HALLOWEEN PARADE THIS THURSDAY!

The orange-and-black banner was the first thing George saw as he and his friends walked into the school building Monday morning.

“We’re having a parade?” he asked Alex. “With floats and everything?”

Alex shook his head. “Not exactly. It’s just everyone marching around the playground. We do it every year.”

“Oh,” George said quietly. That didn’t sound very exciting.

“It’s a lot of fun,” George’s friend Julianna said. “Everyone comes in costume, and there’s music and candy.”

“We don’t have classes the whole afternoon,” Chris pointed out. “And no homework that night.”

“Oh,” George said again, with a smile. This time he sounded more excited. And also a little confused. He was doing some math in his head, and the numbers didn’t add up. “But Halloween won’t come for, like, a week and a half after that parade.”

“It’s Principal McKeon’s way of psyching everyone up for Halloween,” Alex explained.

That surprised George. He never thought of Principal McKeon as the kind of person who would want to psych kids up for Halloween. She only got excited about learning stuff. And Halloween wasn’t supposed to be about learning. It was supposed to be fun!

“What are you going to be for Halloween, Georgie?” Sage asked. Then she did that weird eyelash-blinking thing she always did when she was talking to him.

George hated the eyelash thing. He didn’t like being called Georgie, either. “I don’t know yet,” he mumbled.

“Maybe we could do something together,” Sage suggested. “Like I could be Cinderella and you could be Prince Charming.”

George shook his head. Uh-uh. Not happening. “I’m probably going to be something scary,” he told her.

“You mean like Frankenstein?” Sage asked.

George nodded.

“Then I could be the Bride of Frankenstein,” Sage squealed happily.

George frowned. That was not what he had in mind.

Just then, Louie zoomed by on his wheelie sneakers. “Out of my way!” he shouted.

“Why are you in such a hurry to get to class?” George asked him.

“I’m practicing leading the crowd,” Louie said.

“For what?” George wondered.

“For when I’m chosen to lead the Halloween parade,” Louie replied. “The kid who has the best costume always leads the parade.”

“It’s not the best costume,” Julianna corrected him. “It’s the most creative costume.”

“My school costume will be the best—and most creative,” Louie assured her.

“Your school costume?” George asked.

“Sure,” Louie said boastfully. “I always have two costumes. One for school and one for the actual night of Halloween. And they’re both always amazing.”

“That’s true,” Louie’s friend Max agreed. “Always.”

“Amazing,” Louie’s other friend, Mike, added.

Wow. Two costumes. George had to admit that was impressive. But not surprising. Louie always seemed to have twice as much of everything.

“I’ll see you guys after school,” Chris said as he turned the corner and walked into his classroom.

“Later,” George said. He headed toward his classroom, but stopped short at the doorway. Everyone did.

“What’s going on?” Alex asked.

George couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Someone had flipped all the desks upside down. The chairs, too. The drawers of the filing cabinet had been pulled open, and some of the books had been taken off the shelves and thrown onto the floor.

George’s teacher, Mrs. Kelly, was standing in the middle of the room, staring at the mess.

“Maybe it’s some sort of Halloween prank,” George suggested.

“Pranks are for April Fools’ Day,” Louie told him. “Not Halloween.”

“Okay, then you explain it,” George replied.

“No problem,” Max said. “Louie can explain it.”

“Louie’s great at explaining,” Mike agreed. “He can explain anything.”

But Louie couldn’t explain this.

“If it is a prank, I don’t think it’s very funny,” Mrs. Kelly said. “It’s going to take us a lot of time to put this room back together. And that’s a shame, because I had something really special planned for this morning.”

George wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Mrs. Kelly’s idea of “something special” wasn’t always his idea of something special.

Still, cleaning the classroom wasn’t going to be fun. But they had to do it. First, the kids flipped their desks right-side up. Then they worked to put the books back on the shelves while Mrs. Kelly fixed up her filing cabinet.

As they were putting the last book away, Julianna found a note. But the note wasn’t handwritten. It was made of letters cut from newspapers and magazines.

Julianna read the note out loud.

“The Phantom?” Alex wondered out loud. “Who’s that?”

“Could be anyone,” George said.

“And what does he mean, ‘keep your eyes open’?” Louie asked.

“I don’t know,” Mrs. Kelly said. “What do you think it means?”

“Maybe he means don’t fall asleep in school,” Mike said.

“I fell asleep once in the cafeteria,” Max said. “My face landed right in my meatballs and spaghetti.”

Boy, did George wish he’d been there to see that. He started to laugh—but he stopped right away when he saw the look on Mrs. Kelly’s face.

“We’ve wasted enough time on this Phantom’s joke,” Mrs. Kelly told the class, looking at the clock. “Luckily, we still have time for my surprise.”

Mrs. Kelly reached into her desk drawer and pulled out her iPod. She plugged it into a speaker, and began to play music.

“The toe bone’s connected to the foot bone, the foot bone’s connected to the ankle bone . . . ,” Mrs. Kelly sang along with the music. She wiggled her foot all around. “Come on, you guys. Get up and do the Halloween Skeleton Dance!”

George didn’t want to dance. Not at all. But Mrs. Kelly took her dancing seriously. She’d be angry if he didn’t get up and start dancing. So he got out of his seat and joined the rest of the class in the Halloween Skeleton Dance.

“The ankle bone’s connected to the leg bone,” Mrs. Kelly sang out. “Now shake those skeleton bones!” Mrs. Kelly began to shake all over. So did most of the kids.

But not George. He wasn’t listening to the music anymore. He couldn’t. The only thing George could pay attention to was the bubbles that were suddenly dancing up and down inside his belly.

The super burp was back! Already the bubbles were hip-hopping on his hip bone, and bouncing off his backbone.

Oh no! If the super burp burst out now, there was no telling what it might do.

George had to squelch that belch. But . . . how?

“The knee bone’s connected to the thigh bone,” Mrs. Kelly sang out.

Plink-plonk. Zink-zonk. The bubbles were moving faster now. They were ricocheting off his ribs and trekking up his trachea. George had to stop them before they made it to his mouth.

There was only one thing to do. George was going to have to trick those bubbles into moving back down toward his toes. Quickly, he flipped over, and did a handstand.

“Look! George’s acting all weird!” Louie shouted.

The kids all turned to stare at George. But he didn’t care. All George knew was that it was working. The bubbles were still moving up, up, up. But now up was down. The bubbles moved past George’s neck bone, which connected to his collarbone. Then they moved to his rib bones, which connected to his backbone, which . . .

Pop! Suddenly, George felt something burst in his belly. All the air rushed right out of him. The super burp was gone.

But George was still there. Standing upside down.

Mrs. Kelly frowned at George.

Uh-oh. This was ba-a-ad.

Or maybe not. George was upside down. So what looked like a frown was actually a smile. Mrs. Kelly was smiling at George.

“Excellent, George,” Mrs. Kelly said. “I love your interpretive dancing. And you’re right: No matter which way we stand, our bones are still connected! Now come on everybody, shake those bones.”

The kids all began to shake.

George glanced over at Louie. He was looking at George and smiling. Well, not really. George was looking at Louie upside down. So his smile was really a frown. Louie hated when anyone got a compliment—other than himself, of course.

Louie’s frown made George smile. He’d managed to squelch the belch and make Louie miserable. It didn’t get much better than that.