Bunnicula Meets Edgar Allan Crow

SEVEN

Astonished in the Pumpkin Patch

It didn’t take long for us to figure out where Edgar was leading us. For there, in the garden behind the last house on our block, was a blur of black and white caught in the beam of Mr. Monroe’s flashlight.

“It’s Bunnicula!” Toby shouted.

“But what’s he doing in Amber’s garden?”

“It’s Delilah’s garden, too,” Howie said with a wistful sigh.

Amber, as you may remember, is rumored to be Pete’s girlfriend. Delilah is Amber’s new puppy. Howie and I met Delilah on a recent jaunt around the neighborhood. After a perfunctory hello to me, Delilah joined Howie in an interminable round of—not to mince words—sniffing. I will spare you the details; suffice it to say that I have spent much of my life trying to rise above this barbaric canine greeting ritual. In any event, the sniffing routine was followed by an equally interminable game of nip-and-chase. In the end, it was clear that Howie was as smitten with Delilah as Pete is with Amber.

But I digress. It was not Delilah or Amber or any other member of the Gorbish family that was the reason Edgar had brought us here. It was Bunnicula—and something more. Bunnicula had disappeared behind a pumpkin. But was it an ordinary pumpkin? Oh, no. This pumpkin was white!

“How . . . astonishing,” Miles remarked as we approached. “I’ve never seen a white pumpkin. Which reminds me. When I went upstairs to get my . . . cape ... I noticed that the . . . salad next to my bed had turned ...”

“White,” said Mr. Monroe.

“Yes, how did you know?”

“Vegetables in the kitchen turned white, too,” said Mrs. Monroe, “although how in the world he got them out of the refrigerator I can’t imagine.”

“He?” asked Miles. “Surely you don’t mean ...”