The Bicycle

"You're such a huge scaredy cat." Lock taunted as he finished duct-taping the busted handle grip of the dented and dinged bicycle. They had found it in an alley next to a dumpster in the Human World last Halloween and it was just too cool not to bring back home. It took all three of them to carry it since the tires were flat, but it was nothing that a little duct tape and an air pump they'd stolen from one of the other children couldn't fix.

They had never ridden a bicycle before. Some of the other kids in town had them, but the trick-or-treaters hadn't managed to steal one yet and Oogie Boogie had never given them one so they were desperate to try it. Barrel watched eagerly as his middle cohort threw the duct tape carelessly aside - the kickstand of the bicycle was so bent as to be completely useless, so Barrel had to hold the bike upright while Lock taped the handle grip.

"I'm not a scaredy cat, I just don't wanna break my face! Can't we just try it on a normal hill to start?" Shock replied, hands on her hips and wearing a very annoyed expression. She was just as excited to try the bike as anyone - she was the one who had figured out how to fix the chain back into the gears how it belonged, after all - but yet again, Lock had to go for the most dangerous option possible right out of the gate: he wanted to ride the bike down Spiral Hill, which was one of the tallest, steepest and most narrow hills in Halloween Town.

"What's the big deal? I'm sure it's super easy. If all the other kids in town can do it, then how hard can it be? We're way smarter than them." Lock said confidently, and Shock had to agree that was true… at least of herself. She wasn't too sure about her cohorts, though.

"Fine, go for it, moron. After you're dead I'll get to ride it as much as I want." she sneered, but Lock just rolled his eyes. He was imagining all the cool tricks he was going to be able to do on the bike and everyone would be so impressed - especially that big scaredy cat Shock - and she would feel so jealous and dumb that she had been too chicken to try it on the best hill in town.

"We'll show her, huh, Barrel?" Lock turned to his younger cohort, and Barrel grinned widely and nodded. He was so excited to try the bike he could hardly stand it, and he followed along as Lock started walking it up the long, steep hill. Shock sat down on a tombstone off to the side to watch the show, pulling a candy bar out of her pocket and looking forward to seeing the boys eat dirt all the way down the hill. She just hoped they didn't wreck the bike in the process because she was very much wanting to ride it herself. It took quite a long time for the boys to reach the very top of the hill with the bicycle in tow, and eventually it got so steep that Lock was huffing and puffing a bit and Barrel had to push on the back of it to help. Finally they reached their destination.

The bike was a tiny bit too large for the boys: Lock could reach the pedals while sitting on the seat, but he couldn't reach the handlebars from that position and Barrel couldn't reach the pedals at all. But they figured that if they worked together they could manage it. "Okay, I'm gonna pedal and you're gonna steer, got it?" Lock reminded Barrel, who nodded. Barrel was secretly glad that the bike was too big for Lock to use by himself because otherwise he might not get a turn for days until the novelty wore off and his older cohorts decided to share. Lock tilted the bike to the side just enough that he could straddle it and get his rear end on the seat, but then there was a problem: he couldn't get the bike upright again and still touch the ground, so balancing was impossible. Barrel could help hold the bike up, but then he couldn't get on the seat himself. They needed a third person to support the bike so they could both get on. "Hey Shock!" Lock yelled down at her. "Get up here and hold the bike so we can get on!"

Shock snickered to herself. It seemed like Lock never thought out the details of his brilliant ideas and always had to come running to her for help. "No way, figure it out yourself, shorty!" she called back up, though she had every intention of helping them just because she wanted to see her friends crash and burn.

"Oh come on!" Lock whined.

"Yeah, c'mon, Shock!" Barrel whined as well, and Shock rolled her eyes and shook her head as she tossed her candy wrapper on the ground and started up the hill towards them. She held the bike upright and as steady as she could while Lock scooted as far back on the seat as possible while still keeping his feet on the pedals and Barrel climbed up in front of him and grabbed the handlebars. They both barely fit on the seat but it worked, and Lock wrapped his arms around Barrel's waist and held on.

"Okay, on my count…" Lock said, and Shock contemplated pushing them over before he could finish counting, but then she decided she wanted to see them mess up on their own so she could laugh and they couldn't blame her. "One…" Lock said, and Barrel gripped the handles tighter, practically quivering with excitement. "Two…" he continued, and Shock prepared to let go of the bike, feeling rather excited despite herself and wondering if they'd actually manage to succeed. "THREE!" he finished, and started pedaling as fast as he could as Shock released the bike. It felt like they went from zero to a hundred in only a second as they hurtled down the hill, yelling and whooping excitedly and the sheer momentum was enough to keep them upright despite having no clue how to handle a bicycle. They had never moved so fast in their entire lives since this was way faster than they could run and much faster than their walking bathtub could go, and Lock decided right then and there that the bicycle was the best toy of all time. Barrel agreed with him - the wind hitting his laughing face felt amazing and everything was rushing by in such a blur and it was completely thrilling… then a bug flew right into his open mouth but he didn't even care. Shock watched from the top of the hill and was impressed that they'd stayed upright and she began to feel envious that she wasn't on that bike as well… perhaps Lock had actually been right and it was super easy, and now he was going to get to tease her for being chicken and he would be right - the thought made her blood boil and she wished she'd gone along with it.

The boys' glee and Shock's self-castigation were short-lived, however, because suddenly they were going so fast over the rough ground that Barrel found himself struggling to keep the handlebars steady and Lock found the pedals moving on their own faster than his feet could control them. The bike started wobbling and the more Barrel tried to control their movement, the more wobbly it got and he began to panic. "Where's the brakes?" he screamed as the bike shook more and more, and Lock was horrified to realize that he hadn't thought about that. He had no idea where the brakes were and he had a sneaking suspicion that even if he did, it was too late - they were simply going too fast to stop now. He just had to hope they could stay upright until the ground leveled out and their momentum slowed. "Where's the braaaaaakes!?" Barrel screamed again, his eyes bugging out as they careened down the hill and Lock squeezed his arms around his waist so hard he could barely breath.

"I don't knooooow!" Lock screamed in response as he held on to his cohort even tighter, and with the wind rushing past his ears he couldn't hear Shock start cackling from on top of the hill. She had figured out where the brakes were earlier, but Lock hadn't bothered to ask her about them so she figured he must already know… but clearly that was not the case. She watched with wicked delight as they hurtled out of control towards the bottom of the hill, and she tried to guess where they would make their inevitable crash landing - her bet was on either a headstone slightly to the left in front of them, or the patch of poison ivy to the right. "Watch out for the rock!" Lock yelled in Barrel's ear, and Barrel jerked the handlebars to avoid hitting the sizable rock in their path… and while he managed steer clear of the rock, instead they twisted sharply to the side and went crashing right into that big patch of poison ivy.

Shock started laughing so hard she could hardly breath, and she quickly ran down the hill to check the damage and laugh in their faces. She found them in a tangled heap with Barrel rubbing one of his elbows and Lock one of his knees where they had hit the ground first, both groaning a bit and still too stunned to realize what kind of plant they were sitting in. "Nice job, losers! Real cool-looking!" she cackled between wheezing breaths, holding her side both from laughing and running and Lock glared at her. She was going to make fun of them for days - possibly weeks - and the thought was infuriating and humiliating and he wished he had listened to her about starting out a little more slowly.

"Ow." Barrel mumbled, and he was sorely tempted to punch Lock for talking him into this dumb idea, but then he noticed something else: his hand was starting to itch a bit. He stopped rubbing his elbow so he could scratch it, and Shock laughed even harder.

"Hey dummies, nice place to land!" she howled, pointing to the poison ivy and the boys looked down and then immediately shrieked and disentangled themselves from the bicycle and scrambled out of the ivy as quickly as they could… but the damage was done. Lock noticed that his hands, neck, face and tail were starting to itch, and Barrel's feet, face and neck were itching now, too.

"CRAP." Lock moaned, rolling over onto his back and thudding his head against the ground several times in frustration. His humiliation had just gone from bad to worse, and then even worse still when Barrel kicked him in the leg - the one with the sore knee. "OW!" he shouted, rolling back over so he could kick Barrel back with his good leg, but Barrel quickly rolled out of the way.

"How come you didn't know where the brakes were, dummy!" the little ghoul yelled, trading off between scratching both of his hands and his feet.

"You didn't know either, so it's not just my fault!" Lock snarled back, and he gave up on trying to kick Barrel and focused on scratching his increasingly itchy neck instead. Their discomfort gave Shock a deep and satisfying joy and even though it looked like the bicycle was pretty bent-up now, she didn't even care. Surely it could be fixed, and in the meantime she would have their poison ivy rashes to laugh at.

"Well, pull it out of there, morons!" she snickered. There was no way she was going to touch the bike and risk getting poison ivy on herself. "We'll have to hose it down and get all the poison off of it."

"No way! Let's get a rope to pull it out!" snarled Lock, but Barrel just sighed and grabbed one of the tires and pulled it out. He figured his hands couldn't get much itchier so there was no point in taking the trouble to get a rope. He walked the bike along behind his cohorts back towards the treehouse, stopping frequently to scratch wherever he was itching the most and grumbling under his breath. Feeling itchy was one of the worst feelings in the world… probably the only thing that felt worse was being hungry, he thought.

Shock was still snickering under her breath at her cohort's misfortune, and she couldn't help continuing to mock their massive error in judgement. "I told you that was a dumb idea! You don't know how to ride a bike and Barrel's so klutzy he can hardly even walk - so how'd you think it was gonna turn out?"

"Hey!" Barrel yelled, offended by her insult, but then he tripped a bit as he tried to scratch one of his feet with the other and he was glad she didn't see it.

"Shut it, Shock." Lock growled, scratching his ear with one hand and his neck with the other. He was trying to scratch his tail by rubbing it against his leg but it wasn't really helping.

"I can't believe how stupid you two are!" she said happily. "You just had to pick the craziest hill in the whole town and you didn't even know where the brakes are! It's a miracle you even know where your own butt is!" she cackled, and Lock had had enough.

"I said SHUT IT!" he yelled, and he reached out and grabbed her face with both of his poison-ivy-tainted hands. She shrieked and punched him in the nose, which caused him to let go of her but the damage was done. Even though his nose hurt now Lock smirked in satisfaction that he made her shut her big dumb mouth, and he hoped that he'd at least gotten enough of the poison on her to give her a rash like he and Barrel were going to get. Shock wanted to throttle him for grabbing her, but she didn't want to touch his neck and get poison ivy on her hands, too… then she thought about kicking him in the rear end since her boots would protect her, but then he might actually tackle her and rub more of the irritating chemical on her so she refrained.

When they got home they left the battered bicycle outside and while Lock and Barrel were fighting over who got to take a bath first Shock snuck into the bathroom and washed her face off as best she could, but it was too late - both of her cheeks were starting to itch. "Stupid Lock!" she thought to herself, though she had to admit that if their places had been reversed she would have done the same thing… but on the other hand, she wasn't dumb enough to go crashing into a bunch of poison ivy on a bike that she didn't know how to ride in the first place. Suddenly the door slammed open and an irate-looking Lock entered the bathroom holding his pajama pants with only his pinkie and thumb, trying to avoid contaminating them.

"Get out of here!" he snapped, desperate to wash off as much of the awful itch-inducing substance as possible and Shock strolled out of the bathroom at a leisurely pace, glad at least that her cohorts were worse off than she was. She walked past Barrel - who was sitting on the living room floor and frantically scratching his feet - and went to the kitchen. They still had a tiny bit of the medicinal poultice that Sally had made for them some time ago and she was hoping that it might help with poison ivy, too. She scooped a bit of it out with a spoon, not wanting to contaminate the whole jar, then put it in her hands and rubbed it all over her face where Lock's rotten hands had touched her. The poultice seemed to soothe the itching significantly and she quickly screwed the jar shut and tucked the poultice away at the back of the cupboard - there wasn't much left and she didn't plan on sharing it with her moronic friends. She was sure to wipe it off of her face before Lock got out of the bath, but fortunately he was in there forever so the poultice had plenty of time to sink in.

After both Lock and Barrel had washed themselves off as best they could, they all sat in the living room in their pajamas watching television. The boys were just too itchy to do anything else but Shock was feeling mostly fine thanks to her secret weapon. Both Lock and Barrel were starting to get an ugly, red, blistery rash everywhere the poison ivy had touched them and they were so wrapped up in their misery that they were barely able to pay attention to the movie… but then Lock noticed that Shock wasn't itching at all and that her cheeks were only a bit pink instead of red and blistery. "How come your face looks normal?" he asked, then quickly amended his statement: "How come your face looks as ugly as normal?"

Shock just shrugged and lied casually, "I dunno, guess you didn't get me as good as you thought you did. Either that or you two are just wimps compared to me."

Lock and Barrel both gave her a nasty look, but she only smirked harder. "It's not my fault you have weak little baby skin to go along with your weak little baby brains." Lock really wanted to tackle her and beat the snot out of her for that, but that would take time away from scratching himself so he just muttered:

"Just you wait. Me and Barrel are gonna throw you in that poison ivy as soon as we're not itchy anymore."

"Yeah!" Barrel agreed from the floor where he was rubbing his feet against the rug so he could free up both hands to scratch his face and neck.

Shock just shrugged and smirked again, "Go ahead and try, see if I care." She stretched out and got more comfortable on the sofa to enjoy the television program as the boys grumbled and itched. Even if they did manage to throw her in the poison ivy later she had enough of the secret poultice left that she could probably deal with it just fine - in fact, she almost hoped they would just so her apparent imperviousness would tick them off even more.

Author Note: Inspired by yet another sad story from my childhood, with me in Barrel's place, my older sister in Lock's, and stinging nettles in place of poison ivy. Thankfully there was no Shock there to laugh at our bad decision, LOL!