Don’t get excited. It was just my dad.

“Why is it so dark in here?” he asked.

“Dad,” I tried to explain, “it has to be dark. We’re just about to open the haunted house. See, we decided to build it and—”

“I know,” he interrupted. “Emily told me all about it. Nevertheless, I need the lights on.”

“But lights and ghosty things just don’t go together.”

“Do you see this?” my dad said, holding up a white plastic bag. “It contains the brand-new edition of the New York Times Big Book of Crossword Puzzles. I have been waiting for this to come out for two months. Now tell me, Hank, how can I read the clues in the dark?”

“Dad, I can’t believe you’re thinking about crossword puzzles tonight. This is H-A-L-L-O-W-E-E-N. As in an eight-letter word for scary.”

“Hank, Halloween has nine letters.”

Is my dad a total spelling machine, or what?

I tried to explain that we needed the living room totally dark for the haunted house, but my dad just wasn’t in a listening mood. Luckily, my mum must have overheard our conversation. She waltzed into the living room, hooked her arm in his and flashed me this little wink she does with her left eye. Maybe it’s her right eye. You know I can’t tell the difference. It didn’t matter, because that wink meant she had a plan.

“Come in the kitchen, Stanley,” she said. “I’ve got a nice cauliflower-and-beet stew for us – and your favourite mechanical pencil is just waiting for you in the kitchen.”

“Sounds like my kind of evening,” my dad said. Without even a backwards glance, my mum waltzed into the kitchen with my dad.

Randi Zipzer, you are a rock star!

I didn’t even have time to say thanks because there it was again. The doorbell. This time I knew it had to be Heather Payne. Or maybe Luke Whitman.

Oh boy, the fun was about to start!