Halloween is thirteen-year-old Syd’s favorite night of the year, but when she gets teased by older kids about her costume, she decides to sit this one out.

But then her friend Jake finds a strange mask in a box of estate-sale junk to wear for his costume and manages to convince Syd to go to a haunted house. When Jake puts on the mask, he starts acting strangely, claiming to be "the Spirit of Mischief", and soon he's causing trouble all over town. With Halloween revellers transforming into werewolves, pirates, alligators—real-life versions of their costumes—and Halloween decorations coming alive and roaming the streets, Syd needs to embrace her love of Halloween to find a way to defeat Mischief before someone gets hurt.

This short novel is a high-interest, low-reading-level book for middle-grade readers who are building reading skills, want a quick read or say they don’t like to read!