Lock was laid up for two and a half whole weeks before his back had healed enough that he could move pretty much normally again, and by then his face had healed enough to not look suspicious anymore. It had been a very long, boring and frustrating two and a half weeks and they were all impatient to get back to trying to catch Sandy Claws - as well as to just get out of the treehouse in general. They'd read and re-read all of the Christmas books what felt like dozens of times and Lock was bored enough that he actually made a real effort and soon he felt like he was able to read just as good as Barrel, which soothed his ego a bit. The novelty of their new toys had worn off and the duck had found its way into the bathroom to live with their other, older duck toy while the teddy bear had been completely dissected and left in a corner - though Shock had plans to eventually incorporate it's fabric into her future patchwork dress. She also thought she might tear her stupid doll apart as well because it was still mostly a shapeless wad of stitched-together fabric bits even after all these weeks. She was good at the stitching part, but not the construction part. Barrel and Lock had made a game of tossing their rat-hats at the knives stuck in the walls, trying to land the hats on the knives like a ring-toss since that was something Lock could do while he was stomach-down on the couch. Barrel was so bored that he had even tried to figure out a way to get Lock's knife out of the ceiling for him - he was equally unsuccessful, but at least he didn't end up with a black eye for his efforts. He tried stacking their three chairs on top of one another to make a little tower but it was too unsteady. He'd gotten their medieval flail and tried to knock the knife loose with it, but it couldn't reach. He'd even convinced Shock to give him a boost, but even standing on her shoulders his fingertips were still several feet away from it - if Lock had been well enough to join their tower it might have worked. Lock offered unsolicited criticism and advice from the sofa the entire time but all of his ideas were just as useless and the knife stayed stubbornly in the ceiling, as if it were taunting them. "Maybe we can shoot a rocket at it?" Barrel wondered out loud, and Lock smiled wider than he had for days. He didn't really think Barrel's idea would work, but few things were as fun as firecrackers.

"Do it!" he said eagerly, and Barrel grinned excitedly and ran to the ammo supply.

"You two are so stupid, there's no way that's going to work!" Shock sneered from the corner where she was organizing and taking inventory of all the different candy types that Oogie Boogie had given them. It was really a new low for her as far as spending time went, but she was so bored she was going to go crazy if she didn't do something besides watch T.V. and read Christmas books. At least the boys and their antics at trying to retrieve the knife were entertaining, no matter how dumb their ideas were… and it wasn't like she had any better ideas herself so she let them get on with it. Barrel returned with some matches and a rocket that was really probably too large for what they were hoping to accomplish, then he knelt on the floor, closed one eye and tried to aim the rocket at the knife. Shock watched him out of the corner of her own eye and despite herself she was excited to see what would happen once Barrel shot off the rocket… then she thought about what terrible aim he had so before he could strike the match she scooted over from her neat rows of candy and said bossily, "Hang on, you can't aim to save your life. Let me do it!" She elbowed him roughly aside and grabbed the rocket herself, and Barrel thought about fighting her for the privilege of trying to blow the knife out of the ceiling but decided it wasn't worth wasting time on - he just wanted to see something blow up no matter who did it. Once she was satisfied with the way she'd positioned the rocket she looked excitedly at him and said, "Okay, light it!" Lock was so envious that it wasn't him setting off the explosive that he could hardly stand it, but he was still a wreck and he had the smelly pain-easing poultice spread all over his back. Shock had been diligently applying it to his bruise every day until he'd started teasing her about how she probably loved waiting on him hand and foot, so then she made Barrel start doing it - but not before she'd dumped a bunch of the poultice in Lock's hair, an offense that he angrily promised he would return once he was healed enough to catch her. Barrel struck the match and lit the fuse, and all three of them waited in delicious anticipation as the flame moved up the wick and then finally the rocket ignited and blasted up towards the ceiling with a tremendous cracking sound followed immediately by a piercing squeal and then a huge crash as it blew a gaping hole right through the roof. Debris rained down on them and they covered their heads with their arms, and it was only by sheer luck that none of them were hit by the larger pieces of wood that came crashing down. When the dust settled they all looked up at the destruction and broke out into hysterical laughter, convinced that it was the most hilariously entertaining thing they'd done for months.

"We're gonna have to fix the roof now." said Barrel after several minutes, wiping tears of mirth out of his eyes.

"Totally worth it!" Lock said happily. Witnessing that explosion was even worth the significant amount of pain it had caused his poor ribs from laughing so hard.

"Yeah, 'cus you're not the one who's gonna have to fix it!" said Shock as she took off her hat to shake the dust off of it, but she was still laughing, too.

"And look!" said Barrel triumphantly, holding up a fallen piece of wood with the sought-after knife sticking out of it and they all cheered.

The children enjoyed their impromptu skylight for a few days - it was fun to try and throw or slingshot rocks and pieces of bone through the hole, and once they even shot a smaller rocket through it but decided that was a waste of a rocket because once it went through the hole they couldn't see it explode or hit anything. Eventually it got a bit cloudy outside and they worried it might rain so Shock and Barrel carefully climbed up the outside ladder to the roof with a hammer, some nails, several pieces of extra sheet metal and some boards they had laying around to patch it up. Lock amused himself by continuing to shoot rocks up through the hole with his slingshot, trying to hit them as they worked and they threw the rocks and some nails back down at him so the roof-repair ended up taking several hours longer than it needed to.

On the eleventh day Lock was able to walk around fairly well again and he had tried to convince his cohorts that he was ready to go get Sandy Claws but Shock wouldn't hear of it, which led to several loud arguments. "We don't need you slowing us down and getting us caught on such an important job!" she yelled in his face, frustrated that punching him would only set them back longer.

"I'm fine!" he yelled back, wanting to tackle her to prove he was okay but he didn't because deep down inside he knew that he probably wasn't.

"Oh yeah?" she sneered, and quick as a flash she reached her arm around and poked him in the back before he could stop her. He grimaced and sucked in a harsh breath and Shock gave him a smug, angry look. "See? You're still a total mess! Go lay down, stupid, or I'll kick you in the butt so hard you'll have to stay in bed for another week!"

Lock gave her the angriest, surliest look he was capable of, then turned to Barrel and shouted, "Tell her she's being an idiot. I'm fine!" But Barrel only rolled his eyes and went back to his reading. He was getting really good at it since they hadn't had much else to do. Lock got even angrier but there wasn't anything he could do about being outvoted so he went back to his room to pout. On the eighteenth day Shock was finally convinced of Lock's fitness to resume mischief-making duties and they put their heads together to plan their next move.

"Alright, here's the plan." said Lock as they finished up the last of their stew from Oogie Boogie for lunch. "First we're going to go to town to get some more food and give Jack his dumb books back just so he doesn't bug us about them. Then we'll go to Christmas Town and get Sandy!" It wasn't a very detailed plan, but then again most of Lock's plans weren't very well thought-out.

"How are we gonna do it?" asked Barrel, licking the last dregs of stew out of his bowl.

"Stuff him in the bag like we did with Not-Sandy-Claws." Lock said, as if it were obvious.

Shock raised one unimpressed eyebrow at him, but she didn't really have a better plan yet despite all their reading so she kept her mouth shut. After lunch they put on their masks, grabbed their slingshots and put all of the Christmas books into their Sandy-Claws-catching-sack and headed for town.

Things were really booming now. Just when the children thought there couldn't possibly be any more ways to decorate for Christmas someone found another thing to add. There were so many presents that it would have taken them months and months to steal them all and they wouldn't have all fit in their treehouse anyway. Lock was especially distracted since he had missed out on their last trip to town and as they passed by a stack of shrunken heads he wondered if one would fit in his slingshot and if it would explode and get brains everywhere if he shot it against a wall. He quickly snatched one and shoved it into their bag without even slowing down, fully intending to try this experiment at the soonest opportunity. They made their way towards Town Hall to return the books - Lock had changed his mind about returning them and suggested they set them on fire instead but Shock talked him out of it. "They're Jack's books and he loves Christmas so he'd probably hit you just as hard as Oogie did, you moron! Do you want to get knocked around again?" He really did not want to get knocked around again anytime soon so he sighed in disappointment and they walked up the steps and under the countdown clock.

"Guys, we only have seven days left!" Barrel said nervously. He didn't want to get knocked around by Jack, either.

"It's fine, stop worrying." said Lock, completely unconcerned. Honestly, his cohorts were such a pair of worrywarts. After all, they had captured Not-Sandy-Claws in just one day, and that was going in completely blind with no information whatsoever. Now he felt like they were thoroughly prepared so there was no need to hurry or worry. The Town Hall doors were propped open since townspeople were going in and out at a fairly rapid pace and the trick-or-treaters were irritated to see that the Mayor was there, sitting at his podium. Didn't he ever go anywhere else or do anything besides paperwork and making stupid speeches? Lock suddenly had a very important decision to make: it would probably be very funny to throw the shrunken head at the Mayor, but he suspected that it probably wouldn't explode on impact and cover him with brains, which would be a disappointment… but on the other hand, if it didn't explode then there would be no harm in throwing it at him because he could just pick it up and try it against a wall later like his original plan had been. His mind made up, Lock crouched down and snuck along close to the wall and the other two followed suite even though they didn't know exactly what he had planned. Fortunately the Mayor didn't see them and right when they were in range he looked up and away from them to start talking to Lucius, and Shock and Barrel suppressed their giggles as Lock put the shrunken head in his slingshot and took aim. It soared through the air and while he didn't hit his target exactly (he'd been aiming for either one of the Mayor's faces) he did manage to knock the hat right off of the Mayor's pointy head, causing him to jump in surprise and nearly fall off his chair. "Bullseye!" Lock laughed out loud, and the other two cackled along with him as the Mayor's angry face swiveled their direction, not noticing the older devil giving the little devil a subtle wink and nod. Lucius was one of the very, very few townspeople that the kids thought was sort-of-kind-of alright, so they generally didn't play too many tricks on him. Once they tried lighting his cape on fire while he was wearing it but he'd merely laughed at them and snapped his fingers to make the flames disappear - that's when they'd learned that fire didn't affect grown-up devils quite the same as it did most other Halloween Town residents. About the best trick they'd managed to play on him so far was stealing his pitchfork and sticking it up in the tallest tree they could climb, and it had taken him several days to find it.

"Why, you little - !" the Mayor spluttered, clearly refraining from calling them a very nasty name. "Now what do you want?!"

"Just being good citizens." Shock said sarcastically.

"Bringing back Jack's books." added Barrel with his hands on his little hips.

"You know, the ones he gave us permission to borrow." Lock said smoothly, strolling onto the stage to retrieve his shrunken head - which had regrettably not exploded. He very pointedly stepped on the brim of the hat and the Mayor bristled with anger.

"Watch where you're stepping, you little delinquent!"

Lock looked him right in the eye and stepped on the hat again, then kicked it right off the stage. "Whoops." he said in falsely-innocent voice and his cohorts laughed. The Mayor snarled viciously at them but there was nothing he could have done that would frighten them and they just marched right over to the trunk and tossed all the books back into it before heading back towards the exit. They each gave the hat one good kick as they passed it, rolling it down the aisle and practically out the Town Hall doors and the Mayor's angry muttering behind them was music to their ears.

They decided that now it was time to swipe some more food. They had finished almost all of their food at home over the last few weeks while Lock was laid up so they needed to restock - and after what had happened last time they didn't want to do any hunting too close to home. Oogie was only satisfied when they sent him living things, so if they stole already-dead food from town then they were more likely to be safe from his wrath. They were just heading towards the market when Sally's green tent caught Shock's eye once more - now there was a sewing machine set up inside the tent as well as a mannequin and a table with a large bolt of bright red fabric draped over it and a basket full of fluffy, furry white trim. The fluffy white trim was stupid, but Shock kind of liked the red fabric because it looked like blood and she decided she really wanted some of it for her future dress project. Sally was nowhere to be seen so she stopped walking and grabbed Lock by the collar and he just about fell over backwards into her. Barrel wasn't looking where he was going and walked right into her back and just about fell over, too. "What are you doing, you crazy witch!" Lock snarled, adjusting his shirt collar where it had dug into his throat.

"Shut up, I want some of that." she said, pointing to the red fabric cascading over the side of the table.

"Why?" asked Barrel, peering around her to look.

"Because I want to make a dress with it."

Lock snickered, "If you make dresses as bad as you make dolls then you're gonna be walking around naked."

Shock punched him right in the middle of his chest. "Shut up, Lock!"

"Ow!" he yelped, then punched her in the chest right back. Shock was sorely tempted to punch him in the face next, but she decided she wanted the fabric more and Sally could be back any minute so she refrained - she could always punch Lock later.

"Are you gonna help or what?" she hissed, rubbing her chest where his fist had made contact.

"I guess so." he muttered, glaring at her and rubbing his own chest. Sewing was girly, but red was a cool color and stealing was fun no matter what it was so he was game for swiping some. They told Barrel to keep watch while they snuck behind the table and Lock held their sack open while Shock pulled some of the fabric off of the table… but unfortunately she overestimated how much of the fabric was actually unrolled and when she pulled down on it too hard the entire bolt flew right off the table and hit them both in the head. Shock stumbled backwards and knocked over the mannequin, which tipped over and hit the table with a crash before rolling right onto Lock. The two little trick-or-treaters ended up in a pile of red fabric beneath the mannequin and it was a miracle that they hadn't taken the entire tent down with them. "Nice going, klutzy!" Lock shouted, and Shock grabbed a handful of the stupid white fluffy trim and shoved it right in his open mouth.

"Quit yelling, are you trying get us caught?" she snarled, and Lock stopped caring that this was supposed to be a covert operation. He spat out the fluffy white trim and lunged at her, and they wrestled around for a moment, getting more and more tangled up in the fabric but before either of them could get any really good hits in Barrel scurried around and kicked them both.

"Guys! She's coming!" he whispered, but it was too late. Suddenly Sally was standing over them and they all stopped moving and looked up at her, Lock pausing with his fist pulled back in mid-air right as he was about to punch Shock in her big dumb nose.

"Are you alright?" Sally asked in a concerned voice, and the trio looked at each other. They had just wrecked her stuff and she was asking if they were alright? How could she not be mad?

"Yes…" Lock said uncertainly.

"We're alright…" Shock added.

"I didn't do anything!" Barrel said urgently, and the other two glared at him. Now that it was established no one was hurt, Sally had to hold back a grin at the sight of Shock and Lock completely tangled up in the fabric and looking at her with a mix of guilt and defiance. They really were such cute little monsters and she bent over somewhat unsteadily to start helping them get untangled.

"What happened?" she asked them gently.

"I just wanted to look at your sewing stuff and I tripped." Shock lied.

"Oh, do you like sewing?" Sally asked brightly, hoping that maybe this was some common ground she could share with at least one of the children. Before Shock could answer, Barrel said:

"Yeah, but she's really bad at it."

"She's such a girl." Lock sneered, and Shock gave both of them the coldest glare she was capable of.

Sally once again suppressed a smile and looked right at Shock. "If you'd ever like some lessons, I would be happy to help you." she said kindly, and Shock didn't really know how to respond. She was still confused by the fact that Sally hadn't scolded or threatened to discipline them and while part of her wanted to accept the offer, the rest of her knew that was no way for a Boogie Boy to behave so she turned up her nose and said proudly:

"I'll figure it out on my own. I can figure everything out on my own!"

Sally was a bit disappointed, but she also had to admire the little witch's confidence. "Okay, well if you ever change your mind, just let me know." she said cheerfully as Lock and Shock finally got to their feet. "In the meantime, you can experiment with this." She pulled out a pair of scissors and cut loose a yard of the red fabric and handed it to Shock. Sally may be naive in some ways, but she knew that this amount of chaos couldn't have been caused merely by one curious child tripping.

"Okay…" said Shock, stuffing the fabric into their bag, then the three of them hurried off without another word. It felt weird to accept a gift like this, but free stuff was free stuff so she figured she might as well take it. They continued towards the market but this time something caught Lock's eye: it was the white and green snowmobile that Jack had brought back from Christmas Town, and now the Mayor was driving it along part of the wooden ramp, pulling a tiny red sleigh full of wrapped boxes behind it. Lock watched carefully as he drove it off of the ramp and parked it near the guillotine before climbing off and heading who knows where. The children never seen a vehicle like that but if the Mayor was driving it did that mean it was his new car? They had vandalized his hearse countless times in the past and if this is what he was driving during Christmas time then clearly it needed vandalizing as well. Lock thrust his elbow behind him, intending to hit Shock in the arm or something but he accidentally hit Barrel right in the face instead.

"Ow!" Barrel shouted angrily. "What was that for?" But Lock ignored him and leaned over to whisper to Shock:

"Look at that thing!"

But she was already two steps ahead of him and she grinned wickedly, grabbed Barrel by the arm and dragged him behind her as they snuck over to the parked snowmobile, Barrel rubbing his cheek with a surly expression and plotting his revenge on Lock. But there was a problem: it didn't have any tires to slash or windows to break, and it was made out of a hard sort of material that seemed to be practically indestructible. Shock was able to scratch a few offensive words into the green part with her pocketknife but they didn't really show up very well and it was slow-going. They had to be quick or else someone would notice that they were up to something so they quickly changed tactics. "Get down in there and cut every wire you can find!" Shock whispered to her littlest cohort while Lock was busy trying to break the solitary headlight with a rock, and Barrel took her knife with a big grin and crawled into the snowmobile and got down on the floor and did just that. He'd just finished up the last wire when they heard an angry growl:

"Hey! What are you three doing!" It was Dennis the werewolf, stalking towards them and looking even more vicious than usual but the kids weren't scared of him. They thought he looked stupid wearing a shirt and no pants, plus ever since they had snuck a hair-removing potion into his shampoo they just couldn't take him seriously after seeing him with great patches of fur missing. Dennis was pretty bad-tempered anyway, but after that little stunt he hated the trick-or-treaters almost as much as the Mayor did.

"None of your bat-wax, nosy!" sneered Shock.

"Yeah, what's it to you, furball?" added Lock in the same snotty tone of voice, then he threw his rock at Dennis, which the werewolf just barely managed to dodge.

"Yeah, keep your big snout out of it!" piped up Barrel with a huge grin on his face as he climbed out of the snowmobile. Dennis's hackles went up and he snarled viciously at them, but the kids just stuck out their tongues and laughed at him before turning tail and running.

"You wait till Jack hears about this!" he yelled after them, but the kids didn't care because if Jack himself didn't catch them in the act then there was no way he could prove it was them, and so far Jack had never punished them unless he himself had witnessed their bad behavior.

"What a big, dumb mutt!" Lock snickered and his cohorts giggled in agreement. They reached the market area without any further distractions and saw that once again Clown had his hotfrog cart set up, now covered in shiny silver tinsel.

"I want a hotfrog." Barrel said, putting one hand on his growling tummy. It had been a long time since lunch and causing trouble used up a lot of energy so he was starting to get a little cranky.

"You mean you want five hotfrogs, fatty." Lock teased him, and Barrel frowned again and added this insult to his revenge-on-Lock plans. Shock snickered and pulled a small bundle of dynamite out of their sack, and Lock gave her a look that was half surprised and half impressed. "I didn't see you pack those!" he said, rubbing his hands together eagerly and liking the direction this diversion tactic was likely to go.

"That's because you don't pay attention to anything but messing with your hair and being a jerk." Shock teased him, and Barrel snickered.

Lock gave them a dirty look. "Whatever, I pay attention to stuff!" But he couldn't think of any good examples so he just snatched the dynamite out of her hand and held out his own. "Give me a match, stupid."

"Hang on, where are you going to put them?" she asked, not wanting him to waste precious dynamite by blowing them up somewhere useless.

"Down his pants, hopefully…" muttered Barrel, and Lock reached out to smack him but Barrel had had enough and he blocked Lock's arm and punched him right in the armpit, causing him to drop the dynamite.

"Why you…!" Lock hissed, and was just about to tackle Barrel but Shock swung the sack around and hit them both.

"Stop it, morons! Do you want to eat or not?" The boys stopped fighting but kept glaring at one another, Lock rubbing his armpit where Barrel's fist had hit him. Shock looked around for a good place to cause an explosion - close enough to distract Clown but not so close that he would see them and not so close that it would ruin the food cart. She settled on a giant mound of skulls that had black and silver ribbons tied in little bows around them piled up nearby - surely blowing that up would send skulls everywhere and it would take people a long time to pick them all up. She thrust the matches and dynamite into Barrel's hands. "Go blow up those skulls." she whispered but before he could go Lock reached out and grabbed his arm.

"I wanna do it!" he pouted.

"Knock it off, why are you being so annoying?!" Barrel said angrily, trying to pull out of Lock's strong grip.

Shock rolled her eyes so hard she was afraid they might fall out of her head. "Barrel has to do it so we can get the food out of the cart, dummy! He's too short to reach!" Lock had to concede that point so he let go and watched enviously as his younger cohort snuck off behind the skull pile. Lock hadn't gotten to blow up anything in what felt like forever. As Barrel went scurrying away from the pile he and Shock readied themselves to run for the cart as soon as the explosion went off and within only a minute there was a satisfying BOOM and the skulls exploded into the air like a bony volcano.

"What the - ?!" Clown shrieked, covering his tear-away face with his hands as shards of bone flew towards him and Lock and Shock had to hold in their laughter lest they give away their position. When Clown moved his hands away from his face he saw Barrel running away from the explosion and he screamed, "You again!" and tried to pedal after him but with all the skull debris on the ground he couldn't go very fast at all. Lock and Shock waited until they felt fairly confident he wasn't going to turn back around, then they quickly got into the same position as they did the last time they'd raided Clown's cart: Lock on Shock's shoulders, but this time she held open their sack and Lock threw down way more hotfrogs, fried spider legs and cotton candy into the bag than they'd stolen the last time - this time he took enough for several meals. He hopped back off her shoulders and they were just about to make their escape when Clown turned back their direction and his eyes bulged with rage when he saw them sneaking around his cart.

"We gotta hide the bag!" Shock hissed, and Lock tried to think fast - he didn't want to have to work off any debt to Clown so grabbed Shock by the arm and they ran around the building as fast as they could go as Clown tried to pedal after them through the skull debris. Luckily they ran into Barrel behind the building and Lock threw the sack at him.

"Go hide this!" he whispered, and Barrel spun around and climbed over the low wall and into the ditch to hide inside the huge, dark cement storm drain. He had just barely gotten himself out of sight when Clown came speeding around the corner and towards Lock and Shock, who stayed where they were standing and tried to look innocent.

Clown got right up in their faces and screamed in his creepy, high-pitched voice, "I know what you did, you naughty children! Bad things happen to children who are naughty!" But the kids held their ground. Clown wasn't too scary as long as he didn't tear his face off, and even then it was nothing that they couldn't handle.

"What are you talking about, Mr. Clown?" Lock said smoothly.

"We were just taking a walk, Mr. Clown." Shock said in her false-sweet voice.

"Lying little children!" he screamed, then looked over their heads and saw Jack. He called the Pumpkin King over but the kids weren't nervous. Again, Jack hadn't caught them in the act and Barrel was well-hidden with the evidence so they were definitely safe from punishment.

"What seems to be the problem, Clown?" Jack asked in a very diplomatic voice, though he was pretty sure he could guess what the issue was.

"These naughty, lying little children stole some of my food!" He turned his wicked eyes back to Lock and Shock and repeated menacingly, "Bad things happen to children who are naughty!" but the duo remained perfectly calm. Clown's 'naughty children' spiel might work on human kids, but it didn't work on them.

"We didn't steal anything, Jack." Lock said in his smoothest, most charming voice.

"We were just talking a walk." Shock said sweetly.

"And looking at all the Christmas decorations." Lock said.

"They sure are pretty, Jack." Shock lied.

"We already ate today, Mr. Oogie Boogie made us stew." Lock added, which wasn't a complete lie, at least.

"Liars!" Clown screeched, but Jack held up a calming hand and said:

"Did you see them take the food?"

"No, but I know they did it!"

Jack raised a suspicious brow, looking at the children carefully but their well-practiced faces betrayed nothing. "Where is Barrel?"

"He had to go to the bathroom." Shock said without skipping a beat.

"I'm sure he'll be back soon." said Lock, and right at that very moment Barrel came strolling around the building to join his cohorts.

"Hi, Jack! Hi, Mr. Clown!" he said cheerily. He had stashed the sack deep inside the drainage ditch on a relatively high and dry spot and snuck back out for this very reason: it was just too suspicious having only two Boogie Boys together.

"Everything go okay in the bathroom?" Shock said, giving Barrel a significant look.

"Yeah, is your diarrhea all done?" Lock added, trying hard not to laugh.

Barrel knew enough by now to guess that this was the excuse they had chosen to explain his absence so he played the part appropriately.

"I think so." he said, holding his stomach. "That stew from Mr. Oogie Boogie sure made me have to go."

"He always eats too much and this is what happens." Shock said, and Lock was biting the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood in his attempt to keep from laughing out loud.

"I'm sorry, Clown, but I'm afraid if you didn't see them actually take the food and there isn't any food here now then we have to assume they are innocent." said Jack. He was almost 100% certain that the children were lying, but in Halloween Town it was innocent until proven guilty and he prided himself on being a fair king so he had no choice but to let them go.

Clown was positively quivering with rage but Jack made the rules and there was nothing to be done about it - but at least he knew that Jack would reimburse him later once he inventoried how much was missing. He leaned down right next to their three little faces and this time he used his low, gravelly, extra-scary voice: "You wait until I catch you in the act, little naughties, then you'll be sorry!" The trio just smiled wickedly at him, and he pedaled around and peeled rubber back to the front of the building. Jack watched him go and then turned back to the children, who were walking away and laughing about Lock saying the word 'diarrhea'.

"Just a moment, you three." he called after them somewhat sternly and they froze and turned slowly back around.

"We told you we didn't steal anything, Jack." said Lock, now playing the part of an innocent child more than a charming devil.

"That's not what I want to talk to you about, though I will take this opportunity to remind you that stealing is wrong." said Jack, and the trick-or-treaters rolled their eyes impatiently. How many times was he going to give them the same speech? He frowned very seriously at them and continued, "I want to ask how your mission to capture Sandy Claws is progressing. There are only seven days left until Christmas and it is absolutely imperative that you succeed." He noticed Barrel looking at him blankly so he adjusted his choice of words. "It is very, very important that you succeed. It is crucial, in fact. Christmas will be ruined if you do not catch him in time, so I am relying on you." He thought about how last time they'd had this discussion he had tried to flatter them into obedience, but given what had just happened he felt that it might be time to remind them that there would be consequences if they disobeyed. He looked down at them very sternly indeed and said, "I will have no choice but to punish you severely if you do not try your best. Have I made myself clear?" He bent down a bit closer to them and looked like he was on the verge of making a very scary face so they all three nodded quickly.

"We will, Jack!" said Barrel.

"Don't worry Jack, we haven't forgotten!" added Shock.

"We have a good plan, Jack!" finished Lock.

"Very well." he said, standing back up to his full height. "Off you go." And the children hurried away.

Barrel led them back to where he had stashed the sack full of food, Shock's red fabric and Lock's shrunken head, then they decided to head home. It was really too late in the day to make the trip all the way to the holiday doors, and on top of that they hadn't remembered to take the tub so they couldn't have carried Sandy Claws home even if they did go. As soon as they were out of town Lock reached into the sack and handed his cohorts each a baggie of fried spider legs and they happily munched their snacks and chattered about the fun day in town they had just enjoyed, deciding that it was no big deal putting off capturing Sandy Claws for just one more day.