Author's note: I wanted to have the Great Pumpkin be real in a story, so I wrote this. Please note that this story, although original, is based on Rise of the Guardians by Dreamworks Animation and William Joyce and also based on Charles Schultz's "Peanuts" weekly and daily newspaper comics. My story is a fanfiction, receives no monetary reward, and is purely for your enjoyment. Thanks to my sister for beta-reading.
Rise of the Great Pumpkin: Chapter One: Forty Acres and a Mule
Posted Nov. 11, 2015 by Nursing Student
Linus Van Pelt walked down the street bundled in an oversized coat, the biting words of his sister, Lucy, still ringing in his ears after their disagreement over the Christmas tree. Linus wanted to put all the old family ornaments he'd brought with them on the tree, but Lucy just wanted stylish identical bulbs. Linus turned to look at the department store across the road. Lights lined the roof's edge and ribbons wound around the bollards. He couldn't see inside, the windows were canvased with posters reminding parents of everything they should buy to avoid being on their children's "naughty lists." Most people were hurrying to and from the store, but a few others were hanging back apathetically. "Everyone just wants what they can get." Linus sighed. He wished he could see good ol' Charlie Brown, but that was impossible, Linus and Lucy had traveled half-way across the country to visit his cousins Jamie and Sophie for Christmas. He clung to his security blanket. Would his cousins be as mean as Lucy? He wasn't sure he wanted to find out.
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Jack Frost tried to make a point of serving ALL the children of the world, but he still needed sleep like everyone else. It was his usual habit to stay after hours at Burgess' Goodwill store to get a snooze unnoticed on a comfortable sofa or an old mattress; but today he overslept. Back when he was still invisible to the children, this was not a problem. Now, his dreams were often interrupted by children bonking him on the head with a pillow. So, it was not surprising when Jamie Bennett found Jack Frost and subsequently booked Jack's whole day by begging for stories about American history.
"Jack! Jack!" Jamie whispered as loudly as he dared to avoid attracting the attention of the clerk and simultaneously bonking Jack on the head with a pillow. "I need you to help me with my history project!"
"I'm the Guardian of fun, what would I know about history?" Jack yawned.
"Well, you lived through it didn't you?"
"Is that any reason to get me up? I spent all last night sending snowstorms to Sweden, Inner Mongolia, and Jamaica."
"Jamaica?"
"Hey! I was tired!"
In the end Jack couldn't resist answering Jamie's questions and, trying to explain everything from butter churns to "forty acres and a mule," the two of them hiked through the forest as Jack showed Jamie how to tell the difference between various animal tracks. Eventually, Jamie's cell phone chirped; it was nearly supper time.
"Well, I guess I'd better walk you home." Jack turned back to Burgess.
"You're right." Jamie sighed, crossing his arms with his feet planted on the leaf covered forest floor.
"Aren't you coming?" Jack said from ten paces ahead.
"Yeah." Jamie stood still, grinning with sudden inspiration.
"Well… what are you waiting for? Christmas?" Jack leaned against a tree.
But Jamie didn't want to walk home at all; who would want to do that when Jack Frost could give you a lift? Soon Jack found his elbow in a tight grip as Jamie whooped with joy to be gliding over the trees and Jack soared like Jamie's prancing pony through the sky, his other hand gripping his shepherd's crook as if it was a sail. It was a good thing Bunny wasn't there to complain about Jack's trend of bringing children along on daredevil stunts. They reached Jamie's window and Jamie climbed into the room while Jack hovered outside.
"Jack?"
Jack turned to look at him.
"When I grow up, I want to be a Guardian too."
Jack smiled.
"I mean it. What do you do? Do you just ask in a letter to Santa or what? Send a rocket to the Man in the Moon?"
Jack gulped and fell onto the window seat, Jamie seemed serious. "It's not that simple."
"Do you have to pass some sort of test? Is it like the SAT?"
"Essay T? What's an Essay T? Are there essays A, B, and C, too?"
"STOP that; it's not silly." Jamie frowned, exams were a very serious thing at his school. Hence Jamie knowing about the SAT when he was only in the fourth grade. "Now, how can I become a Guardian?"
"Okay, well, first of all…uh…you don't get to decide to be a Guardian, and before that you have to be a mythical person that actually exists." Jack rubbed his chin.
"Hey, can I be Spider-man?"
"I just said you don't get to choose to be a Guardian." This kid sometimes drove Jack up the wall.
"Well, how did you become Jack Frost?"
"Uh." Jack knew the conversation was going to lead there.
"You didn't bribe the Man in the Moon, did you?"
"No." Jack turned to leave out of the window and saw a couple of Tooth's fairies beating their wings in a low hum that kept changing pitch like a doorbell. They were holding a letter between them. Jack took the rice paper into his grasp and broke the square seal as Jamie squirmed to look over his shoulder.
"Dear Jack Frost,
"You are cordially invited to the talent competition of the decade with the other Guardians. Please preplan your entry. All competitors must complete their work within five minutes and the works will be judged by the Tooth Fairy for the winning prize of the Leprechaun's pot of gold. The competition will begin at 9:00a.m. local time on Christmas Eve at the Tooth Palace.
"Sincerely,
"The Tooth Fairy"
"Well, I'd better get going." Jack stood, pocketing the letter.
"But Christmas Eve is tomorrow."
"Tooth lives on the other side of the world. It's almost morning there. Bye!" And he leaped out the window. It was perfect timing, he thought as he let his shepherd's crook steal all the wind out of the sky so he could get to the Tooth Palace quickly. He couldn't tell Jamie, or the other Guardians, how he'd become the legendary Jack Frost; that the Man in the Moon had chosen him after he'd drowned while saving his sister, quickening him and making him a legend who could control ice and snow. Jack liked who he was, the bringer of joy and snow-days to children. Saying, "Hey, I drowned three-hundred years ago." didn't fit the job description, and they might start to feel like he didn't belong with the rest of the Guardians. No, secrets were best kept to oneself.
He breathed in the clean mountain air as he zipped past Tibetan flags and heard the birdlike sounds of bamboo flutes from a close building. Following the curve of the Himalayan Mountains, he soon came to Tooth's Palace, which gleamed as if it had just been polished with a thousand tubes of toothpaste.
Jack skidded on the polished palace landing, icing the floor in his fear, which hastened his trajectory to the brazen door. He slammed into it, causing a resounding bang that could be heard echoing inside the palace. Tooth opened the door seconds after the sound.
The Easter Bunny grinned, "Why didn't we think of knocking like that?"
Sandy and Bunny stood by the doorposts, but North was nowhere to be seen.
"North probably hopped out with it being so close to Christmas." Bunny said, hopping on his spot of the golden landing where they were to hold the contest.
"Well, we can't wait forever." Tooth sighed, her feather plume drooping and then stiffening as she spoke. "These are the rules. Number one: complete your artwork in five minutes. Number two: Don't touch anyone else's work. Okay? Now begin."
Jack took his place. He began to form large sparkling teeth out of ice with a layer of snow just under the surface to give that pearly white finish with the ice forming the structural support and outer covering. Soon he was stacking them like a house of cards, the molars were the bricks. Giant tusks formed the front doors. Clear incisors made up the windows.
Bunny knew his entry had to be impressive. He'd even brought supplies. He took his eggs that gleamed ivory and etched tiny crowns and canines on them and even glued on egg teeth that had fallen off of newly hatched ducklings. There was only so much one could do in five minutes.
But Sandman had the most fun of all. He simply made a colorful sand painting of Jack Frost. It had captured his face as he hollered to kids during a snowball fight, but the angle and shadowing focused on one thing: Jack's big smile with all those shiny white teeth. The grains of sand gleamed and the painting probably looked better (at least to the fan-girl crowd) than Jack himself.
Tooth called "Time's up!" and Jack had to avoid becoming jealous of Sandman as Tooth flitted over to Sandy first.
Bunny's cheeks billowed and he wanted to melt Jack's house of teeth. "Too bad we couldn't get North to judge." He grumbled. Tooth was too enamored with Jack to be the judge.
Then she walked over to Jack's entry, and Bunny noticed she spent more time looking at Jack than she did his Casa de Dientes.
At last she walked over to Bunny and her tiny fingers lifted the miniature work of art. She practically cooed over his inclusion of duckling egg teeth, and appreciated the fine etchings that stood up under her sharp birdlike eyesight.
"You won, Bunny."
"I… did?" His ears twisted forward.
"Of course, this is the most original and intricate tribute to dental health I have seen in a long time." Tooth spun in the air, wings buzzing like an electric toothbrush.
Soon Bunny's paws held the pot of gold, Sandman had set off sand firecrackers, and Jack was trying to pull away from five of Tooth's fairies. Then the Sandman pointed towards ribbons of light trailing through the sky.
"The Northern Lights!" The others gasped.
... Stay tuned for future chapters! And please read and review; it will help me write better...
