Nightmare Before Christmas (2 page)

"It's a world unlike any I've ever seen said Jack. "I... I can't describe it, but it's not a dream--it's real as my skull!" The crowd looked bewildered. Luckily Jack had come prepared. He turned to the table beside him, which was piled high with Christmas presents.

"Here, let me show you," he said, holding up a gaily wrapped box.

"This is called a present. The whole thing starts with

box--"

"A pox?" asked a demon. "How delightful, a pox!"

"No!" cried Jack, whose smile was beginning to fade. "A
box
, with brightly colored paper and a bow!"

"A bow?" said a witch. "But why?"

"How very ugly!" said another witch.

"What's in it, anyway?"

"The point of the thing is not to know," said Jack

Not to know? What was Jack talking about? Confusion swept through the crowd like wind over a bog. Jack decided to try something else. He held up a big red Christmas stocking.

"In Christmastown," he said ", an oversized sock like this is hung on the wall--"

"Does it still have a foot in it?" someone interrupted. "Let me look!"

"Let
me
see!" called someone else. "Is it rotted and covered with gook?"

By now there was not a trace of a smile on Jack's face, and his frustration was beginning to show. "There's no foot inside," he told the crowd as patiently as he could.

"There's candy, or sometimes it's filled with small toys."

"Small toys?"

"Do they bite?"

"Do they snap?"

"Do they scare girls and boys?"

Jack saw that he was getting nowhere fast. This crowd would never understand the goodwill and good cheer of Christmas. I may as well give them what they want, he decided. Scary, spooky Halloweenland-type stuff. He leaned foward as if he were confiding a dark secret.

"I've saved the best for last," he said. "The ruler of Christmastown is a fearsome king with a deep, mighty voice. And on the darkest of nights, he flies into the air 'slaying' through the sky!"

Hearing this, the crowd grew very quiet.

"He is huge and red, like a giant lobster," Jack continued. They call him... Sandy Claws!" His words sent a thrill through the audience. As they broke into excited chatter Jack slowly gathered up his Christmastown souvenirs. The meeting hadn't exactly turned out the way he'd hoped. Everyone was excited, but no one really understood why Christmastown was so special. Could he ever make them see? Jack sighed and headed for home. He just didn't know.

But after spending the night in his tower, surrounded by all his Christmastown paraphernalia--the snow globes, the candy canes, the holly--Jack was determined to try again. This time he would do it differently. Methodically. Scientifically. He snapped his bony fingers.

"That's it!" he cried. "I'll conduct a series of experiments and isolate the Christmas spirit--scientifically! Stroke of genius, Jack!"

After a quick trip to the now-recovered Evil Scientist's house to

borrow equipment, Jack got to work. First he set up a laboratory at the top of his tower, complete with microscope, centrifuge, test tubes, petri dishes, and beakers. Then he began testing various objects for the Christmas spirit. He began with mistletoe. No luck. Then he tried a candy cane and a teddy bear. Still no luck. His eye fell on a group of bright Christmas ornaments: globes, angels, and a glittering star.

"Hmmm" he murmured "It's worth a try." He crushed the star and poured the dust into a beaker. At first nothing happened. Then it began to glow and pulsate, filling the room with a beautiful soft green light. What was it? What did it mean? Jack didn't know.

Not far away, someone else was watching that pulsing green light. As Jack stood in his tower room transfixed by its unearthly glow, Sally the Rag Doll saw it from the window, high up in her room, where the Evil Scientist had locked her.

Sally wanted to escape the doctor more than ever. But for the first time in her lonely rag-doll life, she yearned to escape to someone. And that someone was Jack. Sally had fallen in love with him.

She had decided to send him a gift--a special potion she had prepared for herself. She put the potion into a basket and lowered it out of her window on a rope. The ground was so far away! For an instant Sally lost her courage. But the thought of Jack brought it back to her. The basket landed on the ground, and Sally gathered up all her resolve. Then she jumped.

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.

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.

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 own 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.