Shock woke up the next day after dreaming up a wide variety of ideas for enacting revenge on stupid old Lock all night, and she decided that as soon as they were done catching Sandy Claws she would slip him some deadly nightshade and pull every last one of his teeth out with pliers. She was still irritated with him, but having a good night's sleep had made her considerably less crabby than they'd all felt the night before and knowing that she had a good plan for revenge enabled her to set her irritation aside and get back to the business at hand. She tucked her dislodged tooth safely inside a little bottle on a chain that she sometimes wore around her neck and headed out into the kitchen to fix breakfast, but to her surprise she found Barrel on the footstool in front of the stove, already dressed and attempting to fry some eggs.
"Hi." he said cautiously, scooting the eggs around with a spatula to try and keep them from burning. While usually he waited for Shock to make breakfast, he'd been reluctant to wake her this morning considering how mad she probably was about her missing tooth. Plus he was still feeling rather guilty about ruining the last of their potion and he wanted to show that he wasn't a useless baby like his older cohorts were always accusing him of being.
"Where'd you get eggs?" Shock asked, poking her head over his shoulder to check how he was doing.
"They're from Easter Town."
"Oh yeah… I forgot about those. Good thinking." It was rare that Shock told him he had good ideas and he stood up a little straighter, feeling quite proud of himself. "Turn the heat down a little, and let's add some of the Easter bugs, too." she instructed, leaning over to turn the stove knob.
"How's your tooth?" Barrel asked as she went to get one of the jars of dried insects.
"You mean how's the hole in my mouth where my tooth used to be before stupid Lock made me fall?"
"Yeah. Do you think it'll grow back like his do?"
"I dunno." she shrugged, sprinkling some of the bugs into the eggs as Barrel kept scooting them around. "It doesn't matter, though, I'll just have Dr. Finkel-freak put it back in. We have to go there today anyway." She was unwilling to go with an extra gap in her mouth for any longer than absolutely necessary, and she was quite sure that the doctor could replace it in no time at all considering how skilled he was at things like that. Maybe he could even do it in the same amount of time as it took Sally to make them more potion, so they wouldn't waste any more time getting back to their mission.
"Sorry about spilling the potion yesterday." Barrel said sheepishly. If they didn't catch Sandy Claws in time because of his mistake, his cohorts would never let him forget it and he was afraid of how badly he would be punished once Jack found out.
Shock noticed how worried he looked and she took some pity on her littlest friend. Poor Barrel, he always tried so hard but he was just so inept. "Don't worry about it, it's not your fault you're a shrimp. Lock should have checked the bottle." It was rather a backhanded acceptance of his apology, but Barrel decided not to complain because it was better than her being mad at him. "Where is that moron anyway?" she asked, screwing the insect jar shut again.
"We forgot to set the traps last night so he went outside to find something to send down to Oogie Boogie." said Barrel, and Shock felt the blood drain from her face for an instant - they had been so tired and cranky last night that they had completely forgotten the most important task of all. She shook it off and went to fill the tea kettle with water. Lock was a good hunter so surely he'd manage to catch something to keep their master appeased, and indeed, by the time she'd taken the kettle off the heat and added the tea Lock returned holding a cage full of bugs in one hand and a snake in the other.
"How's your face, gappy?" he smirked as he dumped the cage down the chute of Oogie's shrine.
"Fine, no thanks to you." she said loftily with her nose in the air as she poured the hot tea into three cracked mugs.
"Happy to help!" he said slyly but Shock ignored him, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of an angry response. He was holding the snake tightly around the neck just below it's head so it couldn't bite him with it's sharp fangs, and it took him a moment to disentangle the snake from where it had wrapped around his arm and quickly toss it down the chute as well.
While Barrel's eggs weren't as good as Shock's usually were, they weren't half bad and they ate their breakfast without complaint and discussed the next order of business. "Okay, after we get the tub loaded up we'll go get more potion from Sally since klutzy over here fed it all to the floor last night. What food do we have left?" Lock asked as he dumped a rather large amount of salt on his eggs.
"We've got a lot of kebabs and biscuits left." Shock answered and Barrel nodded.
"Yeah, and a ton more Easter eggs."
After they loaded up the tub with all of their various weapons, rope, firecrackers and Sandy-Claws-catching sack (as well as lunch) Shock got dressed and they headed to Dr. Finkelstein's laboratory. Even though they hated to waste the time, they took the long way around outside of town because they were hoping to avoid Jack. Two days before Christmas was cutting it way closer than they had intended and they feared the Pumpkin King's wrath. Where had the time gone? They lumbered all the way up to the front door of the laboratory and Lock stood on the edge of the tub to reach and push the doorbell. After a few minutes the door creaked open and Sally looked down at the three little trick-or-treaters.
"Oh, hello!" she said happily, dusting flour off of her apron. She didn't see any visible injuries on any of them so she assumed they were here regarding their super-secret mission and not for more healing poultice.
"Hello, Miss Sally." Shock said in her sweetest voice.
"Nice to see you again, Miss Sally." said Lock in his smoothest, most charismatic voice while giving her the most charming smile he was capable of.
"Hi." Barrel said with a big grin.
Sally smiled, "Would you like to come in? I've just finished some Christmas pies."
The children nodded excitedly, hopped out of the tub and followed her inside - they couldn't remember the last time they'd gotten to eat pie. She led them to the kitchen and they all climbed up onto the same seats they'd taken the first time they'd visited while Sally pulled a piping hot pie out of the oven. It looked absolutely delicious and smelled even better, and Barrel decided that Sally was his new favorite person because no other adult besides Oogie Boogie ever fed them - not willingly, at least. Shock decided that she rather liked Sally as well and that they should keep their pranks on her to a minimum, and even Lock decided that Sally wasn't too bad. He still planned to play some tricks on her later, but not so many that she stopped giving them food and useful potions.
"What can I do for you three?" she asked as she placed an enormous slice of pie and a fork in front of each of them. She was becoming quite fond of the children and found that she very much enjoyed feeding them. Sure, they could be naughty little things, but she'd come to understand that was just part of their being trick-or-treaters. Besides, they hadn't done anything too awful to her yet and they had been visiting her more than almost anybody else lately, and Sally always appreciated outside company.
"We ran out of the stuff you made us so we don't get sick." Barrel said through a huge mouthful of pie, conveniently leaving out the part about him spilling it all over the floor.
"Can we have some more? Please?" Shock said.
"We need to go to Christmas Town one more time." finished Lock before taking a big swig of the pumpkin juice Sally handed him.
"I'd be happy to, but I think I might be out of one of the ingredients. Let me check…" She went to her herb cupboard and looked inside. "I'm afraid I'm all out of astragalus. I'll need to get more before I can make your potion, but I've got more pies in the oven still so it will be a little while."
"We're kind of in a hurry." Shock said, struggling to keep her voice polite when inside she was extremely anxious. They had to get to Christmas Town! Plus she really wanted to get her tooth fixed as soon as possible.
Sally nodded in understanding and said, "Why don't you three go to the market and pick some up and bring it back here? Just one bunch will do. Let me get you some money."
The children looked at one another as the rag doll walked unsteadily out of the room. She was actually trusting them with her money? Sure, Jack had offered them money on multiple occasions, but that didn't count. That was charity and they were too proud to accept hand-outs, but this was a mission and that was entirely different. They would have been happier just stealing the ingredient, but they doubted that Sally would let them and they didn't want to risk getting caught and forced to spend time working off the debt so they accepted the dull silver coins she placed in each of their hands and hurried off to town on foot and straight to the herbalist shop. "We need some astgulargus." Lock said as he slammed his coins onto the counter, feeling quite mature and important.
"It's astarlagus, stupid!" Shock said snottily, but then she felt quite embarrassed when the monster behind the counter corrected her:
"You mean astragalus?"
"Yeah, whatever, that one!" Shock tried to make it sound like she didn't care, but she hated that Lock and Barrel were snickering at her.
The shopkeeper squinted suspiciously at them all. "Where did you three get money?"
"Sally gave it to us!" Barrel said defiantly, slamming his coins on the countertop next to Lock's. Shock held onto her coins - they didn't know yet how much the herb cost and she wasn't about to overpay.
"You mean you stole it from her." the shopkeeper said rather unpleasantly.
"No we didn't! She gave it to us so we could get astragalus for her! Why would we want some dumb herb like that?" Lock sneered.
"Yeah, if we were gonna steal money we'd spend it on something better than this!" added Shock.
The shopkeeper was skeptical, but she really had no proof that the children were lying so she accepted the money. "How much do you want?"
"One bunch." said Shock, and she was glad that she hadn't had to hand over her coins.
"Wait here. Don't touch anything or I'll give you a walloping!" the monster threatened, but the children rolled their eyes because there was no way she could give them half the walloping that Oogie Boogie sometimes gave them so they weren't scared in the slightest. They quickly looked around for something to break or steal, but the shopkeeper was back in a flash and slid the herbs and a few tarnished copper coins across the countertop. "Here's the change. Now get out of here."
"No problem, ugly." Shock said nastily as she took the bundle of astragalus and coins, and her cohorts laughed as they headed for the door - but before they exited, Lock kicked a basket full of some other little herb bundles over and they all three laughed even louder and slammed the door behind them, cutting off the sound of the shopkeeper's angry shouts. They headed back across town towards the laboratory, completely intending to stay on track but then something caught their eye that threw their discipline right out the window: a crate full of bags of unpopped popcorn and several barrels of soda were stacked up in an alley next to Clown's food cart, but Clown was nowhere to be seen.
"We have got to go back and get the tub!" Lock whispered, rubbing his hands together. They really didn't need any more food quite yet but it wasn't often that they had the opportunity to steal popcorn for their machine and that much soda, and suddenly they forgot that they were supposed to be fetching supplies for Sally and that they were in somewhat of a hurry.
"What if it's all gone before we get back?" whispered Barrel.
"Then you'd better hurry up, hadn't you?" said Shock, and Lock snickered.
"Why do I always have to go?" Barrel whined.
"Because you're the fastest runner." Lock said with a mean grin, and Shock outright snort-laughed. Barrel looked a bit more upset by that jab than they'd expected, so in a rare moment of kindness Shock added:
"Because the tub likes you the best, you know that."
That made him feel a tiny bit better because he was pretty sure it was true, but he still wasn't excited about all the extra walking. Still, if it was for popcorn and soda then it was worth it. "Okay, fine. Just don't do anything dumb before I get back and screw everything up." he muttered, then hurried back towards the laboratory.
Lock and Shock stayed crouched behind a nearby dumpster and began brainstorming strategies to acquire the soda and popcorn, occasionally poking their heads out to make sure their target hadn't moved. But just when they thought they had a pretty good plan of attack figured out there was a sudden, brisk voice from behind them and they both jumped and looked up in terror.
"Good afternoon, you two." said Jack, and while his tone was technically polite it was also incredibly stern and both children felt a wave of panic wash over them. "May I ask where Barrel is and why Sandy Claws is not yet currently being kept comfortable here in Halloween Town? And since Sandy is not yet currently being kept comfortable here in Halloween Town, may I ask why the three of you aren't currently in Christmas Town fetching him right now?" It was obvious that Lock and Shock had been eyeing the popcorn and soda and while Jack generally tried to discourage them from stealing, he really wasn't concerned with that right at this moment. What concerned him was that they still hadn't completed their assignment and he could only assume it was because they hadn't really been trying, for he was quite confident that they were sneaky enough to manage it. He would have been a bit more understanding if they had tried their best and still not succeeded, but it appeared that they were just messing around and he was at the end of his patience. He raised one brow ridge as he waited for their answer, and when they remained silent he said, "Well?"
Lock and Shock were too rattled by the Pumpkin King's sudden - and angry - appearance to think up a lie quite as quickly as they normally could, and when Lock finally spoke he didn't sound nearly as smooth and convincing as he usually did.
"Uh, Barrel forgot some stuff we need for Christmas Town, so he had to go home really quick."
"Yeah, he'll be back soon!" added Shock.
Jack frowned. "What 'stuff' would that be?"
"Uh…" Lock was drawing a complete blank, but fortunately Shock spoke up again:
"He went for the bathtub so we can carry Sandy back in it!"
Lock nodded vigorously, but Jack frowned even more. "That's a pretty amateur mistake for you three, isn't it?" he said and the children looked up at him sheepishly, then Lock shrugged and tried to recover himself.
"Well, it's just that we're just really excited about Christmas and - " He tried to sound innocent and earnest, but Jack wasn't having any of it and he held up one bony finger and Lock immediately shut his mouth.
"I am not interested in excuses. That answers my first question. Now the second two."
"We've been trying, Jack, honest!" Shock insisted, but Jack knew that 'honest' was one of the least appropriate words to use to describe the trio.
"Yeah, really! We've been to Christmas Town already and Sandy Claws was hard to find, but we found him yesterday so we know right where to go this time!" Lock lied, and Shock nodded.
Jack put his hands on his narrow hips. "You are aware, I am sure, that tomorrow is Christmas Eve. And you are also aware, I hope, that I expect you to have Sandy Claws here before tomorrow evening or else you will be in very big trouble - and not the fun kind of trouble!"
"We're going back as soon as Barrel comes back with the tub! We're gonna get him!" Shock said, and she and Lock both held out their hands to show that they weren't crossing their fingers.
"We promise!" they said together.
"You just make sure that you do. Remember: Big. Trouble." Jack said, giving them one more very frightening look before turning around and striding away, then he called over his shoulder, "And don't even think about touching that popcorn and soda! If you want some, you must ask Clown first!"
"Okay, Jack!" said Lock.
"You got it, Jack!" added Shock, though neither of them had any intention of asking Clown for anything. When it came to stealing food, begging forgiveness when caught was better than asking permission and despite the lecture they'd just received, popcorn and soda were too special to leave behind so it was worth taking the risk. As soon as Barrel got back they parked the tub as close to the popcorn and soda as possible while still staying hidden, then Shock and Lock filled him in on the plan - and the little ghoul was not pleased with it.
"Are you guys crazy?! I'm not doing that!" he hissed, his round eyes growing even rounder.
"Why not, are you scared or something? You're such a baby!" Lock mocked him, and Barrel turned to look across the square at the corral full of Dr. Finkelstein's creepy skeletal reindeer, trying to decide what to do. The truth was that he was a little scared… his cohorts wanted him to sneak over and unlock the corral and shoo all of the reindeer out into the main square to cause a massive distraction, since stealing the barrels of soda would require them to take the tub out of it's hiding spot. But the reindeer were quite large and Barrel was quite small, and there were eight of them and only one of him. The odds of not getting trampled didn't seem to be in his favor, but on the other hand he was tired of his cohorts calling him a scaredy cat and he really, really wanted soda and popcorn. Mustering up as much courage as he had, he pulled his pants up a little higher and took a deep breath, then crept off towards the paddock as his friends stifled their wicked giggles. When he arrived he looked through the metal bars up at the reindeer and gulped. They were some of the coolest, scariest-looking creatures he'd ever seen and he liked being close enough to get a good look at them… but he didn't really want to go inside the corral with them. They smelled like bone and electricity and that strange chemical smell that came along with Dr. Finkelstein's particular sort of life-giving magic, and their joints creaked and their sharp hooves clacked against the cobblestones as they shifted about, chewing on the dry, dead grasses that had been placed in their paddock.
"Hi, reindeer." Barrel said quietly, but the beasts ignored him. When no one was watching he climbed up the metal bars so he could reach to unlatch the gate, then he hopped down and pushed the gate wide open. He hoped the reindeer would just run through on their own… but they didn't. They just stood around chewing nonchalantly and Barrel threw a look across the square at his cohorts. Lock gave him a thumbs-up but Shock pointed at her wrist as if gesturing to a watch before mouthing 'hurry up!' so he once again rallied his courage and slipped inside the paddock, squeezed as close to the bars as he could and scooted around until he was behind the herd. "Go on out, reindeer!" he whispered, but still the creatures paid him no mind. "Go out!" he said a little bit louder, not wanting to shout in case someone recognized his voice, but it was no use. The reindeer wouldn't budge, so he took a deep breath and pulled back his hand… and then smacked the nearest reindeer on the leg as hard as he possibly could and made a loud, weird-sounding shriek that he hoped would disguise his voice - and happily, it worked. The reindeer startled and ran into its neighbor, and soon all eight of them stampeded out of the corral and into the square, kicking and snorting and running amok, knocking over stacks of boxes and toys and stepping on others - and a few of them even flew off of the ground a bit. Barrel ran from the scene of the crime as fast as he could, and as the nearby townspeople all rushed to contain the beasts Lock and Shock leapt into action: Lock ran to the popcorn to start grabbing as many bags as he could carry while Shock brought the tub next to the soda, then Lock tossed the popcorn bags into the tub as Shock climbed out of it - and then the two of them worked together to heave one of the heavy barrels of soda into the tub, trying not to shake it up too much.
"I want to ride one of those things!" Lock whispered, watching the show out of the corner of his eye and wishing he was riding one of them right at that moment.
"You know that they fly, right?" Shock whispered back, thinking about how funny it would be to see Lock fall off of one of them.
"No duh, that's what would make it so wicked!" he grinned as they loaded the first barrel and went back for a second.
Shock was actually quite fond of animals and though she had never really considered herself the kind of girl who would like a pony, these skeletal reindeer were so creepy and cool that she found she was jealous that Barrel had gotten to get up close to them and she wished she would have gotten to do it, too. She just hoped there would be time to get close to them later, and maybe if Jack was really pleased with them for catching Sandy Claws he would let her and Lock ride one. And Barrel as well, if he wasn't too scared, she snickered to herself. "Yeah, that would be super wicked!" she agreed as they rolled the second barrel of soda into the tub. Lock was about to go for a third but Shock noticed that five of the eight reindeer were rounded up already and she thought they'd better quit while they were ahead. "Forget it, let's just get a few more popcorn bags and beat it before someone sees us!" she whispered, and much as Lock hated doing what she said, getting caught right now after the lecture Jack had just given them would be terrible so he complied. Barrel met them behind the building and they took off towards the lab just as the paddock gate slammed shut with all of the reindeer behind it.