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It was the first of November, a couple of hours before dawn, and Clopin Trouillefou was stealthily making his way home through the streets of Paris. It had been a long and unusual night.Things had started pleasantly enough. He had dropped by the Goose and Grapes around closing and charmed an invitation out of Therese Darbois for a cozy midnight supper upstairs in her lodgings. She had followed him down afterward, to let him out the kitchen door, when they discovered the first strange occurrence of the night.
The kitchen of the Goose and Grapes had been ransacked. The door was wide open, and splattered with raw eggs. The floor was a collage of flour, soot, wine puddles and bits of crockery. The pantry had been looted; what hadn't disappeared completely had been torn into and sampled. A quick check of the tavern, itself, revealed nothing worse than a few overturned chairs and tables, but the kitchen -- Therese stared at the mess in amazement. "I don't believe this! Everything was fine when we locked up. How in the world did this happen?!"
Clopin had no answer. His first thought was Frollo's guard, but they wouldn't waste their time breaking into a closed and deserted establishment. They were more interested in public intimidation than casual vandalism. He could think of no one else, though, who would do such a thing. The gypsies counted Madame Darbois as a friend, and they knew, besides, that she was a particular favorite of his. The tavern, itself, was so popular with the neighbors that they would sooner have desecrated a church. Clopin managed to refasten the door and to convince Therese to wait till morning to clean things up, promising to round up a few volunteers to help her. Kissing her good night, he stole out into the darkness, in search of an answer.
Clopin had not gone far when he began to notice that the tavern had not been the only target of vandals that night. The first sign was the three squealing pigs, splashed in white paint, running loose in the street. The second sign was the general motif of raw eggs that seemed to decorate more than a few doors. The third sign was the broken window of the boulangerie, and the fourth sign was the troop of soldiers conversing with the baker.
Ducking out of sight, Clopin reconsidered, and started back the other way, careful to keep to the shadows. For the first time, he was sorry that he had had such a busy and profitable day, for he was still dressed in his parti-colored performing clothes and, even in the dark, they tended to make him stand out. In the next street, however, he found more soldiers, and more in the street beyond that -- he could not remember the last time he had seen so many of Frollo's guard out at once. Scaling a wall, he managed to squeeze himself into a dark nook above three of them, and listened to their conversation.
"Thieving gypsies, again," one was muttering. "They're always stirring up trouble."
"Doesn't look that way to me," his companion shook his head. "Gypsies cover their tracks when they steal. And they'd clean you out, money, silver, not just take a pie or a couple of sausages."
"Never known a gypsy to paint a pig, either," chimed in the third one.
"That's one of their witchcraft rituals," said the first. "Don't you know anything?"
"I know they broke into the cathedral," said the third. "Frightened the hunchback, and Judge Frollo himself. I heard that the Judge says they're demons from hell."
"What would demons from hell want with pie and sausages?" snorted the second.
"YOU!" shouted a rough voice from down the street, and Clopin held his breath. "Stop standing there like something my horse left behind and get on with it!"
"Sir!" "Yes, sir!" the three soldiers took themselves rapidly on to the next alley.
For his own part, Clopin took to the rooftops. With so many soldiers lurking about, he did not dare head home for fear of being followed. He found a stable in an alley apparently overlooked by the vandals, and settled himself in the hayloft to wait out the night. A couple of hours before dawn, he descended cautiously into the street and looked around. There were a few of the soldiers left here and there, standing lookout for any more trouble, but most of them had gone. Silently, keeping away from anywhere that showed signs of life, Clopin made his way to a certain place he knew of...
There were several entrances to the Court of Miracles, some less often used than others. One in particular he had kept his own secret. It meant a long walk underground, but it was safer than the usual way in. He felt his way down in the dark, until he came upon a turn in the wall, where a torch was kept burning. Thankfully, it was still lit, for he did not know what he would have done without it. Holding the light above his head, he waded into the shallow muck.
Clopin knew this maze beneath the city well; he could have drawn a map of it from memory. The passage he had entered by was more a sewer than anything else. A few yards farther on, it joined at right angles to the ancient catacombs, their walls lined with the bones of Frenchmen long gone, buried and forgotten. Clopin was used to the sounds of this secret world, the drip-drip of dampness, the occasional flutter of bats or scuttle of rats, the echo of his soggy footsteps -- they were comfortable, familiar sounds to him. That was why he froze when he heard the noise.
He had a good idea of where it was coming from. Turn right at the catacombs, and you were on your way to the Court of Miracles. Turn left, and it was only a few feet before the passage took a sharp right turn; a few more yards beyond that, and you would come upon an opening on the right-hand side of the way, a steep, narrow passage, lined with skeletal remains and leading up to a decaying churchyard. As Clopin emerged cautiously from his sewer, he paused to listen. Something was coming down that gruesome shaft.
"Something" was the word he thought to himself, for, at first impression, it did not sound human. A discordant, unintelligible keening, of one voice or many, he could not say; a series of muffled grunts and groans, and then something heavy, forcing its way down through the earth, until it landed with a heavy splosh in the slop. The "something" lifted itself on its feet and headed toward the bend in the tunnel; its footsteps were light and uncoordinated, and it seemed to be moving slowly. Clopin thought quickly. The thing in the tunnel would see him as soon as it made the turn, but he had wasted too much of the night already to want to go back above ground now. For all he knew, his imagination was running away with him, and it was nothing but other gypsies, also making their way home -- although he had never known anything human to come into the catacombs by that path. Whatever it was, it did not have the heavy tread of a troop of soldiers, and he decided to take his chances.
A broken ledge jutted up between the murky water and the piles of bones against the wall. Clopin climbed onto this; the footing was more treacherous, but he could move more quietly here. Picking his way along as swiftly as he could, he could hear his companion coming closer. It made no effort to conceal itself, but slogged noisily toward the main tunnel. He hastened on, hoping to make it around the slight bend ahead before the thing came out and spied his torch. He was nearly there when the thing staggered into the open and, with one startled splat, stopped. Clopin froze and looked back. The light from his torch didn't reach half far enough for him to make out anything, not even a shadow. Then the next noise began.
Splat-splat-splat-splat, the footsteps came running after him, light and fast, with no weight to them now; he heard the rattle of bones dislodged and skittering down the wall and at least one pair of footsteps echoing high in the vaults above him. An irrational thought of "Giant rats!" flashed through his mind, but it was too ludicrous to take seriously. Whatever they were, there was one in the water, one in the vaults, and one coming along the opposite wall. Clearly, they had seen him and were in pursuit, and Clopin, clutching his torch, plunged into the muck again and broke into a run. He had not gone far when the one in the vaults dropped onto his head.
It didn't weigh much, but the impact knocked him to his knees. The torch flew from his hand and made a lucky landing on a stack of skulls, safely above the water. Not that Clopin could tell, for his hat had been pushed down over his eyes. "I got it! I got it!" said the thing on his head. Its voice was surprisingly childish. "What is it?" squeaked a second voice, feminine, with the edge of a rusted knife about it. "Looks like a clown," said the third voice, youngish and male and obviously possessed of a perpetual attitude of sarcasm. "What do we do with it?" said the thing on Clopin's head. A pair of little fingers pinched the calf of his leg and the feminine voice sniffed, "Not much meat on him." The hat was abruptly pulled off his head and she added, "He's ugly enough, too."
There were only three of them, he saw at once, and they were all extremely small. Reaching up, Clopin pried the one off his head and held him at arms length for a better look. It was a small, chubby boy, his face covered with a grinning skull mask. Children! Clopin had been running from children! With a disgusted sigh, he dropped the little boy into the water and stood up. "Well, well, this has been amusing. Now, if you will excuse me..." He snatched his hat away from the girl and started over to pick up his torch from where it had fallen, but they darted around to cut off his escape and pushed at him with their tiny might.
"Not so fast," said the taller boy, who was dressed and masked as a grinning devil. "You must think you're pretty brave, walking around the catacombs at night. What's your name?"
"Clopin," he replied patiently, beginning to wonder if they were some of the gypsy children playing a trick on him.
"Clopin, Clopin, cooked in a pan, boiled and broiled and sealed in a can!" the devil sing-songed, and his companions cackled with glee.
The smaller boy added, "Hang him up by his toes, and cut off his nose, then scoop out his brains and see what he knows!"
"An aspiring poet, I see," Clopin nodded his approval, then, quick as a flash, he snared the little chubby one and pulled the silly skull mask off of him.
The ghoulish face underneath was more ghastly than the false face worn over it, and, with an exclamation of surprise, Clopin dropped the little monster into the mire. The three little creatures burst into cackles, and the other two pulled off their own masks to reveal their true faces. This time he wasn't so surprised by their odd appearances, and only stood, looking down at them, with his arms folded over his chest and an amused half smile on his face. He had a very strong suspicion that he was looking at the vandals who had sacked the Goose and Grapes.
"Well, now," said Clopin, "where did you come from?"
"From your darkest nightmares!" cackled the devil.
"Oh, I don't think so," Clopin shook his head pensively. "My darkest nightmares involve soldiers, and dungeons, and the hangman's rope, not strange little children dressed up for a party. Shouldn't you be home in bed by now?"
"But, it's not even light out yet!" whined the small boy.
"Besides," smirked the girl, her sharp little eyes peering up at him from behind a great hatchet of a nose, "we're not as young as we look."
"You're a pretty mademoiselle," Clopin evaluated her. "Why, you could frighten the very gargoyles of Notre Dame."
"Thank you," she giggled coquettishly, "I already did."
"Frightened the bellringer, too," muttered the little devil, with a grin.
"Did not!" she turned on him at once.
"Did, too," he retorted. "You should have seen his face when you kissed him."
The little toad -- Clopin didn't know what else to call the chubby one, but there was something vaguely toadish about him -- laughed at this, and the girl shoved him into the muck. "You shut up!"
"So, little flirt," Clopin laughed as well, "you kissed the bellringer of Notre Dame?"
"She thought he was cu-u-ute!" the devil mocked her squeaky voice. "She wanted to put him in the sack and bring him home with us."
"I did not!"
"Did too!"
"Did not!"
"Hold, hold! Hold there!" Clopin intervened in the incipient shoving match by picking the devil up by his shirt. "So, what other mischief have you been up to tonight?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" the devil reached to bite him, and Clopin gave him a shake.
"I don't suppose you broke into a tavern earlier."
"We broke into lots of places," volunteered the little toad. "We've got a whole sack full of goodies, back in the -- " he pointed over his shoulder down the tunnel, but the little girl kicked him and hissed, "Shut up!"
"You shut up," retorted the devil, apparently by reflex, as he still dangled from Clopin's grasp. "Or we'll make you go back and kiss the ugly old man in the black robe."
"Ah-ha, so you did run into Frollo!"
"What's a Frollo?" asked the toad.
"An ugly old man in a black robe," said Clopin.
"We saw your Frollo all right," snickered the devil. "And he saw us. 'Out! Out! Foul demons! Torment me no longer!'" He did a passable job of mimicking the judge's voice, and the lot of them, Clopin included, laughed with glee.
"Ah, I'd have given my right leg to see that," Clopin shook his head.
"That can be arranged," said the little girl, sweetly.
"An expression, my petite angel," he warned her off with a sharp glance. "Only an expression."
"YEEAAAAAUUUGGGHHH!!!"
The wild, piercing scream took them all by surprise. Clopin, himself, flew four feet in the air and staggered back against the wall, groping for the torch. In the same instant that they heard the scream, something dropped from the vaults and landed on all fours in the mire. In the panic of the moment, it looked to Clopin like an impossibly huge spider, all delicate limbs, its skull-like face contorted into a horrible grimace. The three tiny creatures squealed in terror and scurried back down the tunnel.
The impossibly huge spider stood up and revealed itself as an ambulatory skeleton, remarkably tall, and remarkably thin, dressed in a mouldy yet elegant costume of black. Pausing to wipe the muck from his bony hands, the skeleton-man glanced carelessly at Clopin and with a polite "I beg your pardon" sprinted off after the three little monsters. By now thoroughly intrigued, Clopin picked up his torch and loped after them.
He met them coming back the other way. The skeleton-man had the toad tucked under one arm, and was carrying the devil by his tail in that hand. His other hand was clamped tightly on the ear of the girl, who was dragging a huge, lumpy sack along behind her. "You were specifically told to come straight home at midnight!" he was lecturing them.
"Is it midnight already?" the devil feigned innocence, not very convincingly.
"And we agreed that there would not be a repeat of last year's little adventure."
"You're not still mad about last year, are you Jack?" grinned the toad.
"In fact, I seem to remember all three of you giving me your solemn promise that you would not make me come after you this year!"
"Nobody made you come after us, Jack," sniffed the little girl.
"Once, just once, I would appreciate it if you would have the courtesy to follow instructions."
"We were on our way home," she insisted snippishly.
"We had a lot to carry," nodded the toad.
"Yeah," added the devil, "and a lot of people to scare. Paris is a big city."
"That's not the point," said Jack. "The point is, I trusted you and you lied to me!"
"Well, what did you expect?" muttered the little girl. "OW!" she yelped as he twisted her ear. "Stop it! And make Barrel carry the sack for a while; my arms hurt."
With a sigh, the skeleton man paused, let go of the girl and set the boys down. As soon as the devil's feet hit the ground, he made a break for it.
"Allow me," said Clopin, having come up to them by this point, as he darted after the devil and snatched him up by his horn-like tufts of red hair.
"Thank you," said the skeleton, as the wriggling imp was handed back to him.
"Permit me to introduce myself," Clopin made a regal half bow to the skeleton. "Clopin Trouillefou, King of Thunes, supreme suzerain of the Gypsies of Paris, at your service."
"Ah," the skeleton looked very impressed by this, and made a regal half bow of his own. "Jack Skellington, Pumpkin King of Halloweentown. A pleasure to meet you."
"The honor is mine," Clopin replied.
"Not at all."
"Oh, great," muttered the devil. "Charmed, enchanted, la-de-da-de-da -- "
"Quiet, you," Clopin jabbed the torch at him, then politely addressed the Pumpkin King. "I take it these belong to you."
"Unfortunately, yes," Jack frowned.
"I'd like to borrow them, if it's not too much trouble."
"Borrow them?" Jack's black eye sockets were round with surprise. "Whatever for?"
"They left quite a mess in the kitchen of a dear friend of mine."
"We're supposed to leave messes!" the girl rolled her eyes at this stupidity. "It's what we do!"
"I'm sorry, she does have a point," Jack said apologetically. "That is their job: to go out on All Hallows' Eve and collect treats, and play tricks on people. Although, I will admit, they do get a little over-zealous in their work sometimes."
"Ah, but you said they were supposed to go home at midnight, I believe! And this mess was most certainly made after midnight, because the tavern-keeper didn't close up until then. I was with her."
"Midnight shmidnight," said the devil. "Don't listen to him, Jack. He's lucky we didn't boil him up for dinner."
Jack ignored this remark. "In that case, Monsieur, I believe the point goes to you. We visit your world only one night out of the year. And," he glared at his small companions, "when it's over, it's over. Please, lead the way."
Jack got a more comfortable grip on the little devil, tucked the toad under that arm again, and hoisted their sack of treats on his shoulder. Clopin, still carrying the torch, extended his free hand to the girl. "Mademoiselle?"
She stubbornly folded her little arms over her chest.
"Shock," Jack scowled, "give Mr. Truffledew your hand and let's get on with this."
"We can't go back there," the devil protested as they trudged back the way they had come. "It'll be morning by the time we're done!"
"Yes, Jack," smirked Shock. "You said we're not supposed to be out once the sun comes up."
"Then you'll just have to work very quickly, won't you?"
When Therese came downstairs that morning, she was astonished to find her kitchen as spotless as ever, and Clopin, whistling a merry tune as he went about the business of preparing breakfast for her.
Hands on hips, she regarded him with a scolding smile. "You cleaned up all that mess yourself, didn't you?"
"I?" he looked surprised. "I never lifted a finger."
"Well, then, how did -- "
"Ah!" he interrupted her. "Breakfast first, stories later. I've had a most unusual night..."
Author's postscript: My apologies to any readers who are not familiar with "Nightmare Before Christmas," but I am a big fan and, after seeing Quasimodo and Phoebus descend into a crypt to reach the Court of Miracles, it was inevitable that I would find a way for the Gypsy King and the Pumpkin King to meet in the catacombs of Paris. As for Jack's troubles with Lock, Shock & Barrel -- well, I guess some things never change... :)