Nightmare Before Christmas

by Daphne Skinner

  The thud she made was soft enough that no one, least of all the Evil Scientist, heard it. So even though she had lost an arm and a leg in the fall, Sally didn't mind. She was clever. She had come prepared. She pulled out her trusty darning needle and proceeded to sew herself back together again. It didn't take long. Moments later she was standing at the foot of Jack's tower, fastening her basket to the rope and pulley that hung from Jack's window.

  When Sally's basket arrived, Jack was in the middle of yet another equation. This one read: Presents + Mistletoe + Snowballs = Christmas Fun. It looked as good as all the others. Why weren't any of them adding up right? Jack scratched his skull. It was aching.

  The basket at his window was a welcome interruption. So was Sally,. who stood, far below, beaming up at him. The sight cheered Jack immensely, though he couldn't say why. Then he noticed a bottle in the basket. He opened it. A tiny cloud drifted out of the bottle and took shape in the air above Jack's head. It became a ghostly butterfly, beautiful and haunting.

  How lovely! thought Jack. He leaned out the window to thank Sally, but she had disappeared.

  Though she was extremely clever and brave enough to jump fifty feet to the ground, Sally was also a little shy. The moment Jack had smiled down at her, she had been seized by a fit of shyness so overpowering that it had whisked her away from his tower like a turbocharged witch's broom. Now she sat at the town gates, wondering what the future held. Well, there was one way to find out.

  Sally picked a flower and began pulling off its petals one by one. "He loves me, he loves me not," she whispered. "He loves me. He--" Suddenly the flower in Sally's hand did something very strange. It began to twirl around, then changed into a miniature Christmas tree!

  Sally stared at it, not knowing what to think. Did this mean that Jack didn't love her? Or was it a bad omen about his plans for Christmas? She just didn't know. Suddenly the tiny tree burst into flames and disappeared, leaving Sally cold, confused, and completely in the dark.

  C H A P T E R . S I X

  Sally wasn't the only one who was in the dark that night. Up in his tower, Jack was completely befuddled also. He'd done fifty-six more equations. He'd experimented with everything from toy trains to tinsel. He'd read Christmas stories and memorized Christmas carols. He'd been methodical. He'd been scientific. He'd been... unsuccessful. For in spite of all his calculations, Jack still hadn't been able to isolate the Christmas spirit. He felt as far from a solution now as when he'd started.

  He groaned, covering his eyes in despair.

  When he opened them, they fell on the beaker, glowing green, on his table. Its light was softer now but still beautiful. As he looked at it, Jack felt better. He would find his answer, no matter how long it took:

  And then, like a bolt of lightning, it came to him. I've been doing this all wrong! he realized. I can never turn Halloweenland

  into Christmastown It's impossible. We're too different. But that's all right. We can have something even better. We can make presents for all the boys and girls of the world. We can have Christmas our way!

  Jack grinned. It was time for another town meeting.

  The Mayor was confused. One minute there was one town meeting. The next minute there was another town meeting. All these meetings were making him dizzy! What was going on?

  But for all his confusion, the Mayor knew that a good leader should be decisive, or at least look that way. So he was careful to put on his very best smiling, in-charge face once he joined Jack inside the town hall. Maybe this crazy idea of making a Halloweenland Christmas would work. The important, thing was to act as if it were all perfectly normal, all part of a master plan that he, the Mayor, had helped to engineer.

  But oh, it was hard. The Mayor did his best to look as if he knew what was happening while Jack gave out assignments. The werewolves were to make Christmas cookies, the Evil Scientist was to make those strange flying animals with the branches on their heads, and the vampires were to make baby dolls. Jack was getting everyone in Halloweenland involved, including Lock, Shock, and Barrel, Halloweenland's professional trick-or-treaters

  When they showed up, smiling mischievously, wearing those silly masks of theirs, the Mayor shivered. It wasn't that the little devil, witch, and ghoul were trick-or-treaters. That was a fine profession in Halloweenland. No, it was something else.

  Lock, Shock, and Barrel were scheming. They were clever. And they always had something up their sleeves. Worse, the creature they called their leader, the one who had shaped them into their troublemaking little selves, was Oogie Boogie. When he thought of Oogie, the Mayor couldn't help it. He screamed.

  Mean, fiendish Oogie was a giant, bulging sack, stuffed with nasty insects and snakes that had a way of crawling through his badly

  stitched seams. His favorite activity was prowling through the dark, looking for things--or people--to eat. Oogie was always hungry. He was the scariest creature in Halloweenland.

  "Jack! Jack!" the Mayor yelped. "It's Oogie's boys!"

  Jack simply smiled. Amazing! He actually looked glad to see those little demons. "Ah, Halloween's finest trick-or-treaters," he said, leaning down to pat each of them on the head. "The job I have for you is top secret. It requires craft and cunning."

  Shock's eyes twinkled behind her witch's mask. "And we thought you didn't like us, Jack," she said with a cackle.

  Jack knelt down so he could whisper. "Absolutely no one is to know about it. Not a soul!"

  The Mayor couldn't believe it. Not only had Jack actually invited Lock Shock, and Barrel here, now he was cooking up some kind of secret plan with them! What was going on?

  Jack hardly noticed the Mayor's curiosity. He was busy telling Lock, Shock, and Barrel the most important part of his plan, the Part about Sandy Claws. When he finished he looked at them long and hard. "One more thing" he said. "Leave Oogie Boogie out of this."

  "Of course, Jack," said Lock

  "Whatever you say, Jack," said Shock.

  "We wouldn't dream of it, Jack," said Barrel.

  And one by one they crossed their fingers behind their backs. They were lying! But how could Jack know that?

  As the three little monsters hurried out of Town Hall, giggling merrily, Jack smiled after them. His dream, he thought, was coming true. Little did he know that it was rapidly turning into a nightmare.

  Lock, Shock, and Barrel loved nightmares. Gleefully they hurried home

  to their tree house, which was perched on a gnarled old tree atop a

  steep ravine. Once there, the terrible threesome sat down and took

  off their masks. They smiled at each other. Their real faces were

  exactly the same as their masks, but no one in Halloweenland knew

  that except Oogie Boogie.

  They began to plan their crime. How to do it?

  Lock, who often thought out loud for the group, said they should set a trap for Sandy Claws, then throw him in a big lobster pot where he belonged. Then Lock had a better idea. What if they went to his door with a cannon? That might be fun.

  Shock, the brains of the operation, was scornful. What good would

  Sandy Claws be blown to bits and pieces? Jack wouldn't like that.

  Then again, how important was Jack's opinion? After they kidnapped

  Sandy--in one piece, of course--they could bring him to Jack for a moment, but then he should go to Oogie Boogie. After all, they worked for Oogie. They had to stay on his good side. And what could please him more than a big, fat, juicy lobster-man? The trio giggled in agreement. Great idea! They climbed into their claw-footed bathtub and zoomed off in search of their prey.

  C H A P T E R . S E V E N

  Of course, Jack knew nothing of Lock, Shock, and Barrel's plans. He was too busy working on his own plans, which were becoming more elaborate by the minute. He was handing out assignments to everyone in Halloweenland, from the smallest gremlin to the biggest behemoth. If he had his way, everyone would take Part in Christmas, even Halloweenland's ow
n band that played mournful tunes out on the street every day. Surely, if they tried, they could learn to play "Jingle Bells"?

  When Jack asked them, they assured him that they could. Like most folks in Halloweenland, they found it hard to say no to Jack. They liked him and would follow where he led, even into unfamiliar territory.

  Sally, of course, not only liked Jack, she loved him. So when he came to her at meeting and said, "Sally, I need your help more than anyone's," How could she say no?

  He wanted her to sew him a Sandy Claws outfit, and she would do it. But Sally's heart wasn't in it. In fact, her heart was full of

  dread about Jack's plans. She kept thinking about the strange omen she'd had, of the Christmas tree going up in flames. It frightened her. But when she tried to tell Jack about it, she didn't get very far.

  "Jack," she said. "Please listen to me. It's going to be a disaster."

  "How could it be?" he replied, showing her a drawing of a Sandy Claws suit. "Just follow the pattern!"

  Sally tried again. "It's a mistake, Jack," she said, seeing once again in her mind that terrible burning tree.

  But it was no use. The only thing Jack wanted to think about was his suit.

  "Don't be so modest," Jack told her. "No one else but you is clever enough to sew this for me!"

  Finally Sally gave up. If she couldn't save Jack, thought Sally, she might as well sew for him. She headed for the town square, where Christmas preparations were in full swing.

  Just as Sally left Town Hall, Lock, Shock, and Barrel raced in. They were dragging a big sack with something squirming inside of it.

  "Jack!" they shouted. "We caught him! We've got him!"

  Jack's heart pounded. "Open it up! Hurry!" he cried.

  Giggling with excitement, the trick-or-treaters opened their sack. Out jumped an enormous pink rabbit. It did not look happy.

  "That's not Sandy Claws!" said Jack.

  "It isn't?" asked Shock.

  "Who is it?" said Barrel.

  Jack didn't know. He had never seen a rabbit before, much less a giant Easter Bunny like this. But he was sure of one thing. This wasn't Sandy Claws!

  When he said so, Lock, Shock, and Barrel protested.

  "We followed your instructions," whined Lock.

  "We went through the door," said Barrel.

  "Which door?" asked Jack. "I told you there'd be more than one. You were supposed to go through the tree-shaped door!"

  He held up a cutout of a Christmas tree.

  "Take him back!" he ordered.

  The trick-or-treaters were disappointed. So they did what all nasty little demons do when they're disappointed. They started to blame each other. It soon erupted into a huge fight. Shock grabbed Lock's throat. Barrel pounded Shock on the head.

  Jack, normally a patient fellow, found his pahence with the trio running out. So he did something he usually saved for the darkest hour of Halloween night. He rattled his bones at them. It was a fearsome sound, and it worked. The trio stopped fighting.

  In the silence, Jack turned to the Easter Bunny, whose pink nose was twitching in terror. "I'm terribly sorry for the inconvenience, sir," he said. "If you'll kindly step back into this sack, my friends will escort you home."

  The Easter Bunny didn't need another word of encouragement. He bounded straight back into the sack. As Lock, Shock, and Barrel carried him away, Jack shouted after them, "Take him home first! Aplogize again! And be careful with Sandy Claws when you fetch him! Treat him nicely!"

  Jack watched the three trick-or-treaters leave and took a deep breath. Being a mastermind was not easy.

  But it did have its rewards, as he discovered the next day. The

  moment he saw the Halloweeners preparing Christmas in the town square, Jack's heart began to sing. Everything he saw, from the Evil

  Scientist working hard on his skeleton reindeer to Sally stitching

  away on a magnificent red Sandy Claws suit, was like a wonderful

  dream come true. He skipped through the town square, so happy that

  his bony feet barely touched the floor.

  There was so much to admire! At one table, a team of vampires strung tiny skull-shaped lights; at another, a group of witches made baby voodoo dolls; and at a third, Halloweenland's hardest-working werewolves toiled away at a magnificent goblin-in-the-box. Jack fairly hummed with joy. This was going to be the most amazing Christmas ever!

  Santa Claus thought so, too. Far off in Christmastown, while his elves assembled beautiful toys and baked mouth-watering cookies, cakes and pies, Santa sat in his snow-covered cottage, making his list and checking it twice.

  What he read made him shake his head in astonishment. "Nice . . . nice . . . naughty . . . nice . . . nice . . . nice. Amazing!" he murmured. "There are hardly any naughty children this year." His ruddy face beamed. This is going to be a Christmas to remember, he thought happily.

  At that moment his doorbell rang. "Now, who could that be?" mused Santa. Reluctantly setting his list down, he lifted himself out of his armchair and walked to the door.

  When he opened it, he saw three strange little children smiling up at him. Why were they dressed like a witch, a devil, and a ghoul? Why were they carrying that huge sack? And what, Santa wondered, before everything suddenly went black, did they mean by "trick or treat?"

  C H A P T E R · E I G H T

  "You don't look like yourself, Jack, not at all," said Sally the Rag Doll. She and Jack were in the town square, she was helping him on with his new red coat. Sally didn't like much about this strange Christmas holiday, and she didn't like the red coat, either, even though she had sewn it herself. Jack looked so much better, she thought, in the elegant black suit he usually wore.

  But Jack was ecstatic. "Isn't this wonderful? It couldn't be more wonderful!" he exclaimed as he buttoned up the coat.

  "But you're the Pumpkin King," said Sally, wishing Jack would come to his senses.

  He didn't even hear her. As far as he was concerned, he was a million miles from Halloween. Tonight was Christmas Eve, and he was ready for it!

  His wonderful coffin-shaped sleigh was loaded with gifts made by the Halloween folk. He was wearing a magnificent Sandy Claws costume, and soon--any minute now! he would be taking off on the adventure of his dreams.

  Jack looked at himself in a mirror. Something, he realized, was missing. What was it? He had the coat, the boots, even the big white beard.

  Just then he heard his name being called--by Lock, Shock, and Barrel.

  "Jack! Jack! We bagged him!" they shrieked, scuttling into the square. They were dragging a huge sack.

  "This time we really did it!" crowed Barrel. "He sure is big!"

  "And heavy!" added Shock, panting.

  "Let me out!" rumbled a voice from inside. Suddenly the sack heaved, rolled, and opened. Out stepped a big fat man with white hair and a white beard. His red clothes were rumpled, his red stocking cap was askew, and his very red face was wet with sweat.

  Jack was thrilled. "Sandy Claws!" he cried. "In person! What a pleasure to meet you!"

  Santa Claus was not a young man, but he had lived a sheltered life. He had spent most of it with jolly, hardworking elves and the rest with sleeping children, who were at their most angelic because they weren't awake. Making beautiful, festive Christmas gifts and then delivering them to good little girls and boys had not prepared him for--this.

  He looked around in horror. Ghouls and monsters, one uglier than the next, pressed in on him, their faces twitching with curiosity. Who were they? And this tall, bony fellow, who was obviously their leader, kept beaming at him foolishly. Why? Santa's mind whirled with a dozen unspoken questions.

  "Surprised, aren't you?" said the bony fellow. "I knew you would be! You don't need to have a single worry about Christmas this year. We're handling it. You can have the night off."

  Santa's heart nearly stopped. What was this skeleton talking about? Christmas Eve was the high point of his entire year! He had reindeer to d
rive! Gifts to deliver! And now he was going to be late!

  "But, I--!" he gasped, nearly speechless with dismay.

  "Think of this as a vacation, Sandy," the bony fellow said. "A chance for you to relax and take it easy." Then he realized what his Sandy Claws costume was missing. He plucked the red cap from Santa's head. "While you rest," he said, "I'll just borrow this."

  Worry, anger, and fear did not help Santa's powers of speech. Before he could manage a reply, the three terrible little children who had kidnapped him were dragging him away. Wouldn't anybody help him? This was a nightmare!

  "No . . . please wait . . . !" he begged. But the trick-or-treaters' giggling drowned out his pleas.

  This is a nightmare! thought Sally the Rag Doll as poor Santa was hauled off. All her fears about Christmas were turning out to be true. It was a disaster. She had to do something. She racked her rag-doll brain. "I know!" she whispered, and slipped away.

  Jack, entranced with Santa's red cap, never saw her leave. The cap, he thought, was just the thing to complete his dazzling Christmas outfit. He adjusted it so it sat at a rakish angle on his. skull, then got ready to climb into his sleigh. Once the Mayor

  finished his farewell speech, Jack could be Off.

  Jack looked up toward the Mayor and blinked. He and everyone else in the crowd looked around in disbelief. A thick white fog had appeared out of nowhere and was swirling through the town square. It was soupy. It was sinister. It was as bone-chilling and blinding as the fog that came on Halloween. And like that fog, it had swallowed everything up.

  "Oh no!" groaned Jack "We'll never be able to take off in this. The reindeer can't see an inch in front of their noses."

  Out of the fog came moans and complaints, a loud monster chorus of disappointment. Christmas was ruined! How could this be?

  Safely hidden by clouds of white mist, one face smiled in relief: the face of Sally the Rag Doll. For it was Sally, of course, who had mixed up a special potion and dumped it in the town fountain. The fog was her creation. Deep in her rag-doll stuffing Sally felt that Christmas could not go on, and she had to stop it. Now it looked as if she had succeeded.