Nightmare Before Christmas Read Free Page A

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