Read it. READ IT! Please. It's my Halloween story, obviosly, so happy holidays! :)

It's The Great Pumpkin, Crazy Penguin

Rico loved Halloween. What a surprise. And one of his favorite things about it was carving the pumpkin. He demanded that his fellow penguins leave the lair for awhile so he could surprise them with his masterpiece. Kowalski and Private left without a word, and Skipper left with two warnings: do NOT let Ringtail in, and if I find even one gooey seed on the floor, I'm smashing the pumpkin. We all know how Skipper feels about a clean HQ.

Rico gazed at the pumpkin. They had stolen it from Alice, who was going to put it on a food cart for decoration. Not that she would mind if it was gone. Less work for her.

It was a large pumpkin, almost as big as himself. Rico hugged it. How fun it would be to blow it up and watch pumpkin guts fly everywhere. But he'd get in trouble if he did that. He resisted the urge and hacked up a carving knife. He remembered Skipper's warning and picked up the morning newspaper, setting it down on the ground before dragging the pumpkin onto it.

He pushed his knife into it and cut the top out. But before he could lift the lid, guess who came in. None other than King Julien himself, followed by Mort.

"Hello silly penguins!" he said. "I have come to-" Julien stopped when he laid eyes on the large orange pumpkin. He squealed. "Oh my goody-ness! Penguin, when did you become in possess-ion of the Great Pumpkin?"

Rico stared at the lemur. "Great Pumpkin?"

"Have you never heard of the Pumpkin? He delivers goodies to all the good people of the world! Which, of course, includes me."

Now Rico understood. Private had shown that Charlie Brown thing to the lemurs yesterday, sharing with them his belief in the Great Pumpkin. Rico rolled his eyes and remembered Skipper's other warning. He started pushing Julien towards the hatch.

"Hey! I haven't told the Great Pumpkin what I want for Halloween!" Julien yelled at him. Rico picked him up. "I want a pogo stick, one of those air fresheners with the little bally things in them, and a big stick to hit Mort with!" Rico climbed the ladder with Julien slung over his shoulder. He tossed the lemur king out, closed the hatch, and locked it.

When Rico returned to the ground, he realized that Mort was still there, and was now attempting to stick the knife, which was twice his size, into the pumpkin. Rico rushed to take the knife away from the little lemur, and contemplated over whether or not to kick him out. He decided to let him stay, figuring that he wasn't as bad as Julien. He picked up the mouse lemur and set him on top of the TV.

"Stay," he told him.

"Okay!" Mort happily replied, holding onto his tail.

Rico began to scoop all the seeds out of the pumpkin and onto the newspaper. When that was done, he carved the most horrifying face he could come up with into the pumpkin. It was pretty horrifying. He stood back to admire his work and grinned. This was his best pumpkin by far. He hacked up a candle, lit it, and stuck it in the pumpkin before replacing the lid.

When he looked up at the TV, Mort was gone. Rico quickly looked around the lair, and his eyes rested upon the door to Kowalski's lab, which was cracked open. Just wide enough for a small mouse lemur to fit through. He groaned and ran inside.

Julien pushed open the "Private's First Prize" door and crawled out of the tunnel into the HQ. He dashed over to the pumpkin.

"Hello Great Pumpkin!" he greeted. "As you already know, I am King Julien, and I have been very good this year, so I know you are having very good things in store for me!" Julien climbed on top of the pumpkin and sat down on it. "So, anyway, that naughty penguin threw me out before I could be giving you my candy requests! I hope you're not planning on giving him goodies."

The pumpkin, of course, didn't respond.

"You are being very quiet. Like to keep things secretive, do we? Very well. I will just tell you that I am very fond of giant lollipops. Okey doke?"

The pumpkin said nothing.

Julien jumped off. "Why are you not responding? Are you deaf?" The lemur king obviously didn't realize the pumpkin had no ears. But it had a mouth, therefore it was capable of responding. Julien got back on top of the pumpkin and began repeatedly jumping up an down on it. This was causing the candle inside of it to shake, and while it should've gone out, it instead lit the inside of the pumpkin on fire somehow. Julien felt the heat.

"Ooh! Ow! Ow! It is hurting!" Julien jumped off and looked at it. It seriously looked alive, the way it was lit and burning. As if it might raise off the ground at any moment.

Rico walked out of the lab with Mort in his flippers, both of then covered in ash. Of course Mort would make six of Kowalski's inventions blow up. Rico set Mort down and looked up to find his pumpkin, his best pumpkin ever, burning.

Julien saw him. "Look! Look at it! It's the Great Pumpkin, crazy penguin!" he yelled with joy.

Rico gasped. He hacked up a fire extinguisher and sprayed at the pumpkin. When it finally stopped burning, you couldn't even tell it was a pumpkin. Rico stared at it, his beak quivering, before turning his glare to the ring-tailed lemur.

"You killed the Great Pumpkin!" Julien yelled at him, which just made Rico angrier. The penguin jumped on Julien, tackling him to the ground.

While they fought, Mort's eyes found the pile of pumpkin seeds. They looked so gooey and fun. He ran and jumped into the sticky mess as if it were a leaf pile. And while Mort is very tiny, the force of him sent seeds flying all over Skipper's nice clean floor. And of course it was at that moment the other three penguins walked in.

The first thing Skipper saw was not his weapons expert attempting to strangle his annoying neighbor, but the mess of gooey pumpkin seeds all over his HQ. He then saw the pumpkin, burnt to a crisp, and then Rico trying to kill Julien.

"Well, no need to smash the pumpkin. It's already smashed." Skipper sighed and went over to where Rico was still on top of Julien. He pulled his soldier off of Julien, picked up the lemur, and tossed him out through the hatch. He picked up Mort and did the same. He glared at Rico. Rico pouted. Some Halloween.

Happy Halloween! May you all be blessed with candy! ;)