The Three Halloween Problem

It's Halloween! All of the animals who live around the lakehouse love Halloween!

Problem 1

This year Mr. Finnigan is dressing up as a black bear. He got the idea by watching Bennie rummage around his garbage cans every afternoon.

Bennie is dressing up as a Teddy Bear. But to everyone else, he kind of just looks like himself.

Mr. Finnigan sets out to go trick or treating at dusk. On the way, he sees Patty the Panther. Patty looks beautiful as always. Her black coat is shiny and clean. Patty always wants to look her best, and she would never embarrass herself by dressing up all silly on Halloween.

Patty sees Mr. Finnigan as well. But he looks super scary, like a huge black bear walking down the street! Patty turns and runs away through the forest. She trips, and falls down a ridge, tumbling through branches and leaves. When she finally gets her footing, she emerges from the underbrush covered in wood chips, thorns, and bristles.

"DING DONG" "Trick or treeet!" says Mr. Finnigan at his neighbors house.

"Very funny Bennie. You were just here a minute ago. You know its not nice to try to trick or treat at the same house twice! Leave some candy for the other trick or treaters. Go on now, scoot!"

"No, its me, Mr. Finnigan," says Mr. Finnigan.

"Very funny Bennie, now move along"

Mr. Finnigan is partly upset that he's just been confused for Bennie the Bear, but also kind of proud that his costume turned out so well.

Patty the Panther comes limping out of the woods. This is the worst thing that could happen to Patty. What if someone sees her, covered in mud and branches. She's so embarrassed, she must look terrible, she thinks to herself.

She finds the nearest pond so she can try to clean herself off. It happens to be in the backyard of the neighbors' house were Mr. Finnigan had just been mistaken for Bennie.

The neighbors see Patty limping through the backyard. "Not so fast Bennie, we see you." There will be no pranks or other Halloween nonsense this year. Get out of here, and go trick or treat somewhere else bear!"

Patty was alarmed. Confused for a bear!? She decided to run all the way home and stay in the rest of the evening.

Problem 2

Like all of the forest animals, Wally really liked Halloween. The only thing that would make it better would be if Mr. Finnigan gave out Charlies to trick or treaters, instead of candy! But Wally had his own ideas for how to get Charlies on Halloween.

Wally decided to dress up as Dolly the Dear this year. Nobody would ever suspect Dolly of doing anything wrong. Dolly is too afraid of getting caught to ever break the rules!

While Mr. Finnigan was out trick or treating, Wally snuck into the back yard, looking like a young deer in the woods. The Charlies in the chicken coop weren't fooled by Wally's costume. They could smell the Wolf on his breath.

But that didn't stop Wally at all. He filled his trick or treating bucket with Charlies, then rushed home so he wouldn't miss any trick or treaters coming to his den.

Wally's den was on a popular trick or treating route through the forest, he always had plenty of visitors. This year, Wally snuck a Charlie bone into the candy he was handing out. Better to spread the evidence far and wide, so that it couldn't be tracked back to him!

Problem 3

Ollie the Owl was having trouble with his eyesight, so he decided to look for a doctor to help.

Emo the Ostrich put out a sign, which Ollie thought said "eye doctor" because Ollie's sight was so bad and Emo had poor handwriting.

Emo played along and tried to fix Ollie's eyesight, but it didn't work at all!

Marigold the Moose dressed as Momo the Mouse for Halloween, which is completely silly because Marigold is much bigger than a mouse.

Ollie, with his poor eyesight, saw Marigold and swooped down to catch her, mistaking her for an actual mouse.

Marigold was very afraid and burst into tears.

Everyone thought that was so silly, because Ollie can't eat Marigold because she's too big. Ollie felt very bad that he made Marigold cry.