The sky was blue, flavored with crisp, early Spring dawn. The streets were still quiet, but that emboldening aura still lingered in the air; that aura that Jack had left behind.
Jamie carelessly lifted a hand to his face, rubbing his dreary eyes with the heel of his palm. He yawned, blinking slowly a few times as he stared blindly at the asphalt of the road right before him. It was 7:02 in the morning, Monday, April 9th, and Jamie was teetering where he stood from just a gentle gust of wind. Normally he'd be more awake than ever on the day following Easter Sunday; hyped up on chocolate and other sweets. But the day before had turned out to be a lot longer and far more eventful than usual. After the fight against Pitch, Jamie knew it wasn't until at least five in the morning that he went to bed, though he wasn't entirely sure how he ended up in bed. Either way, on only an hour of sleep, not even Jack's fun and games could keep him awake for long, and Jack Frost was not even there to offer that much assistance to the poor, weary student.
With a rumble of its powerful engine, the large, yellow school bus rolled to a stop right before the Bennett home, its doors opening to let him aboard. Jamie hardly kept his eyes open a crack as he stepped up into the vehicle. Failing to raise his foot high enough, the toe of his shoe caught the edge of the second step, causing him to lever forward and take a nosedive to the floor of the bus.
"My word! You okay, darling?" his bus driver exclaimed, seldom masking the giggle in her voice. Jamie merely nodded, not saying a word or even acting like he noticed he'd fallen as he climbed to his feet and continued to the middle of the bus where a couple of his friends were already seated.
Caleb and Claude sat on one bench together, looking just about as awake as he did. And right across from them, Pippa sat on a bench by herself, passed out against the window, mouth open and drooling. Behind her, Cupcake was laying down on a bench asleep as well. Jamie went ahead and sat next to Pippa, slouching so far back that he was squishing his backpack, and his chin was nearly touching his chest.
"Jeez Louise!" the bus driver, Ms. Hendrick, said aloud. "What's up with you guys? You're usually the chattiest group on my bus, but now you all look hung over!" No one said a word; the best they could offer was a shrug. She wouldn't understand and they didn't have the energy to explain anyhow. "Well I hope you weren't out making bad choices last night!" she teased, proceeding to laugh at her own joke.
The bus revved forward, continuing down the route to pick up Monty and the rest of the kids. The blond haired boy wasn't any better off, and in fact, had a few red lines going across the side of his face like he'd slept with his glasses on. He went to sit behind Caleb and Claude and made like he was going to conk out for the rest of the ride. But it wasn't just they who were hushed, the entire bus –albeit not as exhausted– seemed quieter than normal.
Having been distracted daydreaming, Jamie didn't even notice the strange atmosphere until Ms. Hendrick greeted another one of the passengers with, "are you alright? Everyone seems like they woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning." To which Jamie lifted his gaze from the back of the bench so he could see who had just gotten on board.
Soren Kohl walked passed Jamie, eyes front with a look on his face like he had the bitter taste of hate in his mouth. He must have felt utterly hopeless, judging by the worn scowl on his face.
Jamie frowned as he watched him go by, then turned to the twins. "Hey Claude, doesn't everyone seem.. off to you?"
Claude looked at Jamie with both of his eyes, but it seemed like half of his brain were somewhere else; sleeping perhaps. Before saying anything, he cast a glance around the vehicle at all the tired, saddened, and angry faces, then turned to Jamie. "Nuh.. I dun see an'thing." And he went back to staring at the back of the bench in front of him.
Jamie, perturbed by Claude's lack of observation skills, began straightening up before aiming a calculating face at his friend. He squinted his eyes, and caught sight of some tiny, golden particles dancing in the early morning light above his friend's head. Blinking a few times to clear his vision, the glitter-like dust disappeared as if it were never there. He couldn't be sure if they really had been there. Being so tired, it was likely his eyes playing tricks on him.
Jamie went to staring at his shoes. No, of course it wasn't dreamsand... He turned his head to look at the glowing, golden figure of Pippa that was presently exploring the various corridors, secret passageways, and guest rooms of the imaginary, golden palace floating above the real Pippa's head. And he leaned way away from her, his eyes going wide. Or maybe it was. Taken aback, he looked at Claude to ask him if he could see Pippa's dream, but now Claude was asleep against his brother, dreaming about flying through a paint-ball arena with a jet pack. Meanwhile Caleb was dreaming about... riding on one of Santa's reindeer? He had to stare a moment to take in what he was seeing. He'd always believed in the Sandman before, so why was he only seeing this now? When he looked back to Pippa's dream, it had faded to nothing more than a few particles dancing above her head. He turned around and saw Cupcake dreaming of unicorns, and behind Caleb and Claude, Monty was dreaming of spaceships and aliens. But when he looked around at any of the other kids who might have been sleeping on the bus, they dreamt of nothing. They didn't even look like they were getting any rest with the disgruntled looks on their faces.
In the corner of his eye, he saw a new dream appear over Pippa's head, but didn't bother to look. Why is everyone unhappy but us?
"Please sit down, Jamie." Ms. Hendrick called to him, pulling him from his reverie.
Jamie turned around to sit and looked at his friends, the cogs endlessly turning in his head. And almost like a puzzle piece clicking into place, his eyes brightened. Now that he thought about it, it was obvious what he and his friends had that no one else did. They had belief. They had seen the Guardians with their own eyes, even talked to them, and played with them in the snow. None of the other kids had experienced that privilege. And Jamie couldn't help but think how awful they all must have felt because of that. Heck, if he'd been left with no Easter excitement, no belief, and no hope; he would have been a grouch all day too.
Throughout the day –from first period, all the way to lunch– Jamie had the nagging sense that it was his responsibility to do something about it, yet his tired and wandering thoughts never opened his mouth to speak. Rather, he floated up into a cloud of eleven-year-old level philosophies and contrived daydreams; wondering about a world where everyone believed in the Guardians, or ways he could inspire them to believe...
He only woke when his teacher placed a hand on his shoulder. "Jamie, it's time to go to lunch. That was the bell just now." Mr. Fowler said with a gentle smile. He was a nice enough man that he wasn't going to reprimand a child for falling asleep during class –not to mention, Jamie was a model student, so his dozing off for once was nothing to get uptight about– but he didn't want said child to miss lunch either.
The young Mr. Bennett moseyed on his sleepy way –backpack half unzipped and hat on sideways– to go meet his friends at lunch. The six of them all sat around the table, still looking nothing short of bedraggled even though the day was half over. In the very least, they had managed to strike up a conversation about the Guardians, and this brought them to their senses.
Through a mouth full of mac 'n cheese, Monty told, "like, I thought the Tooth Fairy would be small –like a normal lady with wings –butterfly wings, but she was taller than us, almost normal size –and she had feathers!" Somehow he managed to both excitedly and tiredly stammer a run-on sentence while chewing food, and still get his point across. "She look kin'a like a half bird er somethin'."
Pippa was even too distracted to scold him for talking through his food. "She was really pretty; probably my favorite Guardian."
Anyone who passed by and heard their conversation figured they were talking about a movie or a book of some sort; none thought to question why they acted like they'd actually met these legendary figures. Though some rolled their eyes at the sound of their cheery discussion. For how dare they have a pleasant day while the rest of the school is in gloom and doom. Jamie looked around the cafeteria and saw that the same attitude he saw on the bus was still there in the school. It wasn't incredibly obvious, but there was enough lacking in the good-mood department that it made the air itself seem heavier than it should have been. Like a foul stench wafting through the building, out the doors and sweeping across the entire campus, the smell of disappointment, apathy, and emptiness. It seemed to drain the color from their faces, turning all of the students into sickly, black and white pictures; that moved slowly and silently to their seats, and ate as if it were something they had to do rather than something they wanted to do. Jamie even wondered, if he watched the crowds closely enough, might someone throw up? Some of them looked like they were about ready to.
"Hey Jamie," Caleb called, "how did you meet Jack Frost anyways?"
The brunet turned back to his table, already feeling perkier just from the mention of his new favorite Guardian. "Oh Jack? Well, I guess, you see, he came in my room and... well, I don't really remember which part was a dream or not –but there was this floating rabbit..."
Not long after he'd gotten that sentence out, his group of friends broke out into snickers and laughs.
"Dude! I asked you how you met Jack Frost, not about a whack dream you had about the Easter Bunny!"
Even Jamie was laughing at himself now, realizing what a strange transition that had been. "No, no, no! I'm serious!" he protested despite his own giggles. "There was a floating rabbit, I'm not kidding you!"
This only made them laugh harder, however. Caleb with his fluttery giggle, and Monty all out laughing in his high-pitch pre-puberty voice. Meanwhile Claude, Pippa, and Cupcake were all covering their mouths, trying not to spit food all over the table. They weren't so much laughing at Jamie as much as they were laughing at how weird it sounded when he claimed there was some sort of floating rabbit involved.
"Oh but that reminds me!" Jamie squeaked through his smile. "Apparently when I went flying on my sled last Friday, that was him!"
They went on laughing about the strange events for some time, becoming so distracted that the story of how Jamie met Jack was never actually told in its entirety. Though some wild tale of the winter Guardian flying in on a magical sofa with a floating rabbit did come into context one way or another. For whatever reason, they could reminisce about the Tooth Fairy, fantasize about Santa Claus, have whimsical thoughts about the Sandman, and even aspire to meet the Easter Bunny again, but whenever Jack Frost came up in conversation, no one could keep a straight face.
Jamie was only drawn out of the conversation when he heard Soren Kohl say, "yeesh, they actually believe him now." Jamie's smile melted, though he didn't turn to look at his peer who sat at the table behind him. There was poison in his voice. He sounded like he had nothing good in him, nothing at all. Hopeless, embittered, and entirely lacking the modesty to keep his judgments to himself. It had been known for some time that Jamie Bennett was willing to believe in more things than the average Joe. He'd read all about aliens, big foot, and every other urban legend and mystery out there that there was to read about. Everyone had always ignored it, they had certainly never minded. So why now did Soren sound so disgusted that Jamie's friends believed in some of those things too?
He didn't know what made him do it. His instincts told him to keep to his own conversation and let it slide. But his muscles rebelled. As if every bone in his body wanted to challenge Soren, Jamie turned around and found that the subject in question was looking at him with those weary, hate filled eyes. But Jamie didn't see a bully. Somehow, he saw a child on the outside looking in, wondering what it must be like to be on the inside, to have what they did, to believe.
Soren turned back to his food as if nothing had happened. Two of his friends who sat across from him didn't even notice when Jamie looked at them; for the past twenty minutes, they had only been paying attention to their food.
The Bennett child tried to swallow the swelling feeling in his lungs, but couldn't suppress it for anything. "What do you mean, Soren?" The words slipped out sounding clueless and lost; they'd escaped into the real world without permission and without any idea where they were going.
Soren looked back at Jamie and said nothing for a time, just looking at him. He shrugged, turning back to his food. "Nothin', I guess." He had no fight in him, yet he had every desire to initiate one.
"Don't you know they're real?" Jamie didn't know where these things kept coming from, but they came nonetheless.
Now everyone at his table and Soren's were all watching and listening, some strange form of curiosity had befallen them.
Soren sighed and shook his curly, red head of hair, endlessly toying with his plate of food; he didn't look up this time. "You wouldn't understand, Jamie."
"What wouldn't I understand? Just tell me," he said, trying his hardest not to sound threatening.
"The Easter Bunny isn't real, ya dipstick," he spat carelessly.
Jamie felt the acidic remark immediately burning his face and causing his heart to beat faster. He squeezed his fists, and thought his mouth was about to speak against his will again when he was saved by the sound of Caleb's fluttery giggle. He turned around to see that all of his friends were smiling at Soren, looking an awful lot like they were holding back laughter.
"Dude.. then where on earth do you think all those eggs come from?" remarked Caleb just as sarcastically as when he had spoken to Jamie. This earned a few giggles from his table.
"Psh, what eggs?" he snapped, finally looking Caleb in the eye. "You mean all the eggs you didn't find yesterday?"
At that very moment, Cupcake came up from under the table where she'd been rummaging through her backpack and released an armful of colorful Easter eggs across the table. "These eggs," she said calmly.
Soren said nothing, looking at the eggs, and even dared a glance toward the larger girl before turning back to his food. "Never mind. You just don't understand."
Everyone knew Cupcake. But more specifically, everyone knew that you don't mess with Cupcake. She was the tallest girl at school, and in proving herself to be the strongest as well, had even had a few visits to the principle's office. So if she were on the opposing side of the argument, it was best to let her win.
But Jamie wasn't finished. "What don't we understand?" he insisted. Soren had nothing left to say, and merely shook his head. "They are real. All of them. We saw them last night."
Yet somehow this boisterous claim didn't pull on any strings. It couldn't even bring Soren to turn and look at him again. The boy was just empty; like he wanted to believe, but there was an invisible wall in his way. His two friends looked just as apathetic; going right back to their food once the conversation was over.
Jamie had to wonder if he were capable of changing their minds, especially since without the Guardian's help he wouldn't even have been able to change his own friends' minds.
But maybe that was it? Perhaps the Guardians had to stick up for themselves, and that was the only way they could get believers. Jamie was certain of it now. Then they'll just have to come right back here again, he determined.