A note from trista:
So there is no confusion, this part of the story is told from the Point of veiw of Junior.
I sat there waiting for Lini to come down. She was taking an awful long time. I had started to wonder if I should go up there, when I heard loud banging noises coming from Lini's room. I nervously ran up to Lini's room to see if she was okay, but when I got there the room was empty. Stuff was spewed every where. Lini is probably the opposite of a neat freak, but I knew Lini couldn't have made this mess. I searched the rest of the house hoping she was just in another room, but as each room turned up empty a feeling of dread filled my mind. Finnally I went back to her room; I looked in her closet, where she said she had hidden him. He was gone too, and the remanents of what once might have been a cage lay crumpled in a corner. I could find no trace of the book. I tried to stay calm, but a feeling of panic rose within me and then I found the note. It was on a peice of orange paper, ripped out from a journal I had given her on our birthday. I read the note.
I ran. Down the stairs and out of the house. I had to find help. I was running so fast that when I did find Dad I nearly ran him over. He had been taking Andy home. I tried explaining all that had happened, but all that came out was gibberish. So I handed him the note, which had been crushed in my hand. As dad realized what was happening a look crossed his face that I haven't seen there before or since. Fear. Andy, who had no idea what was going on, looked at us quizzically then snatched the note from dad and read it aloud:
'Your daughter belongs to the Boogie man now Jack skellington. Want her? Come and get her, if your not too late...'
Andy looked at us as if waiting for the punch line and for me to say it's just a joke, but when all he got was silence he asked, "Whose 'the Boogie Man'?" Dad said, "Someone bad. Someone very, very bad."
When we got home I told Dad everthing Lini had told me and everthing that had happened before I found her missing. All I could think was 'if only I had gone up there sooner, or gone up ther with her.' 'if only I had realized how she was feeling, she may not have even taken the book in the first place'. When Mom came home and Dad told her; she went to peices. I felt like I was caught in some kind of time warp. Things happened around me, yet they seemed to have nothing to do with me. Soon it seemed half of Halloween was in our house all seeing if there was a way they could help. The Mayor sounded the alarm. Grandma Jewel was comforting Mom. Andy and Butterfly were in their rooms. While I sat there thinking, I remembered the time Lini saved me.
It happened when we were only about seven. We were in the treehouse and Barrel had dared me to go down into Oogie's abandoned lair. I didn't want to go, but Barrel was making fun of me. I remember Shock telling him he was a moron, and Lock saying going down there was no big deal. Lini said don't let them get you, but I went down anyway. It was dark and I couldn't see and then I accidentally stepped on a button that started these huge knife weilding playing cards. I couldn't figure out how to turn them off and it was getting harder to dodge them when suddenly there was Lini. Carefully dodging the knives she crawled onto the wheel and found the button. She didn't escape totally unscathed; she got a deep gash on her arm. She didn't tell our parents what really happened. She said she fell out of the treehouse so I wouldn't get in trouble. Shock made Barrel apologize for daring me in the first place. That seems so long ago now. We haven't been in the treehouse in years, including Lock, Shock, and Barrel.
It was them who woke me out of my memories. "I'm so sorry Junior," said Shock with tears in her eyes, "I should have forgiven her. She wanted to tell us, but I wouldn't forgive her." "No," I said "it's not your fault." "I he really back?" said Lock. "Yes."
