Rise of the Guardians Movie Novelization Page 2

  Jamie grabbed his sled from the porch. “The Easter Bunny is real.”

  “Oh, the Easter Bunny’s real, all right. Real annoying, real grumpy, and really full of himself,” Jack said, even though he knew the boys couldn’t hear him.

  Claude giggled. “Come on, you guys believe anything.”

  Sophie got into the fun. “Easter Bunny!” She giggled. “Hop, hop, hop!” Sophie fell over from hopping. “Ow.”

  “Mom!” Jamie called into the house. “Sophie fell again.”

  Jamie’s Mom came outside to see what was going on. “You okay, Soph?” She picked up her daughter and then dusted off the snow.

  Caleb asked Jamie, “Are we sledding or what?”

  At that, Jamie’s Mom said, “Jamie, hat? We don’t want Jack Frost nipping at your nose.” She handed Jamie his cap.

  “Who’s Jack Frost?” Jamie asked his mother.

  Jamie’s Mom smiled. “No one, honey. It’s just an expression.”

  “Hey!” Jack was offended. He gathered a perfect snowball off the ground. He stared at it and imitated Jamie, saying, “Who’s Jack Frost?” He blew on the snowball. It turned a magical shade of blue.

  Jack faced Jamie, took aim, and . . . direct hit!

  “Who threw that?” Jamie glanced around, laughing. He leaped into a group of kids playing in the snow.

  “It wasn’t Bigfoot, kiddo,” Jack replied with a smile.

  Jamie looked around for the snowball thrower. He found a couple of kids making a barricade and tossed a snowball at them.

  The snowball hit a kid named Monty in the head, knocking off his thick glasses. Monty fell face-first into the snow. “Ow,” he said as he struggled to get back up.

  A girl named Pippa went to throw a snowball at Jamie when one of Jack’s hit her. “Jamie Bennett! No fair!”

  Jamie laughed. “You struck first!”

  Before Pippa could respond, Jack hit Caleb in the side of the head with a snowball.

  “Oh!” Claude giggled at his twin brother.

  Jack was just warming up for the battle. “Free for all!” he shouted as he supplied the kids with snowballs. “All right, who needs ammo?”

  “Ow.” Monty got hit again.

  “Look at that,” Jack said, watching the battle.

  Jamie was using his sled as a shield and was backing away when he bumped into a snowman. They both fell over.

  Suddenly a snowball hit Cupcake in the back of the head. Cupcake was the toughest girl in their grade. Hands on her hips, Cupcake looked around, searching for the kid who tossed it.

  “Grrrrrrrr,” Cupcake growled.

  The snowballs stopped flying as everyone turned to see what Cupcake would do.

  Pippa shivered. “Crud, I hit Cupcake.”

  Monty pointed at Pippa. “She hit Cupcake.”

  Claude asked Pippa, “You hit Cupcake?”

  Jamie was terrified. Cupcake was looking at him as if he’d been the one to throw the snowball. He was about to defend himself when another snowball pegged Cupcake. The kids all gasped in horror as the cold, wet snowball left a magical blue mark.

  “Oh!” Claude said.

  Caleb asked Monty, “Did you throw that?”

  Monty shook his head. “No.”

  “Wasn’t me,” Pippa announced.

  The moment was tense, but as Jack Frost’s blue magic oozed from the snow, Cupcake’s face turned from anger to joy. She began to laugh. Then Cupcake began a game of chase with the other kids. Jamie jumped up to join the fun while Jack ran along, enjoying the excitement.

  As they reached the top of the hill, Jack said, “Ooh, little slippery!” He blasted a sheet of ice behind him. All the kids fell to the ground, except for Jamie, who landed on his sled.

  “Whooaaaa!” Jamie shrieked as his sled began to slide down the sheet of ice.

  “Whoaaa,” Claude said.

  “Jamie, watch out!” Pippa warned as Jamie flew by. His sled was picking up speed.

  “Stop!” Caleb shouted.

  But Jamie kept on sliding.

  “Jamie, turn, turn!” Monty directed.

  “That’s the street!” Pippa cried out.

  “What are you doing?” Caleb asked.

  “Stop!” Claude shouted. “There’s traffic!”

  Jamie shot out from the trees and whooshed past a row of parked cars.

  Jack’s path of ice continued down the street, sending Jamie straight into the traffic Claude had warned about.

  “Whoa!” Jamie cried as he barely missed a moving truck, sending furniture tumbling out of the back and causing a four-car pileup.

  Jack glanced at the damage and called to Jamie, “Don’t worry, kid. I gotcha.”

  Jamie, of course, couldn’t hear Jack. He became increasingly frightened as Jack shouted, “Hold on! It’s gonna be all right.”

  “Ahhh!” Jamie’s sled was sliding faster and faster. “No, no, no, no. . . . ” He narrowly missed hitting people in the crosswalk and dodged a couple walking their dog.

  Jack threw out more ice, sending Jamie onto the sidewalk. “Keep up with me, kid! Take a left.”

  A pedestrian told Jamie, “Slow down!”

  Jamie was out of control. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!”

  “Is that Jamie Bennett?” a woman asked her friend as Jamie zoomed by.

  The friend replied with a shout to Jamie, “Hey! Watch it!”

  A guy pointed in awe. “Look at that dude!”

  Jamie flew off the sidewalk and back into the street. He nearly knocked down the mail carrier.

  Jack looked at Jamie. Jamie’s face was full of fear, but there was also excitement in his eyes. The ride was fun, and Jack knew it. He turned the sled to protect Jamie from an oncoming snowplow, then changed the pathway of the ice trail. Jamie’s sled turned onto a newly formed ice ramp.

  “AAAAHHHHHHH!” Jamie shouted as he rode the ramp and launched into the air. His sled traveled over the statue of the town’s founder, Thaddeus Burgess.

  Jamie landed safely in the snow on the other side with a bump and a skid.

  Jamie’s friends ran over to make certain he had survived.

  “Oh my gosh!” Pippa exclaimed.

  Jack stood atop the statue. He was pleased. “Yeah!”

  “Jamie!” Claude shouted.

  “Wow, that looks serious, Jamie.” Caleb checked out the landing site.

  “Jamie, are you all right?” Pippa asked.

  “Is he okay?” Monty wondered.

  Jamie leaped up from the sled. He wasn’t hurt, not even a scratch. “Whoaaa!” he said, excitedly. “Did you guys see that? It was amazing. I did a jump and slid under a—” A sofa that had flown out of the furniture truck skidded past and came to a stop, pushing Jamie over as it went.

  “Whoops!” said Jack.

  Claude cringed. “Ooooh!”

  The kids waited to see if Jamie survived a second time. He slowly rose from behind the sofa, grinning. There was a new hole in his smile, and Jamie held up his tooth.

  Jamie showed the others. “Cool! A tooth!”

  “Dude!” Claude said. “That means cash.”

  Caleb was jealous. “Tooth Fairy cash!”

  Pippa said, “I love the Tooth Fairy.”

  Jack Frost was bummed. The Tooth Fairy had just stolen all his glory. “Oh no. . . . ” He moaned.

  “That’s totally awesome,” Monty said.

  “You lucky bug!” Claude said.

  “Lucky,” Caleb agreed.

  “No!” Jack Frost shook his head. The day’s adventure was his, not the Tooth Fairy’s.

  “I gotta put this under my pillow.” Jamie held his tooth very carefully.

  “I wish I lost my tooth,” Caleb and Pippa said at the same time.

  Jack was mad. “Ah, wait a minute! Come on. Hold on. Hold on! What about all that fun we just had? That wasn’t the Tooth Fairy, that was me!”

  Claude said, “I lost two teeth in one day once. Remember that?”

  “What are yo
u gonna buy?” Cupcake asked Jamie.

  “How much do you think she’s going to leave?” Caleb asked.

  Jack looked at the kids, and his frustration grew. Storm clouds gathered above his head and began to darken. The sky rumbled. Snow flurries started to fall.

  “Let’s go,” Pippa told the others. “I’m cold.”

  Claude looked at Jamie. “What are you gonna spend your money on?”

  “My ears are freezing,” Caleb complained as the temperature continued to drop.

  “I can’t feel my toes,” added Claude. “It’s hot cocoa time.”

  Jack jumped down from the statue, still trying to remind the kids about the good time they’d had in the snow. But because the kids couldn’t see or hear him, one by one they left for home.

  Jumping in front of Jamie, Jack tried to block his way. “What’s a guy gotta do to get a little attention around here?” Jack muttered.

  Whoosh. Jamie dashed through Jack.

  Jack was shaken for a second. By the time he looked around, the kids had disappeared and he was alone on the street. He sat back, feeling the chilly change in the weather that he’d created. Then, gathering the wind for a ride, Jack lifted himself up and soared over the town.

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  Jamie was in his bedroom, playing with a toy robot. Behind his head, drawings of UFOs, aliens, Bigfoot, and other mythical creatures were pinned to the wall. When he got home that afternoon, Jamie had made a drawing of himself flying midair on his sled. Now it was hanging on the wall too.

  “I did this jump and it was amazing, and I slid under a car and it was awesome.” Jamie was telling the day’s adventure to his mom and Sophie. “Then I was flying down this hill, and I was like, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh through all these cars, and then the sled hit this . . . this thing, and I was, like, way up in the air.”

  Jamie used the robot to show his mom how he flew. Sophie and the dog sat on the floor, paying attention to the whole story.

  “And then bam! Then the sofa hit me, and see?” He opened wide and explained how the tooth fell out. “Ah hoo hay ow!”

  Sophie jumped up. She tried to put her finger into Jamie’s mouth.

  Jamie’s Mom pulled Sophie back. “All right, you,” she said to Jamie. “Tooth under your pillow?”

  Jamie placed his robot on the nightstand and then reached for his favorite stuffed rabbit.

  “Yeah,” Jamie told his mom with a satisfied smile. “I’m ready.” Under his pillow were the tooth, a camera, and a flashlight.

  She saw the look of anticipation on his face and warned, “Now, don’t stay up trying to see her, Jamie, or she won’t come.”

  “But I can do it this time,” Jamie assured his mother. “You want to help me, Soph? We can hide and see the Tooth Fairy!”

  Sophie began running around the room. “Hide! Hide, hide, hide . . . ”

  Jamie’s Mom gathered Sophie into her arms. The dog began licking Jamie’s face.

  His mother shook her head. “Straight to bed now, mister.”

  “Mom,” Jamie whined.

  But Jamie’s Mom was serious about bedtime. She carried Sophie into the hall, closing Jamie’s door behind them.

  Jack Frost was hanging upside down outside Jamie’s window. His cool breath frosted over the glass. The full moon above him lit up the sky.

  “If there’s something I’m doing wrong, I’d really like to know what it is,” he said to the moon. “ ’Cause I’ve tried everything, and no one ever sees me.” The moon remained silent. “I mean, you put me here, the least you can do is tell me why.”

  The moon continued to shine, steady and unchanging.

  Jack shook his head and grumbled, “Why do I bother?”

  He moved away from Jamie’s window, jumping onto a telephone pole. As he walked along the wires, a stream of dreamsand zipped behind his head. Then another in front of him. Strands of dreamsand surrounded Jack on their way into the bedroom windows of sleeping children.

  Jack smiled. “Right on time, Sandman.”

  Jack ran along the telephone wire until he caught up to a strand and then began to follow it. Behind him, another stream of dreamsand morphed into a dolphin and entered a nearby window. And yet another swooped downward into Cupcake’s room.

  Cupcake was fast asleep. She held a stuffed unicorn while her dreams swirled above her head. She was imagining a story about a little girl riding a unicorn. In her dream, the unicorn was dashing around her room.

  When the room began to darken, sleeping Cupcake didn’t stir. A shadowy figure rose from under her bed.

  Pitch, the Boogeyman, was there. Hiding. Waiting. And now he was ready for action.

  He laughed a sinister chuckle as he studied Cupcake’s happy little dream. “Ohhhh,” he mocked. “I thought I heard the clippity-clop of a unicorn. What an adorable dream!” His frowning lips curled into a small grin. “And look at her. Precious child. So sweet, so full of hope and wonder.” Pitch raised his eyebrows. “Why, there’s only one thing missing. . . . A touch of fear.”

  Pitch touched a bony finger to the unicorn in Cupcake’s dream. The creature turned black and then shriveled before melting into nothingness. Cupcake flinched in her sleep.

  “Ha, ha, ha! That never gets old.” Pitch snickered. He raised his finger again and swirled the dreamsand around Cupcake’s bed. It turned into black nightmare sand.

  “Feel your fear,” Pitch told Cupcake. “Come on, come on.” He watched her toss and turn. “That’s right.”

  The black sand gathered and formed into a bucking horse. A Nightmare had taken shape.

  “Yessss,” Pitch hissed. “What a pretty little Nightmare. Now”—he turned to the scary, dark horse—“I want you to tell the others, the wait is over.” Pitch tossed the Nightmare out the window, where it met up with other Nightmares gathering on the streets. They all flew off together, away from town.

  Pitch stepped out of Cupcake’s room and watched them go. He walked in a crooked line, careful to avoid any beams of moonlight. From the shadows, Pitch glanced up at the moon and said, “Don’t look at me like that, Old Man. My Nightmares are finally ready. Are your Guardians?”

  “Whoa!” Jack Frost was walking high above town, watching dreamsand streams slip silently into a row of homes when suddenly a shadowy figure ran past him. Jack leaped down from the wire to investigate. At first all he heard were the voices of townspeople preparing to go inside for the night.

  A man asked his wife, “Did you leave the windows open again?”

  Jack didn’t hear the reply, but a person in another house said, “The garage door is wide open.”

  He wandered past the houses, still searching for the shadowy figure. Once again, something zoomed by him. He couldn’t see what it was, so Jack jumped onto the roof of a truck for a better view.

  Whoosh. There it went again. A trash can tumbled over. Jack hopped down from the truck and then scooted backward into a dark alley.

  “Hello, mate.”

  Jack spun to face the owner of the voice. He squinted as Bunny stepped fully into the light.

  Bunny spoke first. “Been a long time. Blizzard of ’68, I believe? Easter Sunday, wasn’t it?”

  Jack’s jaw dropped. “Bunny? You’re not still mad about that, are you?”

  “Yes,” Bunny answered simply. “But this is about something else.” He glanced around the alley, calling, “Fellas.”

  Before Jack could react, a huge hairy hand reached forward and then lifted him off the ground.

  “Hey!” Jack protested.

  “Durbha wahla,” one yeti said as a second yeti took hold of Jack’s arms.

  “Put me down,” Jack insisted.

  The yetis shoved Jack into a sack. The first yeti took out a snow globe and then smashed it on the ground, saying, “Durtal bardla burdlew.” A magic portal opened in front of them.

  The yetis indicated that Bunny should go first, saying, “Dward urghwetee.”

  “Me?” Bunny pointed t
o himself. “Not on your nelly. See you back at the Pole.”

  And with that, Bunny stomped his big foot on the ground. A rabbit hole appeared, and Bunny jumped into it.

  “Bwardla arghl,” a yeti said before tossing Jack into the snow globe portal.

  “Ahhhhhhh!” Jack’s voice echoed as he fell. The two yetis leaped in after him.

  Tooth was running her business from North’s fortress. “Tangiers! 421 rue de Barat! Allez!” She sent a Mini Fairy to get a tooth from that address.

  Suddenly a sack flew out of a portal and thudded onto the floor.

  “He’s here,” North announced.

  Crawling out of the bag, Jack found North and Sandy staring at him. Tooth was nearby, surrounded by a dozen hovering Mini Fairies who came and went as she barked orders at them.

  “Walla Walla, Washington, we’ve got a trampoline mishap at 1340 Ginger Lane,” she told a fairy. “Canine, lateral, and central incisor. Ouch!” The little fairy hurried away.

  North cleared his throat. “There he is.” He pointed and announced, “Jack Frost.” Raising his arms, he welcomed Jack. Sandy made a snowflake out of dreamsand appear above his head.

  “Wow. You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Jack. The two yetis reached forward and propped him up. “Hey, hey. Whoa, put me down.”

  “I hope the yetis treated you well,” North said.

  “Oh, yeah,” Jack replied, sarcastically. “I love being shoved in a sack and tossed through a magic portal.”

  “Oh good.” North nodded. “That was my idea.” Bunny entered the room and North said, “You know Bunny, obviously.”

  “Obviously,” Jack replied.

  Bunny stood to the side, with his arms crossed, while the Mini Fairies swarmed around Jack.

  “And the Tooth Fairy.” North made the introduction.

  Before Jack could answer, Tooth glided toward him. “Hello, Jack,” she greeted. “I’ve heard a lot about you. And your teeth.”

  Jack put a hand to his mouth. “My . . . my what?”

  Tooth leaned in way too close. “Open up,” she said. “Are they really as white as they say?” She was very excited. “Yes!” Tooth gasped. “Oh, they really do sparkle like freshly fallen snow.”

  Several of the Mini Fairies began to flutter like butterflies around Jack’s face, trying to get a look in his mouth.