Getting hit by a car in the street

An Old Story

Siblings Jon and Tom are visited by their mysterious old Aunt Susan, who starts feeding them prunes. The prunes cause the two boys to age rapidly. Aunt Susan then invites her elderly friends over to play bridge, and the two boys hear her promise their hands in marriage. That's when they realize Aunt Susan is aging them to sell to old women. The boys throw a pitcher of prune juice at the old woman and she explodes into dust. Luckily, a liberal smattering of anti-wrinkle cream cures the boys.

Some things are just too horrible to even joke about. And I didn't even mention how Mimi from the Drew Carey Show is somehow a character in the story. No, really.

• Trick or Treat? Trick

The Scarecrow

A scarecrow magically appears in a neighbor's yard, sporting three expensive accessories that appeal separately to three friends: a handsome scarf, a baseball cap, and leather gloves. One by one the three friends each decide to steal the item they want. The girl who steals the scarf comes down with a sore throat and loses her voice. The boy who steals the cap suddenly acts as though he has a concussion. When the final girl attempts to swipe the leather gloves, her two friends pop up behind her and admit they faked the whole thing to scare her. Then the scarecrow smiles for no reason. The story was pretty close to being good. Thank goodness Stine turned it around at the end and made it as horrible as the stories that preceded it.

Trick or Treat? Trick

Awesome Ants

Boy buys ant farm. Ant farm comes with instructions that forbid feeding food to ants. Boy feeds food to ants. Ants grow huge and place humans in ant farm. Irony not lost on anyone.

• Trick or Treat? Trick

Please Don't Feed the Bears

When you get to be my age, you'll learn a few things. Like, when a story is called "Please Don't Feed the Bears," man, you'd better not read "Please Don't Feed the Bears."

The Goblin's Glare

Mike has crafted the perfect paper mache Goblin Halloween decoration. It's so perfect that it keeps coming to life and chasing him in his dreams. I believe the lesson learned from this is to always make decorations without legs. Once the fabled night arrives, Mike attributes his great trick-or-treating success to his use of real fur in the costume. Now we know why the Olsens always walk away with the most candy every year.

In the midst of gobblin' up candy, Mike---well, you know what I'm setting up here. Mike senses the Goblin and races home, attempting to stop the goblin by slamming the door to his house shut, just as he had in his dreams. Only, instead of being greeted by his mother, he's greeted by the goblin---inside his house. The goblin chases Mike into his room, where he discovers himself, Mike, sound asleep in bed. Turns out the goblin is dreaming these events this time, not Mike. The Goblin prepares to eat the child.

Certainly this was the most I've ever used the word "goblin" in my life.

• Trick or Treat? Treat

Bats About Bats

Liz and Suzanne's new friend Dorrie loves bats. In fact, you might even say she's crazily obsessed about crazily obsesseds! All Dorrie wants to do is talk about bats and she wants to grow up to be a bat scientist like her parents. After some back and forth about bats and sleep-overs and vampire costumes, the story ends with a punchline so stupid that it's actually sort of brilliant: Her parents are not scientists who study bats, they're scientists who are giant bats.

• Trick or Treat? Treat

The Space-Suit Snatcher

For some unknown reason, there are two characters named Laura in this short story. That's pretty much all I plan to take away from it, but I guess I'll fill in some plot details anyways.

Laura has built a special radio that sends its signal into outer space and she spends her nights beaming classical music into the sky. An old man overhears her conversation at a garage sale and, having found a kindred spirit, gives her a gift: a space suit left for him by aliens back when he was a kid. He also sent signals into outer space, and one morning the was delivered to his doorstep as a gift. They told him if he ever wanted to join them, all he had to do was wear the suit and they'd come for him. She thanks the man for the life-size MTV Video Award and goes her merry way.

Unfortunately for Laura, her older sister Tammy loves tormenting her. Tammy fakes an alien invasion and puts on the space suit. Just as she starts openly mocking Laura, a flash of light emerges from the suit and Tammy disappears. In her place is a gelatinxus purple blob. The aliens signal to Laura that anyone who wears the suit gets picked up. The aliens then make a request for her to play more rock n roll music. Hahaha, aliens, you so crazy!

• Trick or Treat? Trick