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How did they know? They were all hidden behind masks And yet, and yet

They could feel his absence

"Pipkin! He's never missed a Halloween in a zillion years Boy, this is awful Come on!"

In one vast swerve, one doglike trot and ramble, they circled round and down the middle of the cobble-brick street, blown like leaves before a storm

"Here's his place!"

They pulled to a halt There was Pipkin's house, but not enough puh cornshocks on the porch, not enough spooks peering out through the dark glass in the high upstairs tower room

"Gosh," said someone, "what if Pipkin's sick?"

"It wouldn't be Halloithout Pipkin"

"Not Halloween," they moaned

And someone threw a crabapple at Pipkin's front door Itthe wood

They waited, sad for no reason, lost for no reason They thought of Pipkin and a Halloween that ht be a rotten pumpkin with a dead candle if, if, if--Pipkin wasn't there

Coht!

Why were they waiting, afraid for one small boy?

Because

Joe Pipkin was the greatest boy who ever lived The grandest boy who ever fell out of a tree and laughed at the joke The finest boy who ever raced around the track, winning, and then, seeing his friends a mile back somewhere, stumbled and fell, waited for the the winner's tape The jolliest boy who ever hunted out all the haunted houses in tohich are hard to find, and came back to report on theh the basements and scramble up the ivy outside-bricks and shout down the chi and chi The day Joe Pipkin was born all the Orange Crush and Nehi soda bottles in the world fizzed over; and joyful bees swar maiden ladies On his birthdays, the lake pulled out from the shore inleap of bodies and a downcrash of laughs