1
THE LITTLE TOWN OF DEMENTEDYVILLE WAS A TIDY, uneventful town. The sort of place where home owners took care never to let their well-tended lawns become overrun by unsightly weeds or children, and birds sang in all the trees—but only between the hours of nine and five, as per the town’s bylaws.
But even in Dementedyville there was one house that stood out from all the others . . . .
Number 4 Shadow Lane, the Widow Imavitch’s place, was so spooky that children dared one another to go trick-or-treating to the door each Halloween. But nobody ever did. Naturally everyone believed the place was haunted. And then, of course, there were the strange stories about the Widow herself. . . .
Most of these rumors were started by Reuben Rumpelfink, the Widow’s neighbor. He was always complaining about her eccentric ways: About the weeds that grew wild in her garden, which he claimed had tried to eat his dog. About the bonfire parties she held whenever there was a full moon, where her guests (disreputable characters of questionable grooming habits) carried on loudly from midnight to sunrise. And about the mysterious storm cloud that hung over her yard in every kind of weather.
“That woman is a freak!” Mr. Rumpelfink told anyone who would listen. “She’s a danger to us all!”
The day this story begins, Mr. Rumpelfink was leading a frenzied mob of townspeople up Shadow Lane, heading straight for the Widow’s gates. Some of the crowd carried pitchforks, or axes, or flaming torches. Their faces were set in looks of fierce determination, as if they had some grim purpose in mind and would let nothing stand in their way....
News of a sale had spread all over town in minutes. People dropped whatever they were doing and rushed right over. Nobody wanted to miss out on any deals.
As the bargain-crazed mob surged toward the Widow’s laneway, the gates suddenly swung open, as if by magic. . . .
“Probably just motion sensors,” Miranda told her friend Stanley Nudelman. “Why do you always have to go imagining things?”
Stanley and Miranda walked home this way from school every day.
“Let’s go take a look,” Miranda said. “I bet the Widow has lots of cool stuff.”
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” Stanley hesitated. “You know what people say about her. . . .”
“Don’t tell me you actually believe all those dumb rumors?” Miranda scoffed. “Come on, Stanley. Just because somebody lives in a spooky old house, and wears black all the time, and has a toad for a pet, and keeps a broomstick chained to a bicycle rack by her door, and talks to bats, and appears and disappears mysteriously wherever a certain black cat is around, that doesn’t make her a witch.”
But Stanley was not the kind of boy who liked taking chances.
“I don’t know. . . .” he fretted.
“Oh, come on,” Miranda said. “What’s the worst thing that could happen?”
2
ONCE STANLEY AND Miranda were inside the gates, the Widow’s sale was a big disappointment. There was nothing particularly strange or mysterious about the items she was selling. It was just a bunch of kitchen stuff, old clothes, puzzles that were missing pieces, a cracked wardrobe mirror, some dusty old furniture—the same junk you always find at yard sales. Except the Widow’s mirror had a ghost in it and all her chairs bit.
The Widow herself was nowhere in sight, but her cat seemed to be following them. It kept winding in and out of their legs, purring.
Miranda crouched down to pet it. But Stanley just said “Nice kitty” without getting too close because he was allergic.
Mr. Rumpelfink was there too, hunched over a pad of paper, scribbling furtive notes as he moved from table to table inspecting the items for sale.
“I wonder what he’s doing here?” Stanley said.
“Snooping, probably,” Miranda guessed. “I bet he’s trying to find something he can use against the Widow.
“Hey, speaking of Mr. Rumpelfink,” said Miranda, “doesn’t this pincushion look just like him?”
She held up a homemade doll with shiny silver pins stuck into it. It really did look a lot like Mr. Rumpelfink. Miranda turned the doll over in her hands, pulling the pins in and out, in and out.
“Weird,” Stanley agreed. But something else had caught his eye . . . .
It was some sort of stuffed animal, still in its box. Only it wasn’t like any stuffed animal Stanley had ever seen before . . . .
It had one floppy bunny ear on a teddy bear’s head and body. . . webbed paws with sharp claws . . . feet like a lizard . . . and two fangs instead of a rabbit’s buckteeth.