Oh, how my head is reeling! I was seeing witches on broomsticks, skeletal dogs, and bags of luggage swirling around me. I shook my head and I was back to normal at the floor of the platform of PTS 10/13.

The Corpse Bride, the skeletal dog, Jack, Sally and the Mayor were looking over me now. Bonejangles was on the floor as well, and had his jaw knocked out. I could tell he didn't look too happy. "Sorry about that." I said drowsily, "Some dog got in my way."

Bonejangles finally got up, picked up his bowler hat and adjusted his lower jaw. "Snaps should look where he's going." he said, "Since he's all bones, a lot of people trip over him." He and the Corpse Bride helped me up.

The Corpse Bride picked up Snaps, the skeletal dog. "I look like a dirty person, don't I?" I said to the Corpse Bride, "I trip over Snaps, or whatever you call him, and I knock down Mr. Bonejangles. You must think I'm the worst girl you ever saw, don't you?" Well, I thought it seemed that way. The Corpse Bride is a pretty person, and I go around embarrassing her in front of the Pumpkin King and Queen. I might as well go to Bloodnut County.

Bloodnut County's the only part of Halloweentown that Jack doesn't rule. Unlike Pumpkinhead County (where the heart of Halloweentown is), Bloodnut is a terrible place to go. Everywhere you look, you see someone robbed, raped, or murdered. That wasn't the worst part. They have slavery as well. Bloodnut was filled mainly of people who didn't want Jack to rule Halloweentown. But the worst part of Bloodnut is that Oogie Boogie ruled this place.

He's a major doof, and I've been told many legends about why Jack and Oogie never got along with each other. One reason was creative differences. Oogie wanted the scares to be gory and modern, while Jack wanted it to be old-fashioned and not gory at all. But the reason that was most popular was because Oogie was a murderer. He doesn't kill anyone in the flesh. He actually kills people in their dreams. I don't see how people in Bloodnut were able to trust Oogie.

"Actually, you're not." she said, "I've seen worse." I didn't know what she meant by the last sentence, but at least I'm not such a bad girl, even though I was a little clumsy. Maybe I could show her around this town. Little did I know that while I was talking, someone from Bloodnut was spying on us.

While we were talking, I knew someone was spying on us. He must be a Bloodnut or something. Anyway, this strange looking guy I spotted at the station was wearing a jet-black trench coat, jet-black sunglasses, a pair of black military boots, black ripped-up jeans, and he was wearing a completely black T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off, along with metal military tags.

I could've sworn I saw a demon tail. But it went back into the trench-coat (it reached to his ankles). This guy had red hair, snow-white skin, and blue lips. I couldn't see who he really was, because his eyes were masked by his sun-glasses. Sun glasses aren't even legal in Halloweentown! It's all because they're modern. But strangely enough, I feel attracted to him.

He looked handsome, in a sinister sort of way. I think he was twenty-two or so, because he looked like he was related to Shockland Cinders, or as everyone else called her, Shock, a reformed Boogie Boy who was the same age as him, but I heard she was on the run from Oogie.

Anyway, the man was leaning against the wall, talking into some strange device that was called a cell-phone. "Just about to start Operation Blackmail, phase 1." he was saying, "But I'll work even faster if you give me the dough now while I'm doing your dirty work for you." From what I just heard, it must be Lockbury Cinders, or as everyone else called him, Lock. So far, it looked he's still one of the Boogie Boys. He was saying Operation Blackmail, and mentioned something about dirty work.

Lock was no longer a trick-or-treater, and neither were Shock or Barrel. He was a demon, Shock was a witch, and Barrel was pretty much a skeleton now, since I heard about his death for defying Oogie. But Lock still looked very attractive didn't he? Of course he does.

But he was eight years older than me. I'm falling for a bad boy who's nearly a decade older than me! Maybe Lock was a spy, maybe he wasn't. Just because Lock and the Boogie Boys weren't exactly the model halloweentowners, it doesn't mean they were bad guys.

Nine years ago, they saw Oogie's face in the moon, and they know it meant trouble. So, they went to the heads of the were-wolves, were-cats, vampires, witches and warlocks, ghosts, monsters, mummies, demons, and skeletons to warn them. The heads of the creatures I just mentioned were Count Dracula (a vampire), Pandora Kitty (a were-cat), Wolfie Freedman (a were-wolf), Grey Goulash (a ghost), Lucifer Morningstar (a demon), Brünnhilde (a witch) and Lieberkind Schwartzenheimer (a warlock), Jerry Swinger (an ugly monster), Seth Anurabi (a mummy), and Napoleon Bonaparte (a really short skeleton). None of them believed the Boogie Boys.

So Lock, Shock and Barrel didn't bother telling Jack or the Mayor about it, because they thought they wouldn't believe them.

That Halloween, there was a huge fire in my mom's shop of Halloween plants that spread to the Pumpkin Patch. I lost my mom and my step-dad from the fire. It was all because Dracula or the other leaders (with the exception of Jack, Sally and the Mayor) wouldn't believe them. Napoleon Bonaparte was the only leader caught. He was impeached and he went back to the Underworld in shame. I didn't want to remember that.

I shook my head. The Corpse Bride gave me a worried look. "Is something the matter?" she asked me worriedly. I just gave her a nervous smile and said, "Oh, nothing. Just a couple o' things on me mind, that's all." Just a couple of things on my mind! I should be honest with her! I'm having a very horrible flash-back right now, and trust me. It was a very disturbing memory, and it still haunts me since I was five.

Bonejangles and the Corpse Bride went away to talk to our leaders. I might not be as bad as I think. But I'm getting this very, very strange notion. The first thing was that someone was spying on us, and the second thing was that many things will go wrong this month, my third notion was that someone was going to be taken away from me, and my final notion was that the Corpse Bride and Bonejangles are keeping a huge secret.

I opened up my messenger bag. Slyther poked his head out of there. "They may not be what they sssssssseem." he hissed. Unlike other boa constrictors, Slyther had the ability to talk. I didn't hex him. He was always like that. "Slyther, there's nothing wrong with Bonejangles or the Corpse Bride!" I muttered back to him, as I started walking home from PTS 10/13, picking up my issue of Undead Music from the bench and stuffing it into my messenger bag. Slyther is a wise snake and all, but he could sometimes be pretty harsh. "They're new blood." he replied coolly, "Anyone new could be spiesssssssssssss." I rolled my eyes. That's ridiculous! They didn't look like spies at all! But as I said before, Lock could be a spy. "Trust me." I argued with him, "Bonejangles or the Corpse Bride are not spies." Slyther may not be able to move his eyes, but I knew when he gets mad. "You will regret it, Lisssssssssssss." he said at last.

Anyway, I walked home with five pages about PTS 10/13 in my History notebook. It's nice to go walking, grab a crab apple on the way, smell the stench of mausoleums, and hear harmless screams. I promised Dury and Sabs I would meet them at Lake Eire with my report on PTS 10/13. Sabs was writing about the Halloween Cemetery, and Dury was writing about Guillotine Square, the heart of Halloweentown, where he lives. I'd better hurry if I want to include it in our report of Halloweentown, which is due next Thursday.

Lake Eire wasn't that far from PTS 10/13. It was just about at least ten miles north, and one mile east. I must be kidding myself! How can I get there before sun-down? Then, I realized something.

I had a broom with me. It wasn't just any broom. It was a magic broom that flies in the air on command. I whistled for it. My broom, the Odyssey 3000, appeared at once. The Odyssey 3000 has light-violet paint on it, and the rope holding the straw onto the broom-stick was royal blue. The words Odyssey 3000 was on the broom-stick in gold letters. The Odyssey 3000 goes about thirty miles an hour. I thought that was pretty fast.

"To Lake Eire, Odyssey!" I commanded. I hopped on, and I was off like a gun. Witches start flying broom-sticks when they were eleven, and it wasn't very easy. If you're up in the air and you lose your balance on a broom-stick, you fall way down to the ground, and you get some broken bones, and maybe even die. Trust me. It didn't look too pretty.

Anyway, I looked down onto the earth, searching for Lake Eire. It was an old lake with very dirty water. It was so filthy; all the dead fish are floating on it. You might think it's a terrible place to hang out, but to us halloweentowners, it's the opposite.

Right down below me, I spotted two small figures and a lake with fish floating on it. I drove the broom onto the hard ground. It stopped just about a foot above ground. There was a mummy with rim-less glasses, a t-shirt with a black bat with a silver cross on it, a pair of jean pants, and red Reebok sneakers, reading some poetry by Edgar Allen Poe, with his blue and grey striped history note-book on the ground. That was Sabs all right. He had extremely tacky fashion sense.

Then, there was a brown-haired vampire, whose cape was a patch-work of grey, black, blue and brown, had a bow-tie that was tied un-evenly, had a black patch on the left knee of his pants, was wearing brown shoes, and he was wearing a dirty grey tuxedo. He had a lot of bruises and cuts all over his body, even on his grimy face. The vampire also had grey eyes. It was obviously Dury. He was skipping stones across Lake Eire, and he had his raven, Modesty, perched on his right shoulder.

"Hey, Dury!" I greeted, "Hey Sabs!" Sabs stopped reading his book. Dury looked at me.