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Amber Silverblood: Silverpack

Bonus Chapter 1

Halloween 2016

When I woke up, there was a skeleton in my face.

"WHAT THE FLIBBERTY JIM JIMS?!" I screamed. I jumped, accidentally giving the skull a headbutt/good morning kiss, and then rolled out of bed. When I hit the floor, someone started laughing. I knew that voice. It was...

"Stark?" I shrieked, scrambling to my feet. "What happened to you?"

Then I saw the hand holding onto the skeleton's neck. I followed the arm with my eyes, and realized I was standing right in front of him. Huh. You'd have thought I would have seen him standing there.

"HAPPY HALLOWEEN!" he screamed into my face, showering me with spit.

I took a step back and waited for my ears to stop ringing. "I'm sorry, what?"

"It's Halloween!" he cackled, giving Skelly a jolly shake. "October 31st, All Hallow's Eve, All Saint's Day! Wheeee!" He threw the skeleton into the air, cracking my bedroom ceiling open in the process.

What... the... hell?

I raised my finger. "Right, okay. I need to get ready for school. Could you leave so I can get dressed?"

"Absolutely!" he agreed far too enthusiastically. "Here, put this on."

He waved his hand, and suddenly he was holding... oh, no.

"A chicken suit?" I asked. "Seriously?"

Stark started bouncing on his toes like a kid who'd had too much candy. "Guess what I'm going as?"

"What the hell are you talking about, Stark?"

"EXACTLY!"

I shook my head. "What the hell are you talking about, Stark?"

He pointed at me. "Yes, exactly! That's what I'm going as!"

"What?"

"I'm going as What The Hell Are You Talking About, Stark?!"

My mouth fell open. "... What the hell are you talking about, Stark?"

Stark held up his hands. "Look, it's Halloween, so..."

"It's not Halloween, it's January!" I pointed at the calendar hanging on my wall. "Look, it says--"

Before I could finish, Stark spun around and nailed a sheet of paper into the wall, right over my calendar. I looked more closely. It said, OCTOBER 30 ONEST. ITS HALLOWEEN AMBER!

I paused, and then shrugged. "Okay, fine. Works for me."

"Yay!" he screamed. "Get dressed! It's time to go trick or treating!"

With that, he started spinning around like a cartoon character. I didn't bother asking what he was doing, and the Stark Tornado zipped out of my room and the door slammed behind him. I didn't even point out that 6:00 in the morning is too early to go trick or treating.

"Okay," I said, raising my voice, "just come out and let's get this over with!"

"Hi there!"

I screamed and spun around to see a fat guy with with a shaggy blond beard standing behind me.

"Do you have to do that?" I demanded.

He grinned at me. "If a bear poops in the woods and there's no one to smell it, does it still stink?"

"What?"

"The answer is yes, because the bear that pooped it would be there to smell it."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Amber, it makes all the sense."

I crossed my arms and started tapping my foot. "Something doesn't feel right about this. Aren't I supposed to be, like, uncontrollably in love with you?"

He shrugged. "Well, I thought about it, and I decided that since you're seventeen and I'm twenty four, that was a little creepy."

"So you just... what, turned it off?"

He smiled wickedly at me. "I can turn it back on if you want."

I lunged forward to hug him. "MARRY ME ALREADY!"

He slipped out of my way like the world's most handsome piece of soap, and I... wait, no, no, NO!

"Stop doing that!" I screamed at him. "That is so gross!"

"Do I need to leave you two alone?"

I spun around to see the skeleton Stark had thrown into the corner get up and look at us in fleshless disgust. Without another word, it made for the door and left.

"Bye Mis Shavver!" the hairy idiot yelled after her. "Thanks for being such a good sport!"

I looked up at the crack in my ceiling. "Who's going to pay to get that fixed?"

He guffawed like a suffocating donkey. "Prisoner Zero has escaped!"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"And that, Amber," he said, pointing at me, "is why we can never be together."

You know what? I'm not upset. Not even a little.

"Fine, now get out," I snapped, pointing at the door.

Before he could move, a knock came from my bedroom door.

"What is it now?" I grumbled.

I stomped over, opened the door, and froze. The words WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, STARK? _were hovering right outside my door, with a little pumpkin pail dangling from the bottom of the _S.

"Trick or treat!" it yelled.

I stared at it for a few seconds, eyes wide. "Stark?" I asked incredulously.

"Come on, gimme some candy!" the floating words urged me. They bounced up and down, making its pumpkin bucket wobble. "I've got five more doors to hit in this hallway!"

"I'll give you some candy!"

I spun around to see that the hairy idiot standing on my bed. He had a firehose in his hands that looked like it came out of my bedroom wall.

"What are you--"

"You might want to move, Amber."

Before I had a chance to take his advice, he turned to hose on, and I was shot in the face with a stream of candy.

"Hooray!" Stark yelled as his hallway was flooded with every type of candy imaginable.

I was carried on a river of sweets all the way through Stark's cabin, screaming like a baby enchilada. Soon the house began to fill up, the candy having nowhere else to go. From somewhere in the rainbow gooey mess, I heard my mom scold Kimberly for spoiling her appetite before dinner. The walls groaned as more and more candy spewed from that maniac's hose, until.

BOOM!

The front door flew off its hinges, and we were all carried out into the front yard on the flood of candy. I was flipped over so many times that I forgot which way was up. Eventually we came to rest, and I opened my eyes to see that I was completely buried in candy.

"Ho ho ho!" my once-lover laughed from somewhere inside the cabin. "Happy Halloween!"

I've decided I'm not coming out. Not ever. If you need me, you can find me at 3347 Giant Freaking Pile of Candy Rd.

Goodbye.

NEXT TIME: Amber must convince Italy that tomatoes are, indeed, a rare breed of mermaid! The stakes are high because if she doesn't, Oprah will drop California on her. Also, don't forget to read this week's chapter of The Protractor and the Pacemaker!