Chapter XXIX
"A Moody Mayor and Peril in the Pumpkin Patch"

Oogie had assigned us to capture the Mayor and imprisoned. He conjured us up a cage and we dragged it to the Mayor's house.
"How about we hang it on that flagpole up there?" Barrel exclaimed, pointing to a flagpole, way up high, jutting out of the house.
"I don't think the pole's thick enough to support the weight!" I joked.

Shock kicked open the door. "Alright, blubber butt, come on out!!"
Silence.
"Maybe he's hiding, Shock?" I suggested.
"And maybe YOU'RE being too loud." She said. "So shut up."
The Mayor's hearse was parked in the middle on the large foyer between two staircases.
"What do we do now, Shock?" I asked.
The witch costumed girl turned to me and Barrel and gave us a wink and a smirk. "Well, I guess he's not here!" Shock said untruthfully but convincingly. We'd better go look around Town Square."

Barrel and I caught on and we both walked to the door with Shock making sure the Mayor—wherever he was—could hear our footsteps. Shock opened the door, waited a few seconds, and closed it.
The Mayor hopped out of the trunk (the place where you put the coffin) of the hearse. "Phew…" he sighed in relief with that Southern baritone voice of his. "Those troublemakers are finally gone." The two faced political figure wiped the sweat off his brow.
"Hi, Mayor!" Barrel blurted out with a mocking tone of voice.
Mayor turned immediately and screamed like a little girl when he saw us. "B-but you l-left!"
"Face it, Mayor," I said, rolling my eyes. "It's not too hard to fool you."
"Now get in the cage before I beat you to a pulp!" Shock demanded with a menacing scowl.
"Please!" the Mayor pleaded. "Don't do this!"
"It's a little too late for that!" Shock giggled.

The Mayor dove into his hearse again and tried to yell something through the PA system so someone could come and help him, but Barrel tackled him and they both tumbled out the opposite side. With both of them rolling around on the floor, Barrel began shouting:
"Do it! Get the cage."
I grabbed the cage and ran around to the other side of the hearse where the Mayor was trying to fling Barrel off him. "What do I do now?" I said as I watched to two squirming on the floor.
"Throw it on top of them, idiot!" Shock called from behind. "But make sure the open part lands on the Mayor!"
"What about Barrel?" I asked unsurely.
"Don't worry about it. Barrel knows what he's doing!"
I made sure I was close to them. "Here goes nothing. One…two…THREE!" I tossed the somewhat heavy cage over my head. Barrel looked up and saw it coming for him. He leaped away, leaving the Mayor still on the ground. The last word we heard from the Mayor before he got trapped was "Wha?!" We propped up the cage and locked him inside. "Someone please help!" he cried. "I'm only an elected official here; I can't escape from traps by myself!"
"Cry me a river, drama queen." Shock murmured as we began dragging the cage with him up the stairs.

To make a long story short, we hung the cage on the flag pole Barrel acknowledged before. The Mayor kept screaming for help, but we were so up high, we—including himself—didn't think anyone would hear him. We climbed down the Mayor's house, giggling all the while.
"Oogie's gonna be so psyched when he hears about our success!" I said with glee as we wandered into Town Square from Hemlock Homestead. Barrel locked the gate with a key Oogie gave him.
"I know!" Barrel agreed. "Maybe he'll reward us by making us the rulers of Christmastown!"
Oogie's next assignment was a secret so far. He told us that after we finished business at the Mayor's house, to wait in the Pumpkin Patch.
"What do you think he wants us to do?" Shock asked me.
"I wonder if he's gonna meet us here." I responded.
Soon enough, the PA system from the Town Hall began to blare. We all had to be quiet to hear what Oogie had to say.

"My dearly abhorred denizens of Oogie Town," he began, "Jack has returned…according to the reports…heh, heh, heh…and he's enjoying our dangerous Halloween so much, that he's SCREAMING in horror! Ahahahahaha! REJOICE! This is all thanks to your efforts!" The Gamblin' Boogieman paused for a second. "Barrel; my star pupil, my prodigal son,"
Barrel jumped at the sound of his name.
"Be a good boy and finish the work your HALF-wit, HALF-alive playmates—"
Shock and I glared toward where the voice was coming from.
"—could not! Or there's more than HALF a chance I'll be very…very…ANGRY!!!!!!" The speaker turned off.
We turned to Barrel and his eyes were wide with fear. "Then I guess I better not fail then, huh?"
"I'm confused," I said. "He didn't tell us to do anything; he just said 'finish the work blah, blah, blah…' and not anything else."
"Maybe he's leaving Barrel to decide." Shock said. "Which, in my opinion, is NOT a very good idea."
"Quit your worrying," Barrel said calmly, taking his favorite lollypop out of his pocket and began to lick it. "Every time I take a lick of my lolly, I think straight." He explained.
"You actually carry that thing around?" Shock asked in disgust.
"Yeah." Barrel replied as he took another lick. "So what?"

Before Shock could answer, we hear footsteps coming from behind the giant vine we were resting on. We hopped up on the vine to confront the person. It was Jack.
"Hey, Jack," Barrel said, waving his lollypop at Jack, "Want some candy?"
"No thanks." Jack said with a scowl. "I've had enough of your tricks."
"Too bad." I said.
"The biggest trick is yet to come!" Shock said with a grin.
"And besides, after what we did at the Mayor's house I—" Barrel realized what he had just said. "Oops, I wasn't supposed to tell you that." We hopped behind the vine. "Catch ya later, Jack!"
"You dumbbell!" Shock said as we ran. "You just blurted out our entire plan to Skeleton Jack!"
"Don't you worry about your ugly, little head, Shock." Barrel said calmly. "Once again, my lolly has saved us all!"
"So?" I said.
"You two just run along back to the Treehouse and I'll take care of everything…"