"Check this out, it's the perfect costume."  Jay put a pumpkin over his head that was carved in a silly design (the pumpkin, not his head) and stuck the end of a small flashlight in his mouth.  When he turned it on, his head glowed red and it looked funny to Allene, since she was laughing.

"If it's dark enough and you wear black you'll look like a floating pumpkin," she said, "but I still need a costume."

"I thought you were going as Donald McRonald.  I know--we could cover you with shaving foam and spray paint it so you'd look like Silly Putty!"

"Would that work?"

"No."

They heard a big rip and someone fell on the ground.  Jay and Allene ran over to him and helped him up.  "What happened?" asked Allene.

"Oh, hi," said the guy.  He pulled a calculator-looking thing out of his pocket and punched a couple of buttons.  "So you're the main characters in this story, huh?"

"What are you talking about?" asked Jay.

"You two are characters in a story.  My name is..." he punched buttons on his calculator-looking thing, "...Curt."  I'm from a different story.  I founded the Inter Story Alliance Against Evil Story Hoppers--ISAAESH."

"Why are you here then, Mr. Isaaesh?" asked Allene.

"That's Curt.  And I'm here to warn of an evil story hopper named Jay."

"Wait a minute," said Jay, "My name's Jay."

"Hmm," said Curt as he punched more buttons on the calculator looking thing, "Most authors won't let two characters with the same" names be in a story...Nope!  He's called 'The J' here, just like he used to be at home."

"At home?" asked Jay.

"He and I are originally from the same story, but he was staying in a different story for a while.  He went crazy when there was a coconut shortage."

"You mean because he couldn't put it on his ice cream anymore?" asked Allene.

"Oh nonononono.  It's much different than that."  He leaned towards Jay, "I'd say what it is, but I don't want to offend the woman."

"She's not a good one to be offending either," Jay told him, "she hits."

Allene punched him in the arm.  "I do not."

"Anyway," said Curt, "here's a picture of him.  If you see him, press this red button."  Curt handed Jay a picture and a black box with a red button on it.  He reached down and pressed buttons on his shoes and little rocket things flew him up back into the story above where he then took out his scotch tape and repaired the hole.

Jay took the pumpkin off his head and Allene took the flashlight out of his mouth.  The author had just remembered that Jay had the flashlight in his mouth the whole time while they were talking to Curt.  They were surprised he was able to talk so clearly.

"Ahhhhhhh!"  Some weird guy with a glowing green stick came running by and almost took Jay's head off with it.  He turned around and headed for Jay and Allene again.  He climbed up a tree faster than Jay had ever seen anyone do it before and yelled, "MUST FIND COCONUTS!"

"I think that's the guy."  Jay pressed the button.

"I'm sorry, but we can't come to the button right now.  Please leave your name and location at the beep and we'll get back to you as soon as we can."

"Bummer," said Allene.  Jay ripped a big branch off a nearby tree and in a pathetic vigilantilistic attempt, started swinging it at The J up in the tree.

"Hey!" said The J, "Be careful with that thing."  Jay hit him in the ankle.  The J jumped out of the tree and held the green glowing stick in front of him.  It started to flicker and then it went out.  He unscrewed something on the bottom and two D-size SuperVolt batteries slid out.  "Argh!" he yelled.

"What is that thing?" asked Allene.

"It's a magical glowing stick.  I took it from Sir Jay in a weird story.  That was after I stole a tractor that said Burtha on it from some freak named Paul in an extremely boring story."

Jay hit him in the back of the head with his big branch.  The J fell over and Jay tried the button again.  They heard the familiar sound of the rip followed by Curt once again falling on the ground.

"Ouch," he said, "I should really assign somebody else to answer the button."  He noticed The J lying face-down on the ground.  He walked over to him and started to get his Chinese finger cuffs when The J swung his leg around and tripped Curt.  He got up and ran and dove through the story.  Jay and Allene ran to the rip and looked down.  They decided it wouldn't hurt too much if they jumped, so they did.

When they landed in the other story, they couldn't see The J.  A small box fell through the rip and landed in front of Jay.  Allene picked it up and opened it.  Something looking like a metal detector was inside.  The words "Infra-Red Footprint Finder" were written on it.  Allene turned it on and aimed it at the ground.  A few footprints appeared on the ground in front of them.  They followed these footprints up to the doorway of a strange house.

The door was locked, so Allene was trying to pick the lock.  Jay was looking around and noticed that there was a mat in front of the door.  He lifted it up and found a key.  Allene was still trying to pick the lock and she hadn't noticed Jay finding the key.

"Here, let me try it," suggested Jay.  Allene handed him the pins she had been using.  Jay pretended to use the pins while he actually put the key in the lock and unlocked it.  "I think I got it."

"No way," said Allene.  She walked over and turned the knob.  The door opened and they went inside.  Jay thought it looked like one of the mad scientists' laboratories from Looney Tunes.  Allene turned on the footprint thing again and the followed the tracks to the doorway of a dark room.  "I can't see in there," whispered Allene, whose eyes didn't adjust to the dark very quickly.  Jay told her to keep quiet and that he could see.  They quietly snuck into the room, no longer using the footprint thing because Jay could see The J.  The J disappeared behind a metal cabinet.  By now, Allene could see.  The J jumped out from behind the cabinet with a sword.

"On guard!" he yelled.  Allene found another sword behind the cabinet and tossed it to Jay.

"It slices, it dices, and makes a wide variety of bad guy soups," said Jay.  He and The J started fighting and Allene looked around for another sword.  Jay and The J were making so much noise clanging their swords that nobody heard the Curt come into the room.  Jay was forcing The J backwards and caused him to fall against a large machine.  It started to whir and the Curt looked worried.  Jay and Allene watched as he punched buttons on his calculator looking thing and The J escaped.  "What is that machine?" asked Jay.

"It seems to have brought all characters from stories up to five away into this story," the Curt explained.  He punched more buttons on his calculator looking thing and said, "Oh great."

"What now," asked Allene.

"All of the other stories from my series are in that range except one."

"What does that mean?" asked Jay.

"That means there's a lot of Curts and Pauls and Steves and Jays."  Now our three heroes (zeros) needed to somehow get everyone home and try to keep Curt from meeting himself.  After punching more buttons, he told them that this story now had some kind of barrier preventing anyone from leaving or coming in.  Jay noticed a microphone labeled "Really loud speakers outside," so he turned it on.

"Welcome, everyone, to this deserted story," Curt had also figured out that there were no native characters in the story.  "Everyone is asked to find their fellow characters and stay with them for now."

The J had been listening silently from just outside the doorway, so he knew what was going on.  He left the building.  While he was wandering around, he noticed power lines.  He thought that maybe if he cut them, the power to the machine would be cut and he could escape.  When the lines were cut with the sword he still had, the power was cut to somewhere else and the machine's power was increased.  It was now strong enough to pull in more characters. Paul, Steve, and Jay were looking at The J.  Especially Jay though, since he was to become "The J" in the next story for no particular reason.

"Ah!"  The J's head went down and his hand went to his forehead.  He snapped back up and yelled, "COCONUTS!"  He started to run, but was stopped by the words of Paul.

"Hold on a minute there pal, what do you think you're doing bringing us here?  And who are you anyway?"

"I am The J," said The J, "and I didn't bring you here on purpose."

"There he is!" shouted another Paul who was pointing at The J from far away.  Allene was with him.  "That's the guy who ripped off my tractor!"  He noticed the other Paul and stood there, staring.  The other Paul was doing the same thing.  Allene took the magical glowing stick out of her pocket (she had found it when first tracking The J to the house), and put two D-size Energizer batteries in it.  She switched it on as she ran over to The J.  She cut his sword into small pieces and shut off the magical glowing stick before returning it to her pocket.

By then Steve and Jay had realized that The J was a bad guy, so they pulled out their pencil-fighting pencils.  The J dug around in his pockets and finally found three sharpened pencils.  He had all the knowledge and experience of Jay who was better than Paul and even Steve, plus a bit more.  He threw one of them at Paul, but Steve was able to block it.  Then Paul realized what was going on, so he took out his pencil-fighting pencil.  The other Paul came over and picked up the pencil that Steve had blocked.  "Four against one," Steve pointed out.  The J threw another pencil at one of the Pauls and hit him in the hand.  Steve, Jay, and the uninjured Paul slowly stepped towards The J.  The J held his pencil ready to fight them off.  He was not successful, and was stabbed many times even after he was dead.  Steve, Jay, and Paul threw their pencils as far as they could because now they were all icky.

Allene took the injured Paul with her and told the other three to stay there.  She brought the injured Paul back to the house where Jay and the Curt were.  When they got to the room with the machine that was whirring, Allene noticed the machine that goes "ping."  She was surprised to see such an expensive piece of equipment.  Jay had the whirring machine opened up, and he was inside it looking at the circuits.  The Curt was explaining what exactly was bad about having all these characters in one place.

Allene figured out how to get the machine that goes "ping" to go "ping" and Paul's hand was healed.  "Hey cool," said the Curt, "I want one of those."

"Allene," said Jay from inside the whirring machine, "I've decided to go with Curt and join the Inter Story Alliance Against Evil Story Hoppers."

"I want to too," said Allene, "but only if I can keep the magical glowing stick."

"We should return-"

"I think I can probably figure out how to make more of those if you'll let me take it apart before we return it to Sir Jay," said Jay.

"Okay Allene," said the Curt, "you're in."  He shook her hand.

"I've got it!" Jay's voice came once again from inside the whirring machine , "If we unplug it, everyone will go back to where they were" before it was turned on BUT, it will blow up."  He looked across the room at the magical glowing stick.  "I'll need that."  The Curt tossed it to him and Jay told them to get out of there.  Paul and Curt wheeled the machine that goes "ping" with them.  Jay used the magical glowing stick to get through the walls and follow the power cable out of the building.  He kept going for a while and then cut the cable.  The explosion was bigger than he'd expected, so it knocked him and the other two down.  He wondered if the machine that goes "ping" got damaged.

When Jay found the other two, he found out that the machine that goes "ping" was knocked over, so he helped pick it up.  It wasn't damaged at all.  Curt punched buttons on his calculator looking thing and told them that all the characters except them and The J were back in their home stories.  The J was dead, so they left him there.  The rest of them went to Curt's home story.

"This looks like a good place to live, don't you think so, Allene?"

Curt looked up from his calculator looking thing. "She's 'the Puddy' now, but don't ask why.  Your name is either The J or the Jay, whichever you pick."

"I think I'll take the Jay," said the Jay, "I don't want to be confused with a crazy man."

"Like it hasn't happened before..." Allene reminded him.  Curt got them calculator looking things, those nifty shoes with rockets, and rolls of scotch tape.  Then he showed the Jay to the house where The J had lived in past stories of the series and the Puddy to the house the Jessi had lived in.

The Jay was able to figure out how to make more magical glowing sticks (in a variety of six different colors).  He also built a machine that prevented characters from entering other stories that they were in so nobody else would meet themselves.