Meanwhile, on the other side of town, George’s dad was enjoying his environmental protest march. Holding up huge signs and shouting slogans, the campaigners charged across the shopping district, batting the crowds aside. “The planet is dying!” they yelled as they marched to the town square. “Recycle plastic bags! Ban the car!” they bellowed to surprised passers-by. “Stop wasting the Earth’s resources!” they yelled.
When they reached the middle of the square, George’s dad jumped up onto the base of a statue to give a speech.
“Now is the time to start worrying! Not tomorrow!” he began. No one heard him, so one of his friends handed him a megaphone. “We don’t have that many years left to save the planet!” he repeated, this time so loudly that everyone in the area could hear him. “If the Earth’s temperature continues to rise,” he went on, “by the end of the century, flood and droughts will kill thousands and force over two hundred million people to flee from their homes. Much of the world will become uninhabitable. Food production will collapse, and people will starve. Technology will not be able to save us. Because it will be too late!”
A few people in the crowd were clapping and nodding their heads. George’s dad felt quite surprised. He’d been coming to these marches for years and years, handing out flyers and giving speeches. He’d got quite used to people ignoring him or telling him he was crazy because he believed that people owned too many cars, caused too much pollution, and relied too heavily on energy-consuming machines. And now, suddenly, people were listening to the environmental horror story he’d been talking about for so long.
“The polar ice caps are melting, the seas are rising, the climate is getting warmer and warmer,” he went on. “The advances in science and technology have given us the power to destroy our planet! Now we need to work out how to save it!”
By now, a little group of Saturday shoppers had stopped to hear what he had to say. A small cheer went up from the people listening.
“It’s time to save our planet!” yelled George’s dad.
“Save our planet!” the campaigners shouted back at him, one or two of the shoppers joining in. “Save our planet! Save our planet!”
As a few more people cheered, George’s dad lifted his arms in the air in a victory salute. He felt very excited. At last people were taking some notice of the terrible state the planet was in. He suddenly realized that all those years he had spent trying to raise public awareness were not lost after all. It was starting to work. All the eco-friendly groups had not protested in vain. When the cheers trailed off, George’s dad was about to speak again when suddenly, out of nowhere, a huge custard pie sailed across the heads of the crowd and hit him right in the face.
There was a moment of shocked silence, and then everyone burst out laughing at the sight of poor George’s dad standing there, with runny cream dripping down his beard. Wriggling through the onlookers, a group of boys dressed in Halloween costumes started running away from the square.
“Catch them!” shouted someone in the crowd, pointing to the band of masked figures sprinting away as fast as they could, laughing their heads off as they went.
George’s dad didn’t really mind—after all, people had been throwing things at him for years while he made his speeches; he’d been arrested, jostled, insulted, and thrown out of so many places in his efforts to make people understand the danger the planet faced, that one more custard pie didn’t upset him very much. He just wiped the sticky goo out of his eyes and got ready to continue talking.
A few of the other green campaigners ran after the group of demons, devils, and zombies, but they were soon left behind, staggering and gasping for breath.
When the boys realized that the grown-ups had given up the chase, they came to a halt.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha,” snickered one of them, ripping off his zombie mask to reveal the features of Ringo. His real face wasn’t much more attractive than the rubber mask.
“That was great!” gasped Whippet, stripping off his black-and-white Scream mask. “The way you threw that pie, Ringo!”
“Yeah!” agreed an enormous devil, swishing his tail and waving his pitchfork. “You got him right on the nose!” Judging by his great size, it could be none other than Tank, the boy who just couldn’t stop growing.
“I love Halloween,” said Ringo happily. “No one will ever know it was us!”
“What should we do next?” squeaked Zit, who was dressed as Dracula.
“Well, we’ve run outta pies,” said Ringo. “So we’re going to play some tricks now, some good ones. I’ve got some ideas . . .”
• • •
By late that afternoon, the boys had given quite a few people living in their small town a bad fright. They’d shot an old lady with colored water from a toy pistol; they’d thrown purple flour over a group of small kids; and they’d set off firecrackers under a parked car, making its owner think they’d blown it up. Each time, they had caused as much havoc as possible and then scampered away very quickly before anyone could catch them.
Now they had reached the edge of town, where the houses started to spread out. Instead of narrow streets with rows of snug little cottages, the buildings got bigger and farther apart. These houses had long green lawns in front of them, with big hedges and crunchy gravel driveways. It was getting dark, and some of these enormous houses, with their blank windows, columns, and fancy front doors, were starting to look quite eerie in the dim light. Most of them were dark and silent, so the gang didn’t even bother ringing their bell. They were just about to give up for the day, when they came to the very last house in the town, a huge rambling place with turrets, crumbling statues, and old iron gates hanging off their hinges. On the ground floor, lights were blazing from every window.
“Last one!” announced Ringo cheerfully. “So let’s make it a good one. Tricks ready?”
His band of boys checked their stash of trick weapons and hurried along behind him up the weed-covered driveway. But as they approached the house, they all noticed a strange eggy smell, which grew stronger as they approached the front door.
“Pooo-eeey!” said the huge devil, holding his nose. “Who did that?”
“Wasn’t me!” squawked Zit.
“He who smelt it, dealt it,” said Ringo ominously. The smell was getting so overpowering now, the boys were finding it hard to breathe. As they edged toward the front door—where the paint was peeling off the woodwork in ribbons—the air itself became thick and gray. Hand over his mouth and nose, Ringo reached forward and pressed the giant round doorbell. It made a sad, lonely clanging noise, as though it wasn’t used very often. To the boys’ surprise, the door opened a crack and fingers of yellowish gray smoke curled through the narrow gap.
“Yes?” said an unpleasant voice that was somehow familiar.
“Trick or treat?” croaked Ringo, almost unable to speak.
“Trick!” cried the voice, throwing the door wide open. For a fleeting second the boys saw a man wearing an old-fashioned gas mask standing in the doorway. Another second, and great clouds of stinky yellow and gray smoke rolled out through the open door and the man vanished from view.
“Run!” Ringo yelled. His gang didn’t need telling twice—they had already turned tail and were rushing back through the thick smog. Panting and wheezing, they staggered down the drive, through the gates, and onto the pavement. They ripped off their Halloween masks so they could breathe better after choking on the smelly smoke. But Ringo wasn’t with them—he had tripped in the driveway and fallen onto the gravel. He was struggling to his feet when he saw the man from the big house walking toward him.
“Help! Help!” he yelled. The other members of his gang stopped and turned, but no one wanted to go back for him. “Quick!” said Zit, who was the smallest. “Go and save Ringo!”
The other two just shuffled awkwardly and mumbled. The spooky man wasn’t wearing a gas mask anymore, and the boys could almost make out his features through the clearing smoke. Ringo was standing up now, and the man seemed to be speaking to him, although the other boys couldn’t hear what he said.
After a few minutes Ringo turned and waved to his gang. “Hey!” he shouted. “All of you! Get over here!”
Reluctantly the other three straggled toward him. Strangely, Ringo seemed very pleased with himself. Standing next to him, looking just a tiny bit sinister, was none other than Dr. Reeper.