Pumpkin was a fat black cat in a tiny witch hat, and tonight Pumpkin was hunting a thief. All over Sunnydale, children had lost their costumes on Halloween night. A creature took them. It changed shape, so no one agreed what it looked like. Pumpkin meant to find it. But the only witness was a boy who had just seen it, and he was crying under a cluster of drooping willow trees. The boy had no costume left. He hugged his knees and watched Pumpkin with wet, frightened eyes. When Pumpkin took one step closer, the boy scrambled back against a twisted trunk. A strange cat was the last thing he wanted. Pumpkin stopped. Pushing forward would only send the boy running, and then the clue would be gone. Pumpkin needed the boy calm. So Pumpkin looked smaller and softer. Nearby sat a hamster in a little pumpkin cart, dressed for the holiday and going nowhere in a hurry. Pumpkin nudged the cart's handle. The wheels squeaked. The cart rolled into the light, and the hamster twitched its whiskers at the boy. The boy sniffed. A tiny smile broke through. "He has a hat like yours," he whispered. Pumpkin sat down beside the cart, not too close, and waited. The boy crept nearer to see the hamster. Fear was losing to curiosity. But the boy still wouldn't talk about the creature. His mouth shut tight when Pumpkin looked toward the trees. So Pumpkin found the next tool. A soft candycorn plush lay dropped in the grass, smiling its stitched smile. Pumpkin patted it forward with one paw until it bumped the boy's shoe. The boy picked it up and squeezed it. "It ran that way," he said finally. "It was scary." Pumpkin's ears lifted. But "scary" was not enough. Pumpkin needed to know its shape, its face, anything. Then Pumpkin saw the coloring book. It lay open in the grass with a bundle of crayons scattered beside it, cheerful pumpkins grinning on the cover. Pumpkin dragged it over and flipped to a blank page. Then Pumpkin rolled a crayon toward the boy's hand. The boy understood. "You want me to draw it?" He wiped his nose and picked up the black crayon. His hand shook, then steadied. He drew tall legs like sticks. He drew a body of rough straw. He drew a stitched face with one round, glowing eye and a long, sharp beak. "It looked like this," he said. "Like a scarecrow. But it moved." Pumpkin stared at the drawing. Now the creature had a face. It wore the shape of a walking scarecrow, and it had fled in one clear direction, arms full of stolen costumes. The boy was safe with his plush and his hamster friend. Pumpkin stood, picked up the drawing in careful teeth, and turned toward the dark trees where the thief had run.