Jory Waits for the Wink — Under the skinny moon, Jory stood in his lightning suit with one pumpkin pail in each hand, counting the porch lights on Briarblock Lane. Read the full story →
Under the skinny moon, Jory stood in his lightning suit with one pumpkin pail in each hand, counting the porch lights on Briarblock Lane. He wanted to be last at Number Nine because its doorbell always made a rubber-duck quack. The cold sidewalk pressed through his boots, and his cape snapped like a flag behind him. Bats stitched loops over the roofs. “Not yet,” he told his two empty pumpkins, though they grinned as if they knew better.
One by one, pirates, cats, and cardboard robots hurried past with wrappers crinkling in their bags. Jory waited through seven quacks from other porches, a gust that smelled like wet leaves, and a cloud that slid over the stars like a blanket. At last Number Nine went quiet. Its porch stayed dark. Jory’s fingers tingled on the pail handles, but he waited one more breath.
Then the crescent moon seemed to wink. A tiny paper door popped open inside each pumpkin pail’s carved smile, and out tumbled two silver-wrapped moon mints that had been hiding under the handles all along. From the roof, the bats squeaked like they had been keeping the joke warm. Jory laughed so hard his mask slipped sideways, and if you check his pumpkin buckets, you might spot the secret doors from the night he stood under the skinny moon.
