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…"
