The Happy and Heinous Halloween of Classroom 13 Read online

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 by Hachette Book Group

  CLASSROOM 13 is a trademark of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Cover and interior art by Joelle Dreidemy. Cover design by Véronique L. Sweet.

  Cover copyright © 2018 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

  1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104

  Visit us at LBYR.com

  First ebook edition: July 2018

  Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  ISBN 978-0-316-50113-2

  E3-20180514-JV-PC

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1 Classroom 13’s Revenge

  Chapter 2 Little Linda Riding Hood

  Chapter 3 The Hot Dog

  Chapter 4 The Two-Headed Horse

  Chapter 5 The (Stinky) Baby

  Chapter 6 The Cowboy

  Chapter 7 The Mime

  Chapter 8 The Pirate

  Chapter 9 The Tree

  Chapter 10 The Ghost

  Chapter 11 The Princess and the Prince

  Chapter 12 The (Sick) Vampire

  Chapter 14 The Robot

  Chapter 15 The Werewolf

  Chapter 16 The Pumpkin

  Chapter 13 The 13th Classroom

  Chapter 17 Mason

  Chapter 18 The Ninja

  Chapter 19 The Knight

  Chapter 20 The Mouse

  Chapter 21 The Cat

  Chapter 22 The Grim Reaper

  Chapter 23 The Witch

  Chapter 24 The Blob

  Chapter 25 The Zombie

  Chapter 26 The Viking

  Chapter 27 The Wha-cha-ma-call-it?

  Chapter 28 Toilet Paper

  Chapter 29 Olivia

  Chapter 30 Oh, Wait…

  Chapter 31 Your Chapter

  CHAPTER 1

  Classroom 13’s Revenge

  The 13th Classroom was not evil—it just didn’t like being left out of all the fun.

  And the students of Classroom 13 were always having fun. Once, they won the lottery and didn’t give Classroom 13 any of their money. Another time, they found a magic genie djinn lamp and didn’t give Classroom 13 a wish. This other time, they all became super famous and the agent didn’t even notice Classroom 13 (…though it certainly showed her). Last month, everyone in Classroom 13 got superpowers—that is, everyone except Classroom 13. (Oh, and Jacob.)

  The 13th Classroom was sick and tired of not being included. Now it wanted revenge! And for Halloween, it had just the revenge in mind.…

  It left out a bowl of candy.

  You might think that this was nice, but it was not. It was a nasty thing to do.

  What’s that? You don’t believe me? You think candy on Halloween is nice? Just wait and see. Sometimes the best treats turn out to be tricks.

  CHAPTER 2

  Little Linda Riding Hood

  When schoolteacher Ms. Linda LaCrosse woke up on the morning of Halloween, she was absolutely ecstatic. (That’s another word for super-duper happy.)

  Halloween was one of her favorite holidays. She had been putting together her costume for weeks. First she got a picnic basket with a little plaid cloth inside. Then she got a little stuffed animal of a wolf. Finally, she got a red cloak. She was going to be Little Red Riding Hood.

  For breakfast, she poached her bread in a pot of water and cooked her eggs in the toaster. Her toast was very soggy and her eggs were very dry.

  It didn’t matter, though, she thought to herself. It was Halloween. She could eat candy instead of a good breakfast. (Which, if you ask me, is a foolish thing to think. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and no amount of candy can replace it. Me? I eat cake for breakfast every morning. Cake is a very sensible breakfast.)

  After she put on her costume, Ms. Linda looked in the mirror. “Now, Little Red Riding Hood,” she said to herself, “I want you to go straight to Grandmother’s house. Don’t talk to any strangers in the forest. And watch out for wolves!”

  Ms. Linda giggled. She skipped merrily all the way to school. When she arrived, she turned on the lights and dusted the shelves. She readied her books and hung the decorations. Finally, she noticed a strange bowl of candy in the center of the room.

  “I wonder who put that there,” Ms. Linda said. “Probably one of my students. What a thoughtful thing to do. I should take a piece. It would be rude not to have at least one.”

  Ms. Linda picked a piece of candy and tossed it into her mouth. It tasted like chocolate, Worcestershire sauce, and fresh-cut grass.

  A moment later, Ms. Linda became very confused. Looking around the room, she asked herself, “Where am I? Where are the woods? And which is the way to Grandmama’s house?”

  As some of the students walked into the classroom, they waved to their teacher. “Happy Halloween, Ms. Linda,” said Dev.

  “Halloween? What’s Halloween? And who is Ms. Linda?” said Ms. Linda. “My name is Little Red Riding Hood.”

  “It is?” Mason asked.

  “No, it’s not,” Olivia said sternly. “Your name is Ms. Linda. You’re our teacher.”

  “A teacher?” said Ms. Linda. “Oh, I think not. I don’t even go to school. I spend each day going back and forth to Grandmama’s house. I deliver her bread and fruit. You see, she’s very sick and too weak to travel herself.”

  “Wow, our teacher is really in character,” said Liam.

  “Who are all of you children? And why are you dressed so strangely?” Ms. Linda asked, hiding behind her desk. The students’ costumes terrified her. There was a ghost and a pirate and some kind of zombie. “Never mind who—or what—you are. If one of you would be oh so kind enough to point me in the right direction of the woods, I’ll be on my way.”

  “Okay, this is super weird,” said Mark, “even for our class.”

  Ms. Linda—still confused—really did think she was Little Red Riding Hood. She pulled the cloak over her head and hid under her desk from the children in their strange outfits.

  Everyone was distracted by the odd start to their day, so they didn’t hear the 13th Classroom laughing at them. Its revenge had begun.

  CHAPTER 3

  The Hot Dog

  Hugo Houde aimait les hot-dogs. Donc, pour Halloween, il décida de se déguiser en hot-dog. Quand il entra dans la classe, il prit un bonbon dans le bol, le mangea, et s’assit.

  Quelques secondes plus tard, Hugo était transformé en véritable hot-dog.

  CHAPTER 4

  The Two-Headed Horse

  Mason scratched his head as twins Mya & Madison walked into Classroom 13. “I don’t get it
,” he said. “What’s your costume?”

  “Duh,” said Mya. “We’re a horse.”

  “One horse?” Mason asked.

  “Obviously,” said Madison.

  Mason scratched his head again. “I know I’m not the smartest kid in Classroom 13. But I don’t think horses have two heads.”

  Mya & Madison took one look at each other and started yelling.

  “You were supposed to be the butt!” Mya shouted.

  “No, you were supposed to be the butt!” Madison shouted back.

  You see, both girls had wanted to be a horse for Halloween. But a horse is a two-person costume. One person wears the head and the front two legs, and the second person wears the back two legs and the butt. But being the butt is hard work. You have to be bent over all day holding the other person’s waist. Plus, you can’t see anything back there.

  Neither Mya nor Madison wanted to be the butt. Instead, both of them wore the front half of the costume. So they were a two-headed horse with four front legs and no back legs and no butt.

  “You ruined Halloween!” Mya shouted at her twin.

  “You ruined our costume!” Madison shouted back.

  When the twins began screaming, Ms. Linda peeked out from under her desk. “Oh my!” she said. “Those girls remind me of the terrible wolf that lives in the forest. How frightful! I think I’ll stay under my desk until they’ve gone away.”

  “Seriously, Ms. Linda?!” Olivia said. “Stop pretending and start acting like a teacher!”

  “I don’t think she’s pretending,” said Preeya. “I think she thinks she really is Little Red Riding Hood.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Olivia snorted. “It’s not possible.”

  “Are you sure?” Mason asked. “Look. Hugo turned into a hot dog.”

  Hugo had turned into a hot dog. And Liam was about to take a bite. Mason slapped the hot dog out of Liam’s hands. “Don’t eat Hugo!”

  Mason put the hot dog in his pocket for safekeeping.

  Olivia rubbed her temples. “How did this happen?”

  “Who knows?” Dev said, eating some of Classroom 13’s candy. He offered the bowl to the fighting twins. “Hey, ladies. Maybe stop screaming and suck on some sweets?”

  The twins devoured several pieces of taffy. They stood back-to-back, chewed their taffy, and refused to speak to each other.

  What the twins didn’t notice was that their costume began to change. So did their bodies. Their skin became soft and covered in light brown hair. Then their arms vanished and their legs grew long. Their feet turned into hooves. Their necks stretched and they stopped chewing. Instead, they neighed.

  When Mya & Madison finally looked at each other, they discovered they were connected at the waist and had become a two-headed horse. Frightened, they both tried to run away. Since they were attached, they didn’t get far. In fact, they didn’t get anywhere.

  The whole class was there to witness the transformation. “Holy guac-a-moly!” said Triple J.

  “Someone get those girls to a horse-pital,” Liam joked. “No, seriously, are the twins sick? Maybe they need some cough stirrup. Someone get them some medicine. Hurry now, before they fall down and can’t giddyup!”

  “Enough, Liam! This is serious,” Isabella said. “Horses shouldn’t be cramped inside a tiny classroom. They need to be outside with fresh air and grass and a wide-open space to run around in.”

  “I’m sorry,” Liam said. “I’ll stop horsing around.” Liam cracked himself up. He couldn’t stop laughing.

  While the other students tried to figure out what was going on, the twins forgot entirely that they had once been human girls. Happy with being a horse, they walked sideways to the class plants and began chewing the green leaves. If they were really lucky, someone might even give them a carrot or comb their hair.

  CHAPTER 5

  The (Stinky) Baby

  Liam loved laughing. That’s why he liked farting so much. He thought farts were hilarious. Sometimes they were loud, sometimes they were quiet, and sometimes they were silent but deadly. No matter how the farts came out, Liam always laughed.

  Liam also liked to make other people laugh. Which is exactly why he dressed up as a baby for Halloween. He came to school wearing nothing but a bonnet, a pacifier, and a diaper. As soon as he walked in, the other students laughed.

  “Liam, you crack me up,” said Ava.

  “Seriously, that is an awesome costume,” Teo added.

  Jacob didn’t laugh. He said, “I don’t think babies are funny. I think they’re creepy-looking, like little hairless old people.”

  That made Liam laugh, so he wrote it down. Liam was a joke collector. He had dozens of joke books and had watched hundreds of comedy specials on TV, but his new favorite was improv—where you make jokes up on the spot. Sometimes these jokes came at other people’s expense. Today, the butt of his jokes was Mya & Madison, who didn’t have a butt anymore. They had somehow become a two-headed horse.

  In the midst of another horse joke about Mya & Madison (“Look! The twins are eating with their mouths open. What bad stable manners! Bwahahahahahaha!”), Liam began to shrink. A few seconds later, he wasn’t just dressed up as a baby—he was an actual baby.

  “OMG,” Emma said. “Liam turned into a baby!”

  “Babies are so cute!” said Chloe.

  “Look at him!” said Lily. “I just want to eat those fat little cheeks!”

  “Do you smell that?” asked Benji. “Oh no! I think baby Liam made a boom-boom in his diaper. I’m not changing him!”

  “One-two-three NOT IT!” shouted Santiago.

  “NOT IT!” everyone in the 13th Classroom shouted.

  “Then who’s going to change Liam?” Ximena asked.

  No one moved. No one wanted to touch a dirty diaper.

  When Liam realized what was going on, he did not laugh. He did not think it was funny at all. Instead, he started crying. And in case you didn’t know—a crying baby with a dirty diaper is never, never funny.

  CHAPTER 6

  The Cowboy

  Chloe had always wanted to be a cowboy for Halloween. But every year her parents bought her a cowgirl outfit. Chloe thought cowgirl outfits were lame. They were pink and frilly and had skirts instead of chaps. She wanted a real cowboy outfit, with a pair of six-shooters and a mean mustache.

  Chloe thought mustaches were cool—which they are.

  This year, Chloe ordered her costume herself. She got it online. (Did you know you can get all sorts of stuff online? Like video games and comic books and big tubs of popcorn? You did know? Why didn’t you tell me?! So rude! Anyway…)

  “Cool mustache!” said Lily.

  “Cool six-shooters!” said William.

  “Are those spurs on the back of your cowboy boots?” Jacob asked. “Awesome!”

  “Why, thank ya kindly, pard’ners,” she said in a gruff voice.

  “What happened to your voice?” Sophia asked.

  “Nuttin’, honey,” Chloe said. “This is how ah always talk.”

  “Uh, no, it’s not,” said Emma.

  “Uh-oh, it’s happened to her, too,” Olivia said. “She really thinks she’s a cowboy.”

  “What d’ya mean thinks?! Ah am a cowboy. Done earned that title after workin’ the horse ranch over in Abilene,” Chloe growled.

  “No, you’re not,” Olivia said. She pulled at Chloe’s mustache. Yet no matter how hard she pulled, it wouldn’t come off.

  “OW!” Chloe roared. “You’re darn lucky you’re a lady and ah’m a gentleman and a cowboy. Otherwise, ah’d show ya a thing or two with my fists.”

  “The mustache is real!” Olivia gasped.

  “Yeah, right,” Jacob said. “You’re just not pulling hard enough.” Jacob grabbed Chloe’s mustache and gave the hardest yank he could muster. He practically pulled Chloe’s face off.

  “Mister, ah suggest you run,” Chloe growled. She took the lasso from her belt and started swinging it in the air. Jacob barely made
it halfway across the room when the rope caught him around the waist. Chloe pulled him in, pushed him to the ground, and tied his hands and feet behind his back and put a sock in his mouth. “Consider yourself hog-tied, mister. And let this be a lesson to ya—never go around pulling a man’s mustache. It’s darn tootin’ rude.”

  “Am I dreaming?” Mason asked. “This feels like a dream. Like the time I dreamt I came to school naked.”

  “That wasn’t a dream,” said Mark. “You forgot to get dressed yesterday.”

  “Stop talking! Let me think for a minute,” Olivia shouted. She rubbed her brain. After all, she was the smartest student in the class. It was up to her to fix things. “Okay. I think people are actually becoming their Halloween costumes. But how? If we can figure that out, maybe we can reverse the effects.”

  “What’s that smell?” Ethan asked, pinching his nose.

  “Ugh. Someone really needs to change Liam,” Fatima yelped.

  “Ain’t no thang,” Cowboy Chloe said. “Ah’ll take care of it. Can’t be worse than helping a mare give birth to a foal.”

  But Chloe was wrong. As soon as she opened Liam’s diaper, a terrible smell overtook the classroom. The smell was so awful that Sophia threw up, which made Ethan throw up, which made Ximena throw up, which made Dev throw up. Surprisingly, Santiago (who was usually sick) did not throw up.

  “Dang, this is a mess!” Chloe said. “Lucky for y’all, a good cowboy always brings gloves to work.…” Chloe put on her gloves and changed Liam’s diaper. She opened the door to Classroom 13 and tossed it down the school hallway.

  Afterward, everyone cheered. She deserved it. Changing dirty diapers is terrible business. Have you ever changed a dirty diaper? I highly recommend skipping it—if you can.

  CHAPTER 7

  The Mime

  What’s going on in Classroom 13, you ask? Haven’t you figured it out yet?