کمک‌های کوچولوی جک

Chapter six

Jack’s Little Helpers

Jack’s three young helpers had a very different idea about Christmas in Halloweentown so the nightmare before Christmas was beginning.

Lock, Shock, and Barrel were three young boys. They were Halloweentown’s famous trick-or-treaters and they played a lot of tricks on everybody in town. They always had a plan, and their plans were never very nice.

Nobody in town liked their boss, Oogie Boogie. He was a big, round bag full of maggots! He had a big head, short legs, and long arms and sometimes the maggots fell out of him through holes in the bag.

Oogie Boogie went around the woods at night and ate a lot of animals. He drank their blood. Sometimes he ate people, too! He was always hungry. He didn’t like good children and they were really afraid of him. He was the scariest thing in Halloweentown. When he scared children, they ran to Jack. Oogie Boogie was different from everybody in Halloweentown because he didn’t like Jack. The Mayor didn’t like Oogie Boogie or his bad boys. So his eyes opened wide when he saw Oogie’s boys.

“Why does Jack want to talk to them,” he thought. “Is he crazy?”

Jack spoke very quietly into each boy’s ear. “I want you three boys to do something for me. But don’t tell anybody. It’s very important. Nobody can know.”

“What? This isn’t possible,” the Mayor thought. “Why is Jack making plans with them? What’s he saying?”

“One last thing,” Jack said to the boys. “Don’t tell Oogie Boogie. I don’t want him to know anything!”

“Of course, Jack,” the three trick-or-treaters said. “We won’t say a word to Oogie Boogie about this.”

They ran away with big smiles on their faces. Were they happy about Jack’s important job? Or did they have other plans? Did Jack do the right thing or did he make a big mistake?

“This is going to be wonderful,” thought Jack. “This is the happiest day of my life. Those three trick-or-treaters are going to do something good for the first time in their lives. And this time there’ll be no tricks.”

Everybody in Halloweentown wanted to help with his Christmas plans. Nothing could be better.

But Christmas was now in dangerous hands. Jack’s three young helpers had a very different idea about Christmas in Halloweentown - so the nightmare before Christmas was beginning.

Lock, Shock, and Barrel loved nightmares as much as they loved tricks. When they got to their home at the top of a big tree, they started planning their trick on Jack.

“Jack is a stupid skeleton,” they laughed.

Lock said, “He wants us to go to Christmastown and get Santa Claus? We’ll bring Santa back here – but we won’t give him to Jack! We’ll scare him with our tricks!”

Shock was more intelligent than Lock and he had a better idea.

“Listen– We’ll get Santa Claus and put him in our biggest Halloween bag,” said Shock. “We’ll bring him here and show him to Jack. But then we’ll give him to Oogie Boogie! Oogie will really enjoy that big fat man for his dinner!”

“Great,” shouted Barrel. “That will teach Jack Skellington a lesson!”

The three trick-or-treaters laughed and danced around the room. Then they got busy with their plan.