"Joe, you have to lose the booty," Furie said. "How are you going to egg carrying a sack of candy? You can't even throw an egg now."

"It's for my sister," Joe said. "I can't just dump it. Took me the whole afternoon."

"Look," I said, pointing to the dark corner of a building. "Just put it there. Noone can see it behind the hedge. It's getting dark now. Tonight, we'll come back for it."

It was a sensible plan. Joe didn't need much convincing. We walked back to home base to divide the eggs and make some plans.

Nine o'clock. Robbie and this high school thugs hadn't shown up yet. We had been sending a recon team of two for nearly an hour. No signs of them. We weren't sure whether or not they were trying to lull us into a slumber. Or did they just take that much pleasure in pelting with eggs the little globlins and witches?

We decided to set trap. We knew that they could only come from the East through one of the garden alleyways that connected 44th to 45th street. There were three of these alleyways in each block. Only the middle one allowed them to come upon us unseen for a surprise attack. Three of us took turns hiding behind the hedges next to the alleyways, while the other three played "catch the egg" in the middle of the street. Hook and bait.

An egg splattered next to my feet. Joe, Furie and I were still playing "catch the egg" and noone had drop the egg. We knew from the splatter where it had come from. It was time. We grabbed our half-cartons of eggs and ran West towards the alleyway to draw them out for the fight.

Eggs flew everywhere. I was hit twice--one a direct hit on the shoulder, the other bounced cleanly off my right arm. The plan worked. They stepped into the streets, all seven or eight of them. Our crew behind the hedges nailed them from point blank range. We turned for a direct frontal assault. We had them surrounded and in confusion. We hit them hard and fast until we ran out of eggs. Being older, they had the advantage of having more money to buy eggs. And we knew that. We took off running.

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