Jude was an orphan. Otherwise he was a pretty normal thirteen year old. He did have foster parents, the Burlingtons, but he lived a normal life, except for one thing. His feelings were contagious. If he was happy, his family, his friends, and his teachers were happy. Sometimes if he was really glad he could make his whole community happy. Sounds pretty good, huh? Well, as you can imagine, if he was mad, it was contagious, too.


     It was Friday, October 13, 1995. Jude had just awakened from a bad dream. He turned to the clock. It read 5:12. He sat in bed for a minute, and decided he couldn’t go back to sleep. He tiptoed out of bed, so as not wake his foster parents.
     “Ouch!” Jude had stubbed his toe. It felt as if a car going 60 miles per hour had just crashed into it, he thought. He tried to be quiet as he walked down the stairs.
     Just then, from the Burlingtons’ bedroom, he could hear his foster mother groan in her sleep. She was moving around in bed.
     “Jude!” he heard his foster mother’s familiar hoarse voice. “What are you doing up at such an early hour?” His foster mother, Mrs. Burlington, had woken up and come out of her bedroom, wearing her robe.
     “Sorry, I had a bad dream,” he said, wishing for his real mother. Jude still couldn’t get over his parents’ accident. He was never told what happened, he just heard that they were in an “accident.” They were in Zimbabwe at the time.
     Jude knew that they had his same special talent, too. They never talked much about it, though.
     “Well, I’ll go make some breakfast,” Mrs. Burlington sighed. “You’d better be ready for school in 20 minutes.” Then she went downstairs.
     Jude got dressed and went downstairs. There was a bowl of oatmeal at his place. He hated oatmeal! He pushed the oozy oatmeal around in the bowl.
     All of a sudden, his foster mother knocked over the box of oatmeal sitting on the counter, spilling it all over the floor.
     “Oh, no! That’s my last box of oatmeal!” she sighed.
     Just then, Jude looked at his watch. It was 8:15! Gee, time sure flies when you’re having a bad day, he thought.
     “Bye,” he yelled as he ran outside, just in time to see the bus leave.
     “Dang it!” he muttered. He went back inside without noticing the bus nearly hitting a man crossing the street down the block.
     “Mrs. Burlington,” he shouted in the front door. “Will you drive me to school? I missed the bus!”
     She came back downstairs, not looking too happy with him.
     “How could you be late?” she said. “You were up since five or something!”
     He shrugged. Without a word, they got in the car. In a few minutes, they arrived at school. Jude rushed out of his car, hoping he wasn’t late. He went into his classroom and sat down at his desk.
     “You’re tardy!” Mrs. Stalin snapped.
     “Sorry,” Jude mumbled. As he slumped in his chair, the light bulb in the overhead projector burned out. Oh no, Jude thought, here I go again.
     The rest of his day was horrible, too. He forgot his homework and his milk money, and got in trouble for something he didn’t even do. Plus, as Jude was getting grumpier and grumpier by the minute, everyone else was becoming grumpier, too. I need to control myself, he thought.
     He thought about his parents and wondered if they ever had the same problem. This never seemed to happen to him when they were around.
     The next two weeks were even more terrible. People were stealing, fighting, and even killing each other. To make it worse, the mayor resigned.
     Then on October 30, when Jude picked up the paper, he almost fainted. The headline read “World War Three?”! Jude gulped. His mood had spread across the world! He’d had enough. Jude knew what had to be done. He remembered something he heard his parents say about a week before they died.
     It was 1:00 AM on October 31 – Halloween. Of course, it would not be celebrated with all the conflict in the world.
     Jude dressed and quietly snuck out the back door. He got on his bike and headed towards the city. Once he was through the city, he headed farther west, until cornfields arose around him. Jude had been riding for fifteen minutes now. Finally he saw a sign. It read “Kazodium the Sorcerer.” That was the name he had heard his parents say.
     Well, here goes, thought Jude. He walked up the dirt path to the old farmhouse. At first glance, the house looked deserted, but if you looked more closely you could spot a dim light in the lower level.
     He knocked on the door. Jude waited a few moments before the door until it was opened by a small man, only about five feet tall, who appeared to be over eighty years old.
     “What do you want?” he screeched, in a rather loud voice.
     “Well, I have a special power…” Jude started, but Kazodium cut him off.
     “Ahhh!” Kazodium gave Jude a nasty smile, “I’ve been waiting for you. I was the one who caused all this stuff, you know, the bad days and all. Well, do you want me to remove your power?”
     Jude was becoming suspicious. “Well, yes. Of course I want you to remove my power. That’s why I came here…” he was interrupted by a familiar voice.
     “No, don’t let him Jude!” It was his real parents! He was so happy to see them alive.
     “Don’t listen to them!” said Kazodium.
     “But they’re my parents!” Jude said.
     “They’re useless. I have their power now!” laughed Kazodium.
     “Use your power! You can stop him!” Jude’s dad yelled.
     Kazodium threw his wand at Jude. It turned into a snake. Jude gasped. All of a sudden his parents started to laugh. Jude started laughing, too. Soon Kazodium started laughing so hard that the power left him and returned to Jude’s parents. Kazodium didn’t even notice them leave.
     When they got in his parents’ old jeep, Jude gave them a big hug. He was amazed that they were still alive.
     “You have that talent for a reason, you know,” his mom said, “you were given it to make the world a better place. That’s why we travel a lot. To make people across the world happy.”
     Now everything seemed a lot clearer to Jude. He was speechless. He had so much to think about and was shaken by the day’s events.
     His dad said, “Say, would you like to go to the Philippines with us? We’re leaving in two days.”
     “Sure!” Jude said. Things were starting to feel good again.
     That night, Jude and his parents went trick-or-treating in their old neighborhood. Everyone else seemed happy again. It was the best Halloween of his life.