“Oh, Daddy!” Ramona threw her arms around her father. “It’s the wickedest jack-o’-lantern in the whole world.”

Mr. Quimby kissed the top of Ramona’s head. “Thank you. I take that as a compliment. Now run along to bed.”

Ramona could tell by the sound of her father’s voice that he was smiling. She ran off to her room without thinking up excuses for staying up just five more minutes, added a postscript to her prayers thanking God for the big pumpkin, and another asking him to find her father a job, and fell asleep at once, not bothering to tuck her panda bear in beside her for comfort.

In the middle of the night Ramona found herself suddenly awake without knowing why she was awake. Had she heard a noise? Yes, she had. Tense, she listened hard. There it was again, a sort of thumping, scuffling noise, not very loud but there just the same. Silence. Then she heard it again. Inside the house. In the kitchen. Something was in the kitchen, and it was moving.

Ramona’s mouth was so dry she could barely whisper, “Daddy!” No answer. More thumping. Someone bumped against the wall. Someone, something was coming to get them. Ramona thought about the leering, sneering face on the kitchen table. All the ghost stories she had ever heard, all the ghostly pictures she had ever seen flew through her mind. Could the jack-o’-lantern have come to life? Of course not. It was only a pumpkin, but still—A bodyless, leering head was too horrifying to think about.

Ramona sat up in bed and shrieked, “Daddy!”

A light came on in her parents’ room, feet thumped to the floor, Ramona’s tousled father in rumpled pajamas was silhouetted in Ramona’s doorway, followed by her mother tugging a robe on over her short nightgown.

“What is it, Baby?” asked Mr. Quimby. Both Ramona’s parents called her Baby when they were worried about her, and tonight Ramona was so relieved to see them she did not mind.

“Was it a bad dream?” asked Mrs. Quimby.

“Th-there’s something in the kitchen.” Ramona’s voice quavered.

Beezus, only half-awake, joined the family. “What’s happening?” she asked. “What’s going on?”

“There’s something in the kitchen,” said Ramona, feeling braver. “Something moving.”

“Sh-h!” commanded Mr. Quimby.

Tense, the family listened to silence.

“You just had a bad dream.” Mrs. Quimby came into the room, kissed Ramona, and started to tuck her in.

Ramona pushed the blanket away. “It was not a bad dream,” she insisted. “I did too hear something. Something spooky.”

“All we have to do is look,” said Mr. Quimby, reasonably—and bravely, Ramona thought. Nobody would get her into that kitchen.