"Pea shooter! Give it here, John. One night of Halloween pranks is enough, let alone a whole week of it."
He surrendered the weapon reluctantly. "Now mind," she added as the bit of tin was dropped into the top drawer of the kitchen bureau, "you're not to buy another one, either."
Mothers were peculiarly unsympathetic about premature pranks; take Fourth of July, no matter how many firecrackers a fellow owned, he had to sneak off to the big lot to light them if he wanted to celebrate on even the day before.
So there was little left to do but look longingly forward to the great night. On Monday, as he dressed, John found himself repeating, "Only four more days." His last thought on Tuesday was, "That makes just three." Thursday afternoon at school, as he chanted a silent refrain, "Day after tomorrow's Halloween, day after tomorrow's Halloween," the boy in the seat just behind tapped him stealthily on the shoulder and passed over a bit of folded paper.
He glanced up at Miss Brown. She was filling out the monthly report cards and was not likely to detect him, but he held the note underneath his desk as he opened it, nevertheless. It was from Silvey and ran in nearly illegible figures:
17-12-19-13. 14-22-22-7 26-7 7-19-22 8-19-26-24-16
26-21-7-22-9 8-24-19-12-12-15 7-12-23-26-2 26-15-15
7-19-22 7-18-20-22-9-8 7-19-22-9-22. 25-18-15-15.
He ran his hand back of the untidy jumble of school books and pads and drew out an oft creased, finger marked sheet, the secret code of the "Tigers":
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M |
| 26 | 25 | 24 | 23 | 22 | 21 | 20 | 19 | 18 | 17 | 16 | 15 | 14 |
| N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
| 13 | 12 | 11 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
He began deciphering the message with a concentration never meted out to his school work. Five minutes of effort resulted in:
John. Meet at the shack after school today all the Tigers there. Bill.