Jack turned to see where Sandy was looking. “Sandy, c’mon,” Jack said. “We can find Pitch.”
Sandy paused to look at everyone sleeping soundly in Jamie’s room, then followed Jack out into the night.
Sophie toddled into her big brother’s room while everyone was sleeping. She giggled as she reached into North’s pocket and took out his magical snow globe.
“Pretty!” Sophie said. She carried the globe over to Bunny. “Easter Bunny!” Sophie said joyfully. “Hop! Hop! Hop!”
Imitating a bunny’s bounce, Sophie shook the globe. It revealed a beautiful image of Bunny’s Warren. Delighted, Sophie began to take the globe back to her room, but on the way, she tripped. The globe smashed onto the floor, and with a flash of light, a magical portal opened in front of her.
A warm breeze came from the portal, and Sophie leaned forward to check it out.
“Whuh-huh?” North woke up an instant too late. By the time North opened his eyes, Sophie was already gone.
Jack and Sandy followed two Nightmares across the rooftops of Burgess.
“Wahooo!” Jack said, riding the wind to catch one of the Nightmares. The Nightmare flew over a rooftop. Jack followed it.
Jack chased the Nightmare away from a house, just in time to see Sandy wrestling with the other one. The Nightmare was strong, but Sandy was stronger. With a blast, Sandy changed the dark grit into golden dreamsand and then rode the dream, now shaped like a stingray, through the town.
Jack went after the one that got away. “Haaaa!” he shouted as the Nightmare turned down an alley and then traveled up to another rooftop. “I got it!” Jack blasted frost from his staff, freezing the Nightmare into a solid mass.
“Sandy!” Jack called. “Sandy, did you see that? Look at this thing.” He poked the Nightmare with his staff.
But it wasn’t Sandy who appeared behind him.
“Frost?” Pitch was standing on the same roof as Jack.
Jack shot a streak of frost at him, but Pitch dodged it.
“You know,” Pitch said, “for a ‘neutral party,’ you spend an awful lot of time with those weirdos. This isn’t your fight, Jack.”
Jack raised his staff. “You made it my fight when you stole those teeth.”
Pitch squinted. “Teeth? Why do you care about the teeth?” A noise behind Pitch caused him to turn. Sandy was standing there. Pitch quickly moved away. “Now this is who I’m looking for—” Before Pitch could finish the sentence, Sandy blasted him with dreamsand.
Pitch ducked. He aimed his nightmare sand at Sandy. Jack ducked as Sandy was forced onto a high ledge.
Sandy nearly fell backward, but saved himself at the last minute. Using a wave of dreamsand, Sandy shot back at Pitch, snaring him in dreamsand and throwing him off the roof, causing him to crash onto the street below.
Jack peered down at Pitch. “Remind me not to get on your bad side,” he told Sandy.
Pitch shook off the crash, stepping away as Sandy and Jack flew off the roof and into the street.
“Okay, easy. You can’t blame me for trying, Sandy. You don’t know what it’s like to be weak and hated. It was stupid of me to mess with your dreams. So I’ll tell you what: You can have ’em back,” Pitch offered.
Before Sandy and Jack could react, hundreds of Nightmares filled the street and stood on the surrounding rooftops.
Jack turned to Sandy. “You take the ones on the left. I’ll take the ones on the right.”
Pitch rose from the ground, riding his Nightmare horse, Onyx. “Boo!” Pitch shouted at Sandy and Jack. The Nightmares began to charge.
Jack and Sandy huddled together, back-to-back, searching for an escape.
Suddenly the sound of sleigh bells and reindeer hooves filled the air.
North’s sleigh zoomed overhead, buzzing past Pitch and his Nightmares.
Bunny had been asleep in the sleigh, but finally woke up. He was a bit confused when he said, “Get out of my Warren.” Then realizing where he was, Bunny gathered his boomerangs for battle.
Sandy flung dreamsand at the Nightmares. Jack used his staff to fight them off one by one.
Tooth and Baby Tooth flew out of the sleigh, coming to Jack’s and Sandy’s aid.
While Jack knocked Nightmares away with his staff, Tooth used her wings to slice through them.
Like a general at war, Pitch commanded his Army of Nightmares to continue the attack.
Bunny jumped from the sleigh onto a roof. His boomerangs flew, dissolving every Nightmare in their paths. When the sleigh passed by, Bunny hopped back in.
“Ha, ha, ha,” North cheered. “Come on!”
Jack dodged two Nightmares, but a third one knocked the staff out of his hand. Slipping from the rooftop, Jack began to fall.
“Aaaaaaah!” He got control by grabbing back his staff and hooking it to the sleigh’s rails.
“You might want to duck,” Bunny told Jack as he flung a boomerang at one of the Nightmares.
Pitch’s Nightmares surrounded Sandy, and he valiantly fought them off with pleasant dreams of his own.
“We gotta help Sandy!” Jack pointed from the sleigh.
“Hyah!” North flicked the reins.
But before they could reach Sandy, Pitch formed nightmare sand into a bow and arrow. He aimed at Sandy’s back. The arrow hit Sandy between the shoulders and then exploded.
“Noooo!” Jack yelled.
Jack leaped out of the sleigh.
“Jack!” North called after him.
Pitch chuckled as the Nightmares took over Sandy’s dreams.
“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Don’t fight the fear, little man,” Pitch said.
North pulled the sleigh around for a rescue mission, but Nightmares surrounded him. “Hurry, hurry,” North called to Jack, who was on his way to help Sandy.
Sandy’s dreamsand was turning black as the bad dreams took over. “I’d say sweet dreams, but there aren’t any left,” Pitch said.
Jack continued on, fighting off Nightmares, struggling to reach Sandy.
“Sandy,” North said, moaning. A few seconds later, Sandy’s dreamsand was entirely black.
Sandy was gone.
Pitch clapped his hands with joy.
“No . . . NOOOOO!” Jack reached Pitch and then rushed forward, his staff bright with energy that would soon be dispensed at Pitch.
Pitch turned and directed his Nightmares at Jack.
It was too much to take at once. The Nightmares surrounded Jack and began to overtake him.
Pitch stood back, smiling.
Jack swung his staff and then rode a gust of wind out of the Nightmare cloud. Frost and ice filled the street. The attacking Nightmares turned into snow.
“Aaahh!” Pitch was caught by surprise. He was tossed back out of the street and far, far away.
The effort took all Jack’s energy. He collapsed. North’s sleigh finally reached the rooftop.
Tooth quickly picked up Jack and carried him to safety.
“Jack, how did you do that?” she asked.
“I didn’t know I could,” Jack replied groggily.
As the sleigh zipped off into the night, Pitch stood up and looked around at where he’d crash-landed. At first he was angry, but then he was pleased.
Smiling, he watched the sleigh slip into a snow globe portal.
Jack Frost was a worthy opponent.
“Finally!” Pitch dusted himself off. “Someone who knows how to have a little fun!” He waved at Jack as the sleigh took off to the North Pole. Pitch was looking forward to the next time they met.
CHAPTER
EIGHT
Back in the Globe Room at the North Pole, the Guardians held a ceremony for Sandy. Candles surrounded his empty spot on the floor.
Tooth, North, and Bunny held hands while bells echoed throughout the room.
Jack used his finger to draw a picture of Sandy on a frosted window and then sighed.
North walked over to Jack. “Are you all right?” he asked.
&nb
sp; “I just wish I could’ve done something,” Jack replied.
“Done something?” North asked. “Jack, you stood up to Pitch. You saved us.”
Jack pinched his lips together. “But Sandy wo—”
North interrupted. “Would be proud of what you did.”
Jack sighed again, nodding.
“I don’t know what you were in your past life, but in this life you are a Guardian.” North touched Jack’s shoulder.
“But how can I know who I am until I know who I was?” asked Jack.
“You will,” North assured him. “I feel it in my belly.”
Jack allowed North to lead him back toward the Globe of Belief.
“Look how fast they’re going out.” Tooth pointed at the tiny lights across the continents.
“It’s fear,” Jack said, leaning in closer to the Globe. “He’s tipped the balance.”
Bunny wasn’t going to let all the lights disappear. “Hey, buck up, ya sad sacks! We can still turn this around! Easter’s tomorrow! I need your help. I say we pull out all the stops, and we get those little lights flickering again!”
Energized, North led everyone to the toy factory. “Bunny is right. As much as it pains me to say, old friend, this time Easter is more important than Christmas!”
“Hey! Did everyone hear that?” asked Bunny.
“We must hurry to the Warren,” said North. “Everyone, to the sleigh!”
“Oh no, mate,” Bunny said. “My Warren, my rules. Buckle up.” With a heavy tap on the floor, Bunny opened a rabbit hole, and the entire group fell into the floor.
“Shostakovich!” cried North.
The Guardians, Jack, plus two yetis and a few elves landed just outside the entrance to the Warren.
Due to their sizes, North and the yetis landed hard, but that didn’t dampen North’s good mood. “Buckle up,” he said, chuckling to himself. “That’s very funny.”
But Bunny was all business. He stood on a moss-covered rock. It began to rise. Below the moss it wasn’t a rock but an egg made of stone; one of Bunny’s Sentinel eggs that guarded the Warren. “Now, listen. Down here the eggs are safe. Up top, they’ll be well hidden,” he told his guests as he hopped on other Sentinel eggs that had begun to rise out of the ground. “It is our job to protect them in the tunnels on the way to the big show. If we get that far, we’ve got ourselves Easter.”
As he entered Bunny’s home, Jack couldn’t believe his eyes. The Warren was a gorgeous, lush, green meadow, with rocks and streams and colorful flowers.
Suddenly, Bunny raised his ears and sniffed the air. Something was wrong.
A faint shout came from one of Bunny’s egg tunnels. Little eggs were rushing out of the passageway.
North drew his sword, Bunny took out his boomerang, and Jack held tightly to his staff. The Guardians were expecting Pitch, but then Jamie’s sister, Sophie, popped out of the tunnel. She laid eyes on one of the elves and began to run after him.
“What is SHE doing HERE?” Bunny asked, horrified.
North felt around in his coat to discover his pocket was empty. “Snow globe?”
“Crickey!” exclaimed Bunny. “Somebody do something!”
“Don’t look at me,” said Jack. “I’m invisible, remember?”
At this point, Sophie had managed to catch the elf, and was dragging him through the green grass by the bell on the top of his hat.
“Don’t worry, Bunny. I bet she’s a fairy fan,” Tooth said as she flew to the delighted girl. “It’s okay, little one.”
“Pretty,” Sophie said to Tooth.
“Awww.” Tooth blushed. “You know what, I got something for you. Here it is.” She pulled out a handful of teeth. “Look at all the pretty teeth with a little blood and gum on them.”
Sophie screamed in Tooth’s ear and then ran away.
Jack shook his head. “Blood and gums? When was the last time you guys actually hung out with kids?”
Tooth shrugged.
But Sophie got over her scare quickly, and soon she poked her head into a small tunnel and said, “Peekaboo.”
“We are very busy bringing joy to children,” North said. “We don’t have time for . . . children.” Embarrassed, he looked away.
Jack formed a snowflake in his hand. He blew a little wind behind it, and the flake floated toward Sophie. When she tried to grab it, Jack made a little more wind and began a game of chase.
“If one little kid can ruin Easter,” Jack said, “then we’re in worse shape than I thought.”
Jack blew the snowflake toward Bunny while Sophie followed it, shouting, “Wheeee! Wheee, wheee, wheee!”
The flake landed on Bunny’s nose.
Looking down at the little girl, Bunny finally smiled. “You wanna paint some eggs?”
“Okay!” Sophie answered brightly.
“Come on, then!” said Bunny.
At that moment, North looked around to see thousands and thousands of white eggs, all of which still needed to be decorated. “That’s a lot of eggs!”
“Uh, how much time do we have?” asked Jack.
But Bunny was busy having fun. “Whoooo-hoooo!” He hopped along the meadow with Sophie on his back.
“Wheeee!” Sophie squealed with delight.
Everywhere Bunny stepped, flowers bloomed beside his feet, white eggs turned to color, and the valley glittered like a rainbow.
“All right, troops, it’s time to push back,” Bunny commanded. “That means eggs everywhere! Heaps of you in every high-rise, farmhouse, and trailer park! In tennis shoes and cereal bowls. There will be bathtubs filled with my beautiful googies!”
And with that, the Guardians and the eggs got going on the preparations for Easter. The eggs marched single file into a multicolored stream. One of North’s elves stood at the edge of a cliff. He couldn’t get away fast enough as the eggs rushed toward him, and they all splashed down into the colored stream below to be painted and decorated for their big show at Easter tomorrow. The eggs emerged from the stream in every color and pattern imaginable (as did the unlucky elf).
A stray egg wandered off the path and ended up in a whirlpool. North fished it out, turning it around in the sunlight. The egg had a strange spiral pattern on it.
“Okay,” North said. “That’s a little strange.”
“Naw, mate.” Bunny carefully took the egg in his paw. “That’s adorable.”
Sophie led the colored eggs as they marched around Bunny. “There will be springtime!” Bunny encouraged. “On every continent! And I’m bringing hope with me.”
Meanwhile, the yetis sprinkled glitter on some eggs, which then hopped down into different tunnels to be decorated with stripes.
Another yeti was hand painting some eggs when Bunny walked by. “Too Christmassy, mate. Paint ’em blue,” he instructed.
Sophie and Bunny began to play again.
“What’s that over there?” Bunny asked her.
Sophie searched through the grass and found a decorated egg. She showed it to Bunny. “That’s a beauty!” Bunny exclaimed.
“Pretty,” Sophie agreed.
Soon all the eggs were ready, decorated, and gathered at the tunnels, ready for their big moment up top.
“Not bad,” Jack said, approving of the operation.
“Not bad yourself,” Bunny replied.
“Look,” Jack began, “I’m sorry about that whole kangaroo thing.”
“It’s the accent, isn’t it?” Bunny asked him.
North and Tooth came to join Bunny and Jack. They all turned to see Sophie fast asleep.
“Ah, poor little ankle biter. Look at her, all tuckered out,” Bunny said.
“I love her,” said Tooth. “But I think it’s time to get her home.”
“How about I take her home?” Jack suggested.
Tooth looked concerned. “Jack, no! Pitch is—”
Jack cut her off. “No match for this,” he said, showing off his staff. “Trust me. I’ll be quick as a bunny.”
Back in Burgess, Jack laid Sophie down into her bed. Baby Tooth had come with him to help with Sophie. When Sophie finally let go of him, she rolled over and then fell off the side of her mattress and onto the floor.
“Sophie?” her mother called from the hallway. “Is that you?”
Jack placed a blanket over Sophie and then left her comfortably snoozing on the rug.
Jack and Baby Tooth climbed out the window.
“We should get back,” Jack started, when suddenly a voice called out.
“Jack!” It was a memory calling. Loud and clear. Jack looked to the forest near Jamie’s house and felt the memory tug at him.
“Jack.”
Jack took off toward the sound. Baby Tooth went with him.
“Jack.”
Following the voice, Jack sprinted through the trees until he reached a clearing. In the center of the meadow was a child’s old bed. It was broken and rotted.
Baby Tooth shivered, then pulled on Jack’s jacket to try to drag him out of the forest.
“Don’t worry,” Jack tried to assure her. “There’s still time.”
With that, Jack whacked the bed with his staff. It broke away to reveal a dark, deep hole in the ground. The voice called Jack’s name once again. With a shrug, Jack jumped in. Baby Tooth stayed close behind.
Jack and Baby Tooth followed the tunnels into a huge underground cavern. Every step of the way, Baby Tooth tugged on Jack’s jacket, trying to get him to come back with her.
“Baby Tooth, come on! I have to find out what that is,” Jack explained.
As they ventured farther, Jack realized they were in Pitch’s Lair. Tooth’s Mini Fairies were trapped in tiny cages, chirping and begging for Jack to rescue them. Along the walls, the boxes of stolen teeth were stacked like pirate treasure. Heaps of teeth were piled up in the center of the room.
“Shhh!” Jack told the little fairies. “Keep it down.” He picked up a cage. “I’m gonna get you out of here, just as soon as I—”
The voice from his memory cut into his thoughts. “Jack . . . Jack . . . ”
He shook his head to clear it. “As I can.”
“Jack . . . ”
The voice seemed to be coming from one of the closest mounds of baby teeth. Jack dropped to his knees, searching through the pile, ignoring the insistent chirping of the Mini Fairies and Baby Tooth’s frantic tugs at his jacket. Jack just had to find the baby teeth that held the keys to his lost memories.
Rise of the Guardians Movie Novelization Page 5
