Free Dunc's Halloween by Gary Paulsen Page B

“I didn’t spend a whole year working on this to get scared away by a big dog.” He stood up.
    â€œAmos …”
    â€œIt should take us forty-two seconds to reach the Andersons’. Let’s go.”
    â€œAmos—”
    But Amos was gone, sprinting down the street. Dunc held back for half a second, shook his head, then followed.

. 2
    Dunc was in midhurdle over a plastic flamingo in the back of Mrs. Rigletti’s yard when he heard the howl again.
    It was closer than it had been the first time.
    Much closer.
    Again the howl sounded, rattling the few remaining leaves in Mrs. Rigletti’s ash tree.
    Amos had frozen next to a tall hedge, and Dunc took a step to be near him.
    â€œI’m not really happy about this,” Amos whispered.
    Dunc nodded, started to say something, then stopped.
    Footsteps padded on the opposite side of the hedge—big footsteps. They seemed to echo.
    â€œDunc, you don’t suppose this is somebody playing a joke, do you?”
    A huge muzzle came around the end of the hedge, snorting twin jets of steam from the nostrils. Then a head, and yellow-green eyes that looked directly at and through Amos and Dunc. The lips lifted to show a seemingly endless row of daggerlike teeth, and it took Dunc a full second to realize that the eyes were looking
down
on them. Whatever it was, the thing was enormous—a scabby, furry, growling house.
    Amos nodded, smiling. “Sure. Look—you can see the line where the rubber mask ends. Right there, in back of the drool. It’s all a—”
    He pointed with a finger and very nearly lost it. In a spray of saliva the teeth swirled and went for the hand. But at the same time Dunc grabbed Amos by the collar and jerked him backward, and the fangs missed and took off about a two-foot section of hedge as neat as a gas-powered trimmer.
    â€œâ€”joke.”
    By the second step, Dunc was running, dragging Amos backward.
    Time hung for half a second, two. Dunc and Amos were moving. Amos’s legs caught up with him and his body wheeled, but his head was still facing back at the monster.
    The beast spat bits of the Riglettis’ hedge, dropped to all fours, and tore after the boys.
    Dunc dug hard with his left foot, feinted to the right, then leaned and angled left, ducking down to dive beneath the hedge. Amos had been looking back, watching the thing gain on them, but when he turned, Dunc was suddenly not there.
    â€œDunc!”
    â€œUmmph.…” Dunc scrabbled through to the other side. “Come left. Hard!”
    But it was too late. Amos was already past the point where Dunc had dived. He smelled breath on his neck, hot breath, worse than anchovy-pizza breath. Amos threw another quick look over his shoulder and found himself looking down a throat as big as a tunnel.
    He hung a right so fast, it threw the monster off.
    â€œI’ll come around.” Amos snatched a pink plastic flamingo out of the ground as he passed through the Riglettis’ garden and tried to use it as a sword. The monster bit its head off.
    â€œDunc, help me!” He was angling back around to the hedge where Dunc was waiting by the hole that went through to the other side.
    â€œDive! When you get here, dive, and I’ll grab you!”
    Amos took two more giant leaps, shoved the pink flamingo back once more, heard a crunch, and dived for the hole.
    And almost made it.
    He came in at a slight angle. Because he was off to the side, his front half went through clean, but he jammed at the waist for half a second, his knees wedged in and his butt jammed up in the air.
    A perfect target.
    The fangs came down in a drooling arc, opened and bared, then slammed shut like a vise, and half of Amos would have beengone, but once more Dunc grabbed him by the collar and jerked him. The teeth all but missed—one fang caught the fleshy part of his rear end and made a small rip through Amos’s jeans and cut a little scratch.