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Bunnicula?” Howie inquired.
    â€œHe’s gone.”
    Howie began to whimper. “Gone? To the big carrot patch in the sky? The bunny beyond? The hareafter? The hoppy hunting ground? The—”
    â€œHe escaped!” Chester exploded.
    â€œOh,” said Howie.
    â€œThat’s why you’ve got to get me out of here! I’ve got to stop him before it’s too late.”
    â€œWas this his cage?” Howie asked. He was looking in at a ground-level cage next to him.
    â€œAs a matter of fact, yes,” said Chester. “Why do you ask?”
    â€œLook, Uncle Harold,” said Howie. “Look at the newspaper lining the bottom.”
    I looked. It was Saturday’s paper. There was a big ad in the middle of the page:
    CENTERVILLE CINEMA—THE LAST PICTURE SHOW!
    SEE THE MOVIE THAT OPENED THIS LANDMARK THEATER IN 1931!
    DRACULA,
STARRING BELA LUGOSI
    TRANSYLVANIA COMES TO CENTERVILLE!
    BE THERE .. . IF YOU DARE!!
    If Bunnicula hadn’t thought before of looking for his mother at the movie theater, there was no question in my mind now that that is where he had gone. I knew what I had to do.
    And I knew what I couldn’t do.
    â€œCome on, Harold, get me out of here. It can’t be that hard to unlock this cage. I’ll talk you through it.”
    I looked up at my friend, my best friend, my oldest friend in the world, and I said, “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Chester.”
    â€œOh, now, Harold,” Chester said, “of course you can. I’m sorry for all the times I’ve called you a dunce or a simpleton—”
    â€œOr a dolt,” I said.
    â€œOr a dolt,” Chester went on, “but I know you’re not really
that
dumb. I’m sure you can figure out how to open the door and get me out of here.”
    â€œIt’s not that I can’t do it, Chester,” I said. “It’s that I
won’t
do it.”
    I looked away, but I could hear in the silence that Chester understood what I was saying.
    â€œI thought you were my friend,” he said at last.
    My heart lay heavy in my chest. “I am your friend, but I’m Bunnicula’s friend, too, and I can’t let you hurt him. I’ve stood by you in all your crazy at-tempts to do him in in the past, but I. . . Well, I just can’t do it anymore, Chester. I’m sorry.”
    Chester’s voice was like a shard of ice that cut through me. “Sorry?” he said. “That’s what you have to say after all the years we’ve been friends? Sorry? Well, here’s what I’m sorry about, Harold. I’m sorry that I can’t be your friend anymore.”
    I looked up. “Chester,” I said.
    But he turned his back on me and said nothing. Nothing, that is, but one word, which he spat out at me as Howie and I made our way back out through the open window.
    â€œTraitor,” he said.
    When Howie and I emerged into the outside world, the air felt different. Where it had been warm and springlike before, now all I felt was a chill. All Iwanted was for everything to be the way it once had been. And all I knew was that it never would be. I had lost my best friend. How I ached to go home and curl up in a dark corner where I could sleep for days. But I couldn’t go home. I had to find Bunnicula. How was he to know that the newspaper in his cage was from two days earlier? There would be no movie shown tonight, just an empty, dangerous theater perilously close to being destroyed.
    As we set off to find Bunnicula, Chester’s final word repeated itself over and over in my mind.
    Traitor. Traitor. Traitor.

[ NINE ]

The Last Showdown
    B Y the time Howie and I reached the movie theater, the night sky was not only chilly but dark. I could make out several large trucks parked out front, one of which held a tall crane with an ominous steel ball hanging from the end of it, and everywhere there were police barricades and banners bearing the