Rise of the Guardians Movie Novelization Read online

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Photographs

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  Long ago, the surface of a frozen pond cracked when Jack Frost rose out of the icy water. He was thin, pale, and barefoot. His white hair glistened as he looked around. Nothing was familiar. Not even his reflection.

  “But then I saw the moon. It was so big and it was so bright, and it seemed to chase the darkness away. And when it did . . . I wasn’t scared anymore,” he remembered.

  Jack walked across the ice-covered Pond until he hit something with his foot. He reached down to pick up a wooden staff. Almost immediately the staff began to glow a bright blue.

  It was so strange, Jack nearly dropped it. As the base of the staff came in contact with the ground, frost shot out and spread across the ice.

  Jack shook his head. He didn’t know what was happening.

  Experimenting, he touched the staff to a tree. It sent a stream of frost up the trunk.

  The staff was magical. Jack discovered he could command the wind to carry him up into the trees. From a high branch, Jack saw a town. Perhaps there, he thought, he’d find some answers.

  Jack rode the wind to a group of settlers warming themselves by a fire.

  “Hello,” he greeted. “Hello. Good evening.”

  The townspeople walked by Jack as if he wasn’t there at all.

  “Ma’am?” He stopped beside a woman. She didn’t see him.

  He asked a young boy, “Excuse me. Can you tell me where I am?” The boy ran right through Jack.

  “Hello! Hello!” Jack shouted.

  It was then Jack realized he was invisible. No one could hear him. His fear caused snow to fall.

  Shaken, Jack returned to the forest. He knew his name was Jack Frost because the moon told him so, but for a long time that was all he knew. Years and years passed, and Jack still hoped that someday he’d discover why he’d been created and what he was meant to do.

  Far away, a fortress was nestled in a hidden corner of a massive ice canyon. Santa Claus’s palace was enormous, crowded, busy, noisy—and the world’s best-kept secret.

  Here, at the North Pole, Santa was called “North.”

  On one side of North’s Workshop, his famous red jacket and matching cap cast long shadows across the floor. On the other side was the man himself, holding a chainsaw and standing in front of a large block of ice. North raised the chainsaw, revealing a tattoo along his forearm. It said “Naughty.” He dug into the block of ice with the chainsaw. Sharp bits of frozen water splattered throughout the Workshop.

  Three elves stood in the doorway, munching on cookies meant for North.

  “Still waiting for cookies!” North’s deep, Russian-accented voice boomed throughout the vast space of his workshop, reminding his elves that he was hungry for his snack.

  His little helpers scooted out of the way as North flopped back into his rolling chair and then reached out toward a rack of work tools.

  North grabbed a tiny hammer and then pushed up his sleeves. On his other arm there was another tattoo. This one read “Nice.”

  With delicate tools, North made a few final cuts into the ice block. When the sculpture was complete, North raised the frozen locomotive he’d created and placed it carefully on a frozen track. The train roared to life, belching chilly vapor before chugging away.

  North took a cookie. He watched his toy hit a loop and then launch into the air. Wings unfolded from the ice and a jet engine sizzled to action.

  But then the door to the Workshop burst open with a heavy bang and crashed into the flying train. A huge, hairy, abominable snowman flung himself into the room. The yeti had a worried expression across his furry brow. The ice train crashed to the ground and then slid across the floor in a million pieces.

  North was looking at the toy, shaking his head when the yeti began to shout.

  “Arghbal . . . ”

  “How many times have I told you to knock?” North asked, spinning to face the huge beast.

  “Warga blarghgha!” the yeti replied.

  “What?” North said as he jumped up. “The Globe?” He drew his sword from its sheath, rushing from the room.

  North pushed through a crowd of panicking elves. The bells on their hats jingled as North passed by. Yeti workers moved to the side.

  “Shoo, with your pointy heads!” North called out to the elves. “Why are you always underboot?”

  With large, quick steps he made his way to the Globe of Belief. The Globe sat in the center of his fortress. It was massive and covered with blazing lights. Tiny bulbs blanketed every continent.

  “What is this?” North asked the yeti who had reported the problem. Hundreds of lights were dark. Squinting at the Globe, North was shocked as more and more lights turned off. It was as if someone, or something, was shutting them down by the thousands.

  “Have you checked the axis?” North asked the yeti. “Is the rotation balanced?”

  The yeti nodded. “Wardle bawddrel.”

  Wind began to blow into the large room. A blanket of black sand crept over the lights, snuffing them out in large blocks, until the entire Globe went black.

  The elves began to scream. Gritty darkness swirled off the Globe and filled the room. It gathered into a tornado. The tornado rose up toward the ceiling, where it finally burst into a puff of smoke and disappeared.

  The room settled into silence. No one dared move.

  The Globe lights came back on, and everything seemed to return to normal . . . until the shadow appeared. Long and dark, the shadow of a man flashed across the floor before disappearing with an echoing laugh.

  North stared at the place where the shadow had disappeared. “Can it be?” he muttered. He called to one of his elves, “Dingle!”

  The elf appeared at North’s side.

  “Make preparations,” North directed. “We are going to have company!”

  The elf nodded as North reached out to grasp a large lever. It was for emergencies only. He twisted a dial and pulled down hard. The Globe began to glow. Then a beam of light zoomed up the axis shaft, toward the roof, and out into the world.

  For the first time in decades, North had summoned the Guardians.

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  A little fairy flew above the head of a child who was fast asleep in bed. The fairy ducked under the pillow and came out the other side with a tooth in her tiny hand, leaving a coin behind. Then she returned to Tooth’s glamorous palace within a hollowed-out mountain.

  Hundreds of fairies were flitting outside the castle walls, either returning from similar missions or heading out to gather newly lost teeth.

  Inside the castle, the little fairy handed in the tooth and was given another coin and house address. In the center of all this activity was the Tooth Fairy herself. Half human, half hummingbird, Tooth was beautiful, with brightly colored feathers and delicate wings that flapped excitedly as she shouted orders.

  “Moscow, Sector 9—twenty-two incisors, eighteen premolars. Uh-oh, heavy rain advisory!” She paused to check the map. “Des Moines, we’ve got a cuspid at 23 Maple. Head out!”

  “Wait!” Tooth suddenly cried. All work halted. Holding a single tooth in the air, she turned around to face her many Mini Fairies. Her shimmery wings flapped with excitement.

  “It’s her first tooth. Have you ever seen a more
adorable lateral incisor in all your life?” Tooth gasped. “Look how she flossed.”

  The Mini Fairies nodded happily, tweeting with excitement and then with concern as they noticed a light filling the sky, stretching toward the castle and beyond. With a worried gulp of air, Tooth gathered her most trusted fairy advisers and then took off like a rocket.

  A sleeping child was dreaming of playing soccer. His dream swirled above his head in a mist of fine golden sand. This stream of dreamsand was just one of many being sent out from the Sandman. From high up in the clouds, Sandy controlled the dreams, sending those magical golden threads to each child as he or she slept soundly.

  His work brought him great joy. Sandy was patting his round belly with a sense of satisfaction when North’s emergency signal zipped by. His joy turned to concern.

  In a flash, Sandy gathered the dreamsand around him and then created a small plane. Snuggling down into the cockpit, Sandy set a course for due north and off he went.

  Bunny, the Easter Bunny, ran through the subterranean tunnel as fast as his floppy feet could carry him. Easter eggs with little legs hopped out of his way. He was six feet tall and had to be careful not to bump his head while rushing. Bunny popped out of the tunnels through a rabbit hole at the North Pole and climbed up a snowbank.

  “Ah, it’s freezing,” Bunny complained. He slogged through the wet and cold terrain, muttering to himself. “I can’t feel my feet. I can’t feel my feet.” He hopped quickly from one foot to the other, over and over, until he finally reached the warmth of North’s fortress.

  They met in the Globe Room. As they waited for Sandy to arrive, North offered cookies and eggnog to Bunny and Tooth. As always, Tooth was busy directing her fairies to new teeth.

  “This better be good, North,” said Bunny.

  At that moment, Sandy appeared. His dreamsand plane dissipated as he floated down to the floor. Using images in dreamsand, Sandy tried to convey to North just how busy he was.

  “I know, I know,” said North. “But I obviously wouldn’t have called you all here unless it was serious.”

  North cleared his throat. “My fellow Guardians,” he began. “It is our job to watch over the children of the world and keep them safe. To bring wonder, hope, and dreams. And so, I’ve called us all here for one reason, and one reason only: The children are in danger. An enemy we have kept at bay for centuries has finally decided to strike back. We alone can stop him.”

  The four Guardians moved to the center of the room.

  “The Boogeyman was here—at the pole,” North explained.

  Tooth couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Pitch? Pitch Black? Here?”

  North nodded. “Yes! There was black sand covering the Globe. And then a shadow!”

  Bunny was confused. “What do you mean black sand? I thought you said you saw Pitch.”

  “Well, ah, not exactly,” North confessed.

  Bunny was not amused. “‘Not exactly’? Can you believe this guy?” He looked at Sandy, who gave a sympathetic shrug and formed a question mark with his dreamsand.

  North continued, “Pitch is up to something very bad. I feel it in my belly.”

  “Hang on. You mean to say you summoned me here three days before Easter because of your belly?” asked Bunny. “Mate, if I did this to you three days before Christmas—”

  Bunny was interrupted by Tooth giving more orders to her fairies. “Argentina. Priority alert! A batch of bicuspids in Buenos Aires.”

  “Please, Bunny. Easter is not Christmas,” North added.

  “Here we go,” said Bunny, and then he laughed. “North, I don’t have time for this. I’ve still got two million eggs to finish up.”

  “No matter how much you paint, it is still an egg,” North countered.

  While North and Bunny argued and Tooth continued to work, Sandy noticed that the moon had come into view through a window in the ceiling. The moon’s rays shined brightly, filling the Globe Room with moonlight.

  He tried to signal to the other Guardians with his dreamsand images, but they weren’t paying attention.

  “Come on, Pitch went out with the Dark Ages. We made sure of that, remember?” Bunny reminded North.

  “I know it was him. We have a serious situation,” North replied.

  “Well, I’ve got a serious situation with some eggs,” said Bunny.

  Sandy didn’t know what else to do, so he grabbed one of North’s elves and began to shake him. The elf’s bells rang throughout the room. The other Guardians finally stopped what they were doing. Sandy formed an image of a crescent moon above his head.

  “Aah! The Man in the Moon!” exclaimed North. “Sandy, why didn’t you say something?”

  Sandy gave North a frustrated look. Dreamsand poured out of his ears.

  North spoke to the moon. “It’s been a long time, old friend. What is the big news?”

  A beam of moonlight focused on a spot on the floor in the center of the four Guardians. Then the light shifted, darkening to shadows until it revealed a silhouette of Pitch. The Guardians continued to stare in disbelief.

  “It is Pitch,” Bunny said.

  “Manny, what must we do?” asked North.

  In response, the beam of moonlight grew brighter before shrinking to a thinner ray of light. At the center of the circle, the light illuminated an ornate symbol on the floor. The symbol rose out of the ground, revealing a large gem on top of a pillar.

  North was awed as the gem refracted light throughout the chamber, like a crystal.

  “Uh, guys, you know what this means?” Tooth asked the group with a gasp.

  “He’s choosing a new Guardian,” North said.

  Tooth nodded. “I wonder who it’s gonna be.”

  Sandy created images with his dreamsand as Tooth began to guess who they might be adding to their exclusive group.

  “Maybe the Leprechaun?” Tooth guessed.

  “Please not the Groundhog, please not the Groundhog,” Bunny chanted.

  A sudden bright light flashed through the room. Above the glowing stone on the pillar, a holographic photo of a cloaked figure appeared. The figure held a hooked staff.

  The Mini Fairies all sighed with delight as the Guardians stared, baffled by Manny’s choice.

  “Jack Frost,” North muttered.

  “Ah, I take it all back!” Bunny whimpered. “The Groundhog’s fine!”

  “Well, ah, as long as he helps to, ah . . . protect the children, right?” Tooth stammered.

  But Bunny couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe it. “Jack Frost? He doesn’t care about children! All he does is freeze water pipes and mess with my egg hunts. Right? He’s an irresponsible, selfish—”

  “Guardian,” North interrupted.

  Bunny shook his head. “Jack Frost is many things, but he is not a Guardian!”

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  Jack Frost sat on top of a post office box in St. Petersburg, Russia, ready to make trouble. He touched the end of his staff down to the ground, which sent frost streaking across the street.

  A Russian boy was taking a drink from a water fountain when the water froze midstream. His lips stuck to the icy spray. “Ahhh!” he screamed, unable to move.

  A mailman came to help, but out of nowhere a patch of ice appeared under his feet. Boom! The man fell right down on his bottom.

  The streak of frost continued up a rainspout. The windows of an apartment building frosted over.

  Inside, a goldfish swam to the surface of its bowl to eat, but a thin layer of ice coated the top of the water, blocking the food. In the next room, a writer sat next to a stack of papers. A sudden gust of wind blew his pages out the window. As the ice moved along the walls of the building, it froze power lines and clotheslines.

  Jack Frost climbed to a high point in the city to see what his frost had done.

  He smiled. “Ah, now that was fun. Hey, wind!” The trees began to sway, and leaves flew into the air. Jack gathered the gusts. “Take me home.” The w
ind lifted him up, carrying him away from Russia.

  “Woooooo-hoooooo!” Jack shouted in joy as he flew away.

  When he arrived home, Jack decided to give a gift to the town of Burgess. Springtime was almost here, but there was still time for one more . . .

  “SNOW DAY!” Jack jumped off his windy ride and landed in the town’s center. He zoomed through the streets, forcing people to wrap themselves tightly in their jackets.

  A boy named Jamie was walking home when Jack’s wind ripped his book out of his hands. The book was called They’re Out There—Mysteries, Mythical Creatures, and the Unexplained Phenomena.

  As Jamie grabbed it back, Jack zoomed up next to him. He said, “Huh, that looks interesting. Good book?”

  Jamie couldn’t see or hear Jack, so he continued walking.

  Claude and Caleb, twin boys in Jamie’s grade, came rushing by. They were pushing each other and laughing as they went.

  “All right! Yeah!” Claude cheered.

  “Wahoo! Snow day!” Caleb hooted before shoving his brother into a snowdrift.

  Jack grinned and then said, “You’re welcome!” But like Jamie, they couldn’t see or hear Jack Frost.

  Jamie ran after the twins. “Hey, guys, wait up. Are you guys coming to the egg hunt on Sunday?”

  “Yeah, free candy!” answered Caleb.

  “I hope we can find the eggs with all this snow!” added Claude.

  The three boys soon reached Jamie’s house. Jamie showed the twins his book. Jack watched them from his perch on the fence.

  “Whoa,” Jamie told his friends, “it says here that they found Bigfoot hair samples and DNA in Michigan. That’s, like, superclose.”

  “Here we go again,” Claude said with a moan.

  Jamie looked at his two-year-old sister, Sophie, playing in their front yard. She was wearing fairy wings and trying to ride on their large greyhound dog.

  “You saw the video too, Claude. He’s out there.” Jamie entered the gate while the boys stood by the fence and waited.

  Caleb chuckled. “That’s what you said about aliens.”

  “And the Easter Bunny,” Claude added.