Howard McWilliam

After he gets a postcard from a little girl, Santa Claus reminisces about all the trouble he had when dinosaurs pulled his sleigh.

When Ethan checks under the bed for his monster, he finds a note saying that Gabe has gone fishing and will be back in a week. He tries out several substitute monsters, but finds that none are as perfect as Gabe.

While his great-grandmother seeks her deceased husband, ten-year-old Malcolm and his best friend Dandy have no trouble finding a ghost on which to test Malcolm's latest gadget--a ghost zapper.

"If you could have any animal's tongue, whose would you choose? If you had a gaur's tongue, you could taste test ice-cream flavors. If you had a chameleon's tongue, you could catch any Frisbee. And if you had a wolf's tongue, you'd never break a sweat no matter how hot it got! The animal kingdom has tons of amazing tongues, but yours is pretty great, too!"--

When forced on a camp-out with their fathers, ten-year-olds Malcolm and Dandy seek the smelly ghost of notorious outlaw Wild Willy Wallace, who is believed to haunt his old hideout at Lake Itchyburr.