Barrel was awoken the next morning by his rumbling stomach - perhaps skipping dinner the night before had been a mistake. He rolled out of the wadded up bunch of blankets and pillows that served as his bed and went to see if Lock and Shock were awake yet, but they were both still fast asleep: Shock slept snuggled up in a little cocoon of blankets that formed sort of a nest contained within a large, patched-up inner tube, and Lock sprawled out on top of his ratty old mattress on the floor with his blankets all kicked aside. Then Barrel noticed one of Sally's Christmas cookies on the floor right next to Lock. It was slightly squished, but it still looked perfectly edible to Barrel so he snuck carefully over to try and take it without waking up Lock… but right when he was about to grab it his stomach let out an enormous growl and Lock's eyes popped open. Barrel only saw the briefest flash of yellow before Lock had sprung from his mattress and bowled him right over. "What do you think you're doing, gut-bucket?!" Lock shouted as he pinned his younger cohort to the floor, but Barrel kicked him with one stumpy foot, knocking the wind out of him and he fell to the side, clutching his stomach.
"Where'd you get another cookie?!" Barrel yelled back, scrambling to his feet and preparing for a fight.
"From yesterday, stupid, where'd you think?" Lock hissed, still on his side on the floor.
"Well you should share it!" Barrel insisted, searching for the cookie… but then he found it, crushed to bits on the floor. Apparently Lock had somehow landed on it when he leapt out of bed. "Oh good job, you ruined it!" he shouted in frustration as Lock slowly got to his feet, flicking his tail threateningly.
"Now you're gonna get it, runt…" he growled, but then he was nearly knocked over again when Shock suddenly appeared and hit him in the back with a pillow.
"What are you two morons yelling about?" she asked irritably. All of their shouting had woken her up from a great dream, one where she was in charge and Oogie and the boys had to do whatever she said.
"Lock stole a cookie from yesterday and didn't even share it!"
"Like you weren't just about to steal it and eat it for yourself, fatty!" sneered Lock, reaching for another pillow to hit Shock with, but she hit him again before he could grab it so he just tackled her instead. Barrel dog-piled on top of both of them and a three-way wrestling match ensued for several minutes until Barrel's stomach rumbled violently again and he disentangled himself from the pile.
"Let's eat breakfast, I'm super hungry!" he yelled loud enough so that Lock and Shock could hear him over their continued scuffling.
"Good idea," said Lock, giving Shock one final slap with his tail, and she gave him one final punch in the arm before they broke apart as if nothing had even happened - the lure of food was greater than continuing to fight. Barrel looked sadly at the crumbled cookie as Shock collected what was left of it into her palms.
"We'll put it in the traps," she said. "Maybe we'll catch some rats with it." Barrel just sighed and followed his older cohorts to the kitchen. There wasn't much food in the house, they had eaten all of the good soup when they were sick and they'd finished off almost all the rest of their food at breakfast yesterday. Shock opened the cupboard to find nothing but a jar of dried beetles and one sad, limp mandrake root, so instead of putting the cookie crumbs in the traps they split them three ways and tried to eat them as slowly as possible while Shock boiled some water and made a sad, bland soup out of the beetles and mandrake. It was a truly pathetic breakfast but it would give them just barely enough energy to steal something better when they got to town. They emptied last night's traps down the chute, put on their masks and grabbed their slingshots, and then headed through the trapdoor and over the hill towards town.
Luckily for them stealing breakfast came easily that morning - they simply hid behind several conveniently-placed trashcans right beside the market and managed to swipe three bat-meat pastry-pies when no one was looking. The pies were large, filling and tasty and the kids felt much, much better after eating them. They went to the fountain and cupped their hands to scoop up some water to wash down their breakfast and didn't see Bertha giving them a disapproving look as she waddled past, tugging Ethan on his leash behind her and muttering something about 'vagrant children' under her breath. "Okay, let's go get some of those Christmas books." Shock said, and Lock rolled his eyes and curled up his lip disdainfully but she ignored him and headed towards the Town Hall anyway. Barrel followed her and eventually Lock forced himself to join them – it wasn't like he had anything better to do. They walked beneath the countdown clock - now reading twenty-six days until X-mas - and into the Town Hall where they found the Mayor perched on top of his high chair at the podium, working on some sort of paperwork. "Let's hit him in the face again," whispered Shock, but unfortunately this time the Mayor saw them before they could reach for their slingshots.
"Don't you dare, you little vandals!" he warned them, but he sounded a bit nervous. He was a nervous sort of man in general but the Boogie Boys made him extra-nervous… you just never knew what they were going to do. Seeing the discomfort on his face at their arrival satisfied them for now, plus the element of surprise had been ruined so they kept their slingshots where they were and marched towards the stage. "What do you three want?" the Mayor asked them suspiciously.
"We wanna see what's in that trunk." Lock said in a very bossy voice.
"We're gonna take some books." said Shock, in a tone that suggested no room for argument.
"Jack said we could." added Barrel defiantly, and the Mayor's suspicious face got even more suspicious.
"I highly doubt that…" he said. "You little criminals probably can't even read! You're just going to destroy them, like you do everything else!"
This was truly going too far and the children bristled with indignation at such an insult. It didn't matter that most of the time he would be correct about their motives, this time they were on a mission from the Pumpkin King, didn't that stupid Mayor know anything? And to imply that they couldn't read? Shock was deeply offended, and Barrel felt embarrassed in addition to offended because it was almost true for him. Lock was offended even though he wasn't a very good reader at all, because an insult was an insult no matter how true it was.
"We can too read!" snapped Shock, and she stomped right up the stage steps and flung open the trunk to begin rifling through it, barely even looking at what she was taking. She handed whatever books were in there to Lock, and even though he hadn't wanted to take them in the first place he held out his arms to accept every one she gave him while glaring at the Mayor with a hateful expression. When Lock's arms were full she handed the rest to Barrel until there wasn't a single book left in the trunk, then she slammed it shut as hard as she could and stuck her tongue out at the Mayor before turning on her heel and stomping back down the stage stairs. The boys followed her and Barrel took just enough time to kick the Mayor's chair, but all it really did was hurt his foot.
"Get back here!" the Mayor screamed. "You can't take those!" But Shock only pushed open the door to let her cohorts through, then stuck her tongue out one last time before slamming the door shut behind them.
"I hate that stupid Mayor." Barrel grumbled, still feeling a little embarrassed about how bad he was at reading. They had climbed up onto the roof of the library, which was one of their favorite spots to hang out in town and cause trouble from above, but this time they just put the books down and sat in a circle around them to begin their research.
"We should have thrown some of these books at his stupid, two-faced head." muttered Lock, now seriously regretting not hitting him with his slingshot.
"We'll get him back later, we know where he lives." said Shock, cracking open the book on the top of the pile. "We have all those new firecrackers, we should break in and blow up his toilet." That got some evil laughter out of them and they felt much better imagining how mad that would make him - and it would be even better if they could figure out a way to make it blow up while he was actually sitting on it. Shock's book was called 'A Christmas Carol', which sounded boring but the very first line was about someone dying so she was instantly intrigued. It wasn't too bad, actually. A lot of the words were hard and she had to read most of the sentences several times, but there were ghosts in it - she especially liked Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come - so it was worth plowing through even though it got really sappy towards the end. But it didn't have anything about Sandy Claws in it, so it wasn't very helpful for their mission. Barrel sorted through all the books trying to find one that looked interesting and not too hard and he settled on 'The Polar Express' because it had a train on the cover and trains weren't too bad because they could kill pretty much anything that got in their way. But when he opened it up it had a lot more words than he'd been hoping. He couldn't read as good as Shock but he didn't want to look as dumb as Lock so he tried anyway, mouthing the words as he tried to sound them out and sometimes even saying them quietly out loud. "You want some help?" Shock asked him, and Barrel nodded and scooted over closer to her so she could look over his shoulder and guide him. Lock was laying on his back staring at the dreary sky and trying to project an air of boredom, like he was too cool for all of this but soon he just got bored for real. He sighed loudly and rolled over onto his stomach and shoved the books around apathetically, looking for something with good pictures… but everything looked sappy and stupid to him until he saw one with a bright red cover and a green monster on it. That looked potentially promising so he took it and opened it up, still trying to look uninterested. The drawings were actually kind of fun and he thought he got the general idea of the plot from the pictures. Things were going pretty well with the green monster stealing everything from all the other little monsters… but then it was ruined when he brought all their Christmas stuff back and everyone stood around and held hands and sang a song - a stupid song, no doubt. He threw it aside and rolled onto his back again, sighing loudly and obnoxiously. "You could sit over here and start learning how to read if you're so bored," said Shock, not looking up from her and Barrel's book.
"Reading is dumb." he sneered.
"Looks to me like the only dumb thing here is you." she said snarkily, and Barrel snickered. Lock actually felt a bit embarrassed by that despite himself and his face got a little red. It was aggravating enough that Shock was better at something than him, but having it called out that even stupid little Barrel knew how to do something that he couldn't was intolerable… and even though reading was for nerdy wimps, he hated to be the only one of them who wasn't good at something.
"Fine, just so you two losers aren't the only nerds in Halloween Town." he said as he scooted towards them, still trying to seem cool but Shock just rolled her eyes. They spent the morning reading and by the time it was lunchtime Barrel was feeling pretty good about how well he'd done. Lock on the other hand was feeling increasingly frustrated by how difficult it was, but he didn't want to show it and risk getting mocked again so he managed to just barely keep his temper in check. "I'm starving." he announced when he was on the verge of throwing 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer' right off of the roof. Plus it was true.
"Me too." said Barrel and Shock agreed, so they left their books and climbed back down the back stairs of the building and went back to the market to see what looked appealing and easy to swipe. Ludmilla the lagoon monster was underneath one of the market stall canopies, sitting in a large cauldron of water and reading the newspaper while selling some pike and piranha chowder. The chowder looked and smelled delicious and the kids began formulating their plan.
"What if we make the canopy fall down on top of her? Then she won't be able to see us steal some! Plus, it'd be funny." Lock said excitedly.
"How are we gonna do that?" puzzled Barrel.
"Easy." said Shock. Her quick mind had started working it out as soon as Lock had suggested it. "You climb up on the roof to untie the canopy, then drop it down on her. Use my knife if you need to." She pulled a small knife from the pocket of her dress and handed it to him, then she looked at Lock. "Then you hold the canopy down on her so she can't throw it off, long enough for me to swipe a bucket and beat it, then you two meet me in the usual spot. Got it?" The boys nodded and Barrel went to climb up the fire-escape while Shock and Lock snuck around the back of the market, Lock on the side closest to the cauldron and Shock on the side closest to the food. They poked their heads around the wall and looked up at the canopy for several minutes, waiting for any sign that Barrel had gotten it untied and preparing to spring into action… but then things went terribly wrong: the canopy did indeed fall, but unfortunately, so did Barrel. He had leaned over too far off the roof trying to untie the canopy and had toppled over into it like it was a hammock and dropped like a rock right into the cauldron and on top of their victim. He landed with a yelp and a splash, and the lagoon monster swore angrily and tried to shove the canopy and the small ghoul contained within it off of her. Lock and Shock looked at one another for only a split-second then ran into position fast as they could, still hoping to get their lunch. Lock tried to keep the canopy where it needed to be, but it was no use - Ludmilla managed to break free from it and reached out one long, scaly, webbed hand and snatched Shock by the arm just as she was trying to make her getaway. Half of the soup sloshed onto the ground as the little witch was yanked backwards and nearly dropped the bucket. At that point, Lock decided it was every man for himself and took off running, but unfortunately he wasn't looking where he was going and he ran right into a pair of very tall, very thin bony legs and fell on his backside, bending his tail uncomfortably. He looked up into the unimpressed face of Jack Skellington and his heart sank - they were busted.
"Well now," said Jack, sounding just as unimpressed as he looked. "It looks like you three have an apology to make and some work to do." Lock sighed heavily and stood up, rubbing his poor tail as Ludmilla plucked a spluttering and soaking-wet Barrel out of her cauldron and dropped him on the ground.
"It was an accident!" Barrel tried. "I just fell off the roof."
"I'm sure that you did. But that does not explain why Shock has half a bucket of soup and why the other half is spilled on the ground. I assume that you did not pay for it."
"No," Shock grumbled. She couldn't think of any way to talk them out of this one so it was better to just confess and hope for a lighter punishment. "We just wanted some lunch."
"Clearly…" the sea creature said acidly, glaring at the three of them with her bulging yellow eyes and Lock couldn't help sticking his tongue out at her when Jack wasn't looking.
"I want you to apologize to Ludmilla, and then it is up to her to decide what you must do in order to work off your debt."
"Can we eat lunch first?" asked Barrel, wringing the water out of his costume as best he could. He was just so hungry.
"I suppose so." said Jack. "You have fifteen minutes to eat, and then - work." The children groaned but lined up to accept the bowls of chowder that Ludmilla begrudgingly ladled out for them, and somehow it just didn't taste as good as it would have before getting caught. Once they had finished they trudged back over to her and Shock said:
"Well. What do we have to do?"
"To work off your stupid soup." said Lock.
"That didn't even taste that good…" muttered Barrel, and the lagoon monster gave them a nasty look.
"Follow me." she said, then slithered her way to the back of the market stall and into the kitchen and the children trailed along sulkily behind her. The kitchen was full of dirty dishes - huge cauldrons full of caked-on, dried (and some burned) chowder, stacks and stacks of bowls from patrons and barrel upon barrel of stinky, rotten fish bones and guts. "You're going to clean all of this up." she said firmly, and the children's jaws dropped at the sheer quantity of work they were being expected to do. Just for three lousy bowls and one half-spilled bucket of chowder? There was truly no justice in the world, they decided.
"Oh come on!" said Lock. "You can't be serious!" But Ludmilla just stared at him unflinchingly and unsympathetically so he stomped over to the sink and started filling it up, muttering angrily under his breath. It took several hours for them to wash all of the dishes, dry them and stack them where they belonged, but the worst part was dragging the barrels full of fish scraps out to empty them down the deep, nearly bottomless pit. They were heavy and slippery from spilled-over fish guts and the three of them had to work together just to move one at a time. Then they accidentally tipped one of them over and had to clean all of that up, too. Finally, they had to mop the entire floor of the kitchen before Ludmilla was satisfied.
"Well that was a waste of an afternoon! We didn't even get through all of the Christmas books." Shock said angrily, trying to wipe the last bits of rotten fish guts off of her dress.
"Who cares about stupid old books!" Lock grumbled. They were going to smell like fish for days.
"Do you want to screw up again or do you want to catch Sandy Claws right?" she snapped back at him.
"It was Barrel's fault anyway!" Lock snarled, changing the subject. "If he wasn't such a klutz, we wouldn't have gotten caught!"
"It's not my fault!" pouted Barrel, wiping his fishy hands on his still-damp pants. "It was a dumb idea!" Lock was about to argue, but then a tall shadow loomed over the three of them and he shut his mouth.
"What are you kids going to eat for dinner tonight?" asked Jack, sounding matter-of-fact when inside he was a bit concerned. It seemed like the amount of food they'd been stealing had increased lately. Sure, they were growing children, but he wondered if Oogie wasn't feeding them as much anymore.
"We don't have anything." said Barrel without even thinking, and Shock smacked him in the arm.
"We're fine!" snapped Lock, crossing his arms defiantly.
Jack raised one bony brow, then said. "Well, lucky for you, you worked off more than you owed so Ludmilla actually owes you another bucket of chowder." It wasn't really true, Jack would just pay for the extra soup but he didn't want them going hungry tonight and a whole bucket of chowder should last them a few days at least.
"WHAT?!" Lock shouted in disbelief.
"You made us work longer than we had to?" Shock said angrily. Barrel only frowned at Jack as hard as he could but he wasn't as mad as the other two seemed to be - having to do extra work was annoying for sure, but at least they were getting some good food out of it.
"Those are the consequences of stealing." Jack said lightly. "Now, go get your soup and behave yourselves." He strode away, wanting to remind them of their task of catching Sandy Claws but he thought now was not the right time when they were mad at him and covered with smelly fish guts. He saw them stomp over to pick up their bucket of chowder and he couldn't help chuckling a bit to himself at their angry little faces, wondering if they would ever learn to stop stealing and just accept the allowance he had offered them.
The trio didn't even bother to retrieve the Christmas books from the library roof, they just wanted to get the fishy grossness off of themselves as soon as possible so they headed for home, taking turns carrying the heavy bucket and being careful not to spill any. They put the soup in the ice box and drew straws to determine who got to take a bath first - Barrel actually won the draw but Lock and Shock decided that since he was the one who messed up it was only fair for him to go last, so Shock won between the two of them. "Hurry up!" Lock shouted after her as she retrieved her pajamas from her room and headed for the bathroom. He and Barrel were standing stock-still in the middle of the living room trying not to get fish slime on anything, but it was just too boring so they carefully walked over to grab some chalk and started drawing pictures of that stupid sea creature dying in horrible ways all over the wall. Lock finally got his turn in the bath and then at last Barrel, and by the time he was through it was dark and time for dinner. They hung all of their stinky clothes outside - they would wash them tomorrow - then they heated up some more chowder and sat down to watch the busted-up, barely-working T.V. for awhile. They were so exhausted from all their hard work that they fell asleep right where they were sitting with the T.V. still on, ending up in a snoring, drooling pile on the ratty old sofa with their spoons and empty bowls strewn about the floor beneath them.