Chapter XII
"A Wrong Turn"

"How much longer?" Barrel kept asking much too often—every two minutes for the past hour.
"Shut up!" Shock snapped. Then she hit him with her mask, or pulled a twig off one of the many trees and hit him with that.
I, however, kept silent. To tell the truth, I was somewhat frightened of the woods. The only sound was Shock and Barrel bickering about something stupid, or the rhythmic walking of the bathtub. I was so terrified of complete silence for some reason. I was about to lose it when we came to a circle of trees that seemed normal—like the rest of them—except when our tub trekked into the circle, designs could be seen on the trees.

"Finally, we're here." Barrel sighed in relief as he hopped out and observed the stranger tree circle.
I walked over to a tree with a depiction of an egg carved into it. "Shock, Barrel," I called over to them. "What do you make of this?"
They were silent.
"I think this is it." I assured them.
"Look around you, Lock," Shock told me calmly, "There are 6 other trees; it could be anyone. I think it's the one with the tee painted on it"
"I trust him." Barrel said. "Let's just try this one first."
Slowly, I opened the door, but nothing was there. It was only black.
"What the hell!" Shock raged. "That stupid skeleton wants us to go find this Slimy Claws—"
"Sandy Claws." Barrel interrupted.
"WHATEVER! And how does he expect us to find him if there's nothing in the goddamn tree?"
Barrel contemplated for a moment, took the sack out of the tub, and jumped into the tree.
"BARREL!" Shock screamed.
He was laughing as he fell, we peered down and he got smaller, and smaller, and finally so small, that he disappeared, along with his laughter.
Shock and I gulped. "Wow," I whispered in awe, "…long drop."

I stepped up on the rim of the whole and was about to jump, but Shock grabbed my hand. I turned to look at her and she had a fearful look in her eyes.
"Shock?"
"Do you think he's okay?"
"I'm sure he is…" I said pretty optimistically, but it turned pretty pessimistic at the end.
"He's always charging head on into danger like that. Pretty much the way he got the name 'Barrel'. Wanna hear the story?"
"Not really. Let's jump."
"Lock, I'm scared."
Those are two words I thought I'd never come out of Shock's mouth. "Really?"
She nodded fearfully.
I took her hand and we both stood on the rim of the egg and we jumped.

We fell down at a furious speed. I closed my eyes and it felt like we were falling for a long time. Eventually, we landed in a pile of something. I opened my eye and discovered they were plastic eggs.
I popped up out of the pile. "Where the hell are we?" "Where's Barrel?" Shock said frantically, digging through the plastic eggs.
Barrel popped out of the pile next to his half-sister. "Here I am." he stated quickly. "Were you worried about little old me?" Barrel asked mockingly.
"No." she denied quickly with her arms crossed.
I was barely listening. "Guys, will you shut up for one frigging second?"
They were quiet.
"Look…"

The sky was the brightest if blue and the grass was greener than the grass back in our world. There were tiny, fluffy, yellow chicks running around. All the houses were shaped like eggs and there was a huge pink rabbit hopping along a path made of bricks. He was carrying a basket full of eggs and wore a beige sash that read "Happy Easter". Before anyone could say or do anything else, Shock started screaming.
"THAT'S SANDY CLAWS! GET HIM!" she grabbed the sack from Barrel, hopped out of the pile and started charging towards Sandy Claws and Barrel and I staggered to our feet and followed her
The rabbit turned towards us and saw Shock, with her hideous expression, screaming "kidnap the Sandy Claws!" at the top of her lungs and her two little friends trailing behind. It saw that Shock was after it, so it let out a short, high-pitched scream, and began hopping the other way.
"Come back here!" Shock said, waving her arms in the air, sack in one hand.

After the rabbit went into the small town, he was out of sight and Shock plopped down on a small knoll outside of town.
"Damn…" she sighed disappointedly. "I thought we'd catch that Sandy Claws for sure…"
"Don't worry," I said, "All we gotta do is corner him and then we'll have him."
Barrel patted her shoulder. "C'mon, he's just waiting for us to get him!"
Shock stood back up. "Alright, weirdoes," she said as she smirked, shaking off her despair, "Here's the plan; we'll go into the little village, and I'll chase after him and try to lead him into some sorta dead end. Then, you guys'll bag 'im." She talked like she was a general in the army. "Everyone got it?"
Barrel and I held our hands to our foreheads in salute. "Sir, yes, sir!"
She glared at us.
"Oh, sorry," Barrel said quickly.
"Ma'am, yes, ma'am!" we said.
She smiled. "Good! Now mooooove out!

Shock ran into town and Barrel and I climbed up on house roofs that were parallel to each other. They weren't very high. We watched the streets below and in a heartbeat, we saw the rabbit. It was hopping around frantically, but it stopped for a breather.
"Hey, Sandy," Shock called from behind the rabbit.
The rabbit turned slowly, and screamed when it saw Shock.
"Heh, heh, heh," Shock laughed playfully, "Trick…or…treat?" she dashed and the rabbit dove in-between the two houses—Shock's trap was working like a charm.
The rabbit realized he was trapped.
I jumped down and held the rabbit still. "This won't hurt a bit, Sandy," I assured him a he tried to wriggle free.
Barrel hopped down from his building with the sack and, at last, Sandy Claws was bagged.
We dragged Sandy to where the pile of eggs was and, in an instant; we were teleported back to the circle of trees somehow. We loaded the bag with Sandy Claws in it into the tub and trekked back to the town hall. We entered the doors, thinking how proud he would be.
"Jack, Jack!" we all yelled. "We caught him! We caught him!"
"Perfect!" Jack shouted with glee. He strolled over to us with his big, long legs. "Open it up, quickly!"
We untied the noose and the rabbit hopped out.
"That's not Sandy Claws!" Jack said with a chuckle, perhaps thinking we were playing a joke.
"It isn't?" Shock said, dumbfounded.
"Who is it?" Barrel asked.

Our fake Sandy Claws hopped across Town Hall to a strange looking creature with an axe in his head. The rabbit sniffed him for a minute, but got scared.
"BUNNY!" the creature said.
The rabbit screamed and dove back in our bag to hide.
"Not Sandy Claws," Jack said disappointedly. "Take him back!"
"But, we followed your instructions!" I said in despair because our work was for naught.
"Yeah," Barrel agreed, "We went through the door!"
"Which door? There's more than one" Jack said, getting a bit annoyed. He took a cookie shaped like a tree out of his shirt pocket. "Sandy Claws is behind the door shaped like this!"
Shock began choking me. "I TOLD YOU!" she said, reminding me that she suggested it before.
"Get off me!" I yelled.

Before any of us knew it, we were all beating upon each other until we heard an extremely frightening roar from behind us. Jack made it to calm of down. He looked at the bag that the rabbit was in.
"I'm very sorry for the inconvenience, sir." He looked at us. "Take him home first."
We started out the door as the bathtub followed.
"And apologize again! Be careful with Sandy Claws when you fetch him! Treat him nicely."
"Got it!" I called back.
"We'll get it right." Shock said.
"Next time!" we all called back.

It took us awhile to find the tree circle again, but we did. We dumped the bunny down the Egg door and headed for the door with the tree on it. Barrel opened it up and again, like the Egg door, it was nothing but black inside. But, in a matter of seconds, a blizzard of snow rushed out and sucked us in and the door shut behind us.