Reading this month’s spooky Cricket got everybuggy in just the right mood for a spine-tingling night of Halloween trick-or-treating. Sluggo even felt inspired to plan a hybrid costume. (He’s going as a baseball-playing snail! Surprise!) Pudding suggested that spooky pictures from Cricket readers would be perfect for decorating the clubhouse for the Halloween party. So for this month’s contest, everybuggy wants to see your best work of Halloween art.

Will you draw a scene full of ghosts, goblins, and witches? Perhaps your specialty is haunted houses or graveyards? Maybe you’ll paint kids enjoying a night of trick-or-treating, or even create your own hybrid Halloween costumes (please label them, if you do). Your art might even celebrate the Day of the Dead.

Whatever you choose, everybuggy will be haunting the Cricket Country mailbox with knees—if they have them—trembling, waiting to enjoy your best spooky, beautiful, or just plain fun, Halloween art. Boo!

Whether you enjoy reading about the New York blizzard of 1888, Lindy Hopping at the Savoy in the 1930s, a strike against racial prejudice in the 1950s, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, or life in the former Soviet Union, this issue of Cricket is filled with important moments and movements in history. For this month’s contest, Old Cricket wants to read your best story set in a time you would find fascinating to visit if you could go back in history.

Perhaps your imagination will take you back to ancient times to create a story about the signing of the Magna Carta or the Fall of Troy. Or you might write about a more recent event, perhaps even one you remember. Maybe you’ll imagine meeting a famous person from history—a scientist or explorer on the verge of making a great discovery. Or a character you make up might help ordinary people who are courageously facing great hardships to improve their lives or overcome injustice.

Whatever you choose, everybuggy in Cricket Country will be waiting for you to make history when you mail us your best story—of 350 words or less, please—about an amazing moment in history.

With “I Am Marc Chagall,”  a story about the life of the famous artist, in this issue, and one of Chagall’s beautiful paintings on our cover, Ladybug thought it was clearly time for an art contest. (She has already started working on a beautiful self-portrait titled “I Am Ladybug!”) But after Tater read “How to Disguise a Nobel Prize” and “Zafarin’s Challenge,” he was more interested in researching the scientific discoveries of medieval alchemists.

So Cricket suggested a compromise—a medieval fantasy art contest. Whether your artistic taste runs to alchemists and wizards or dragons and knights, everybuggy in Ye Olde Cricket Country will be jousting around the Cricket Country mailbox waiting to win the fair hand of your best medieval fantasy art. Forsooth!

Your story with a moral can be about anything you like. Will you write about somebuggy pursuing his or her greatest ambition—such as being a cartoonist, winning a place in the orchestra, or inventing some exciting new technology? Perhaps you’ll imagine a story about a character with magical powers, like Ardda in “Skin Deep,” or who encounters strange creatures, as the princess does in “Three Aunties.” Will your wise moral be about persevering in the face of a challenge? Or the power of love? Or how to find true happiness? Will you write an original moral to end your story, or one you’ve heard before?

The choice is yours. Just remember that Haste makes waste! A watched pot never boils! And A stitch in time saves nine! (If those morals are any help.) Zoot says the moral of this contest is: Happiness is a Cricket reader’s best story with a moral of 350 words or less.