Anna watched as Miss Barlow passed out black and orange construction paper.
"Remember, children, do your very best," the teacher said. "When you finish making your Jack-O-Lanterns, I'll look at each one carefully, and the best Jack-O-Lantern made by a girl and the best Jack-O-Lantern made by a boy will each get a gold star."
Determined to win the gold star for the girls, Anna got right to work. She drew the circle for the pumpkin as straight as she could on the orange paper, then cut it out and glued it to the white paper. Then she cut out three black triangles, two for the eyes and one for the nose, and a big black toothy grin. With care, she glued the shapes to the orange pumpkin as neatly as she could.
After awhile, Miss Barlow collected the Jack-O-Lanterns. The children waited as she looked them over. At last she smiled and looked up.
"All of you did a good job on your Jack-O-Lanterns. The gold stars go to Roy Darby for the boys and Mary Lou James for the girls."
Anna got a sinking feeling in her stomach. She'd worked hard on her Jack-O-Lantern and had wanted very much for it to win the gold star. At the same time, she knew her friend had worked hard on her own Jack-o-Lantern too, and that only one girl could win the gold star.
She looked at Mary Lou. Mary Lou smiled at her, and a moment later, Anna smiled back.
When Anna arrived at school the next morning, she saw that Miss Barlow had taped all the Jack-O-Lanterns to the wall in the hallway beside the classroom door. It stung just a little when she saw Roy's and Mary Lou's stars on their Jack-O-Lanterns, but she swallowed the hurt and went on with her day.
"You make a very cute Little Red Riding Hood," Patty told her daughter. Anna wore a dirndl with a red apron and matching red hood, and Patty had braided her hair into pigtails.
"In that outfit, you remind me so much of my little sister when she was your age," Anton added.
"Looks like we're just in time for the Brimmers, too," Patty observed. Elizabeth had offered to take Anna trick-or-treating with Max and Laura this year.
Anna watched with her parents as Elizabeth, Max, and Laura walked up the sidewalk and rang the doorbell. Max was dressed as a cowboy, and Laura was dressed as a Native American princess.
Patty opened the door to let them in.
"Oh, you look so cute!" Elizabeth told Anna.
"Thank you," said Anna. Patty handed her her plastic bucket, and the trick-or-treaters were off.
The first house they came to was that of elderly Mrs. Dilley.
"A cowboy, and Indian, and Little Red Riding Hood!" she said as she dropped candy bars into each plastic bucket.
The next house they came to was that of the Hansens. The Hansens were a middle-aged couple. Their children had already grown up and moved out. Mrs. Hansen gave each of the children a lollipop.
They stopped at a few more houses, and by the time it began to get dark, the three plastic buckets were full of candy.
"One more house, and then we'll go home," Elizabeth decided.
Anna soon became aware of a scraping noise behind her. She turned to see what it was and saw an upside-down metal bucket moving down the street by itself!
She screamed, startling the others.
"Th-that bucket!" she cried, pointing to it. It was moving closer and closer.
Elizabeth went to the bucket and picked it up, revealing the small brown puppy underneath.
Anna giggled in relief. "It's just a puppy!"
"Oh, can we keep it, Mommy? Please?" begged Laura.
"He probably already belongs to someone, and they miss him," her mother told her. "We'll make signs and post them around the neighborhood, and if nobody ever calls, then I suppose we can keep it, if it's all right with your father, of course."
"Oh, I hope nobody calls about him!" said Laura.
"We already have Heidi," Max pointed out.
"I know, but she's old now. Wouldn't it be fun to have a puppy?"
"It might be nice for Heidi to have a companion, but it wouldn't be right to keep the puppy if it already has an owner," said Elizabeth. She walked Anna home, then went home with her own children.
"Looks like you did well," Patty remarked as Anna came inside. "Lets look through and make sure it's all OK to eat." She dumped all the candy out onto the table and sorted through it. She took out an unwrapped cookie and two pieces of candy that the wrappers had partially come off of. "There, it looks like everything else is fine."
She returned the treats to the plastic container and handed it back to her daughter.
A few days later, Mary Lou invited Anna and Laura to the ice cream parlor. Laura was accompanied by a girl Anna had never seen before. The girl had long red hair, freckles, and brown eyes.
"This is April," Laura told Anna. "It turned out the puppy was hers and his name is Buddy. Her Mommy called our number that was on the signs we posted around the neighborhood. She's in my class at school, but I never talked to her before, until her Mommy called me about Buddy, and they came to pick him up."
"I was so glad to see him again!" said April. "I was afraid he was gone forever, but my Mommy saw the sign and called the number, and we got him back!"
The girls walked into the store. Anna saw Mrs. Harris standing behind the counter. Mrs. Harris was Mary Lou's grandmother. Mrs. James was eight months pregnant and couldn't stand for very long at a time anymore, so Mrs. Harris came over to help out often.
"What kind of ice cream would you like today?" she asked the four girls. They told her, then sat with their dripping cones at an indoor booth.
"It must be fun having an ice cream parlor right where you live!" April said to Mary Lou. "My Mommy has to buy it in cartons at the store."
"It is!" Mary Lou agreed. "I get to eat it 'most every day, 'cept when I'm sick or the store's closed. Did you feel sad about having to give Buddy back, Laura?"
"A little bit," Laura admitted. "But I'm glad April and me are friends now."
"It's always nice to make a new friend," Anna agreed.