“Are you anangel?”
“Well, yes. Of death. But no. That is not mycostume.”
“Something with wings. Let me think.” Myra was stalling. Or maybe she was just really into having Death on the doorstep begging for a three-dollar candybar.
Like I said. I did not do Halloween byhalves.
“All the gnomes have been living in Ordinary for years,” Delaney said, reminding me that we had a problem right here in the living room. “Maybe they’re only alive for one month a year, but they are citizens here. We don’t discriminate against our citizens. We protect them, uphold their rights, make sure that their needs are met, no matter if they have been here for a day, or if they’ve been mostly dead all of their weird littlelives.”
“Fine,” I said. “We’ll try to keep Abner alive. So, Hogan, can you break the zombiespell?”
He shifted a bit. “I’m not sure. Hey,Abner.”
The gnome glanced at him, thenaway.
Hogan said, “Knockknock.”
Abner focused on Hogan like there was nothing else in the world. If he’d had lungs, if he’d had a breath that he could wait with bated, he’d be doing that too. “Who’sthere?”
“Headgnome.”
Abner’s smile got wider and wider. Frankly, it was a little creepy. But Hogan grinned right back at him. “Head gnomewho?”
“Head gnomeme.”
I admit it, I gasped a little. For one thing, it was a dumb joke. Like, it wasn’t even funny. But for another, everything in the room sort ofshifted.
I wouldn’t say that the orangey-ness of it changed, but really? The orangey-ness of itchanged.
“Oh. Seriously,” Hogan said. “Wow. So, I’m the gnew leadergnow.”
And just like that, Abner looked a lot more alive. Both his eyes were now bright and blinking, his beard a nice white triangle beneath his chin, his ears evenly curled under his bright red pointedhat.
“Our leader,” Abner said. “You arehere.”
“What?” Iasked.
“Hold on,” Delaney said. “Hogan, what did you justdo?”
“You are abhorrent at guessing a simple disguise,” Death said from the front door. “I would have expected more from a policedetective.”
Myra made atsking sound. “Someone’s sassing their way out of the jumbo Snickersbar.”
“What did you do?” I asked Hogan. Since he wasn’t paying any attention to me, I grabbed his shoulders and shook him a little. “What did you justdo?”
“It’s cool. Like. Good. Real good. I’m like, the leader of these little dudes now, and I make the rules. Hey, Abner,” he said. “You aren’t a zombieanymore.”
“I’mgnot?”
“You’re gnot.” There was that feeling again. The slight shift in a color I hadn’t even sensed in the room until it changed. “And that means gnone of the other gnomes are zombiesanymore.”
“They’regnot?”
Another slightshift.
“They are gnot. You stillhungry?”
Abner frowned, his hat shifting forward as his eyebrows knit together. “Candycorn?”
