YOU HAVE STUMBLED your way into the unknown. The unexpected. You have arrived without a road map at the crossroads where strange and silly meet. And there's no turning back. Be warned. Creepy things lie on the following pages. And creepiness has a habit of doing strange things to readers. For example, you may possibly find yourself peeing your pants without knowing whether it's from fright or hilarity or maybe just confusion.

If that's the kind of story you seek, the kind that makes you pee your pants for a variety of reasons, then you are in the right place. Feel free to turn the page. But proceed with caution. TONSILS. Yes, indeed. It is a strange word. And an even stranger thing. Or things, if we're going to be precise.

For that is what they are. A pair of. things. Two small, pink, pulpy things. Wads. Lumps. Glands , technically speaking. Two little, pink, fleshy glands that reside snugly in the back of your throat.

They are likely there right now. Watching. Waiting. They've always seemed suspicious to me, these tonsils. After all, what are they up to, lurking back there in the dark? Why do they linger in the shadows? It would seem they have a job to do. Their job? To battle germs and infections that decide to seek entry to your body through the throat. They are warriors, these tonsils. Fighters.

Survivors. But even warriors are not without weakness. For sometimes they, these strange tonsils of ours, turn red. Sometimes they stop doing their job. And sometimes, it would seem, these little lumps, these tiny, fleshy wads, these ever-present glands . Sometimes they simply have a mind of their own. MEET CHARLIE MARMOT. Just your average, run-of-the-mill, large, furry rodent.

Who wears clothes. And lives in a house. And goes to school. Normal, everyday animal stuff. Autumn is in the air and brings with it many joys to young marmots like Charlie. Leaves crunching underfoot. Puddles to splash in. Crisp, windy days.

The inevitable trick-or-treating that lurks just over the horizon. This autumn is no exception. Except that it holds in its clutches something extra for Charlie Marmot. Charlie doesn't know it yet, but his tonsils. have an infection. An infection that, medically speaking, is quite easy to resolve. But on this brisk week in October, Charlie's tonsils are going to do more than infect his throat. They are going to infect his life.

And swallow him down into the deep, dark tunnel of his very own. CREEPY TALE.