You're right! The Easter Kangaroo was Jack's mystery visitor! I figured that Jack would be too old to see him, but that wouldn't stop Bunny from wanting to help a child in need. Rise of the Guardians doesn't belong to me.

~~GF~~

Christmas was nearing; Jack could tell as the spirits of the soldiers raised higher, but there was no happiness to be found for the slave boys of the camp.

Cook, Jack could tell, was thoroughly enjoying having him acting as his scullery boy. Not only did it mean that he, himself, was spared from cleaning the massive amounts of pots and pans in the wash basin, but in those few hours that Jack was forced to spend with him, he found ways to carry out his revenge against the young boy as much as possible. After Jack's back healed, that was no longer an optional target for his malice, so he had to become more creative. The worst of these cases was when he tripped Jack, who was carrying a large stack of particularly fragile bowls. When Jack fell over, breaking every single bowl, Cook took it upon himself to teach his scullery boy to be more careful by grabbing a switch and hitting him with it. Jack used his hands to block the attack, but that left his hands bruised and stinging.

Franklin continued to steal bread for Jack, who was now avoiding the dining tent as often as he could help it. Jack wasn't particularly happy that Franklin was risking so much, but his warnings to his young friend were always muffled by the bread in his mouth.

Mary's kittens were now able to stumble around the barn floor and play with each other. Clayton, Mary's favorite, even started trying to climb the ladder, but usually tumbled off of the bottom rung. He would lay on his back, mewling for Flossie to come and pick him up and bring him back to his brothers and sisters. Mary and Jack received a shock when they woke up one morning with a dead rat next to their heads that Flossie had caught for them. Jack praised her, because he figured a dead rat was better than a live one, but Mary was scarred.

After the bread catastrophe, Jack, Mary and Franklin settled back into their routines and found that they even had some time to play, just as long as they were quiet and pretended to look miserable when they exited the barn for any reason. Mary taught Franklin her favorite game; hopscotch. She was particularly good at it and always beat the boys when they played.

"Matthew is kinda a weird one, ain't he?" Franklin asked Jack one day while Mary went off to the chicken coop.

"What makes you say that?" Jack asked, trying not to sound like he was hiding something.

"I dunno. Just the things he does is kinda odd. Hopscotch, playing with the kittens… I even saw him braiding the horses' tails and manes once. He's just kinda… girly."

"He was ill when he was younger," Jack said, having thought of a good justification for Mary's shining feminism while Franklin was talking, "He spent most of his time indoors and our mother taught him household skills to keep him occupied."

"Oh," Franklin said, accepting the excuse without question.

After dinner that night, Jack steeled himself for his least favorite part of the day; scullery duty with Cook. Day in and day out, Jack and the other boys had gotten used to accepting their lumpy gruel without complaint. Sometimes, if the soldiers didn't finish what Cook had prepared for them, it was up for grabs for the slaves. They were all eager to get there first to get their hands on any delicacies that may be there.

Jack, who had mostly kept his distance from the other boys of Burgess, was now talking to them during dinner and learning about where they had been placed in camp. One unfortunate boy was in charge of cleaning the outhouse that was used by over six-hundred men and slaves. Several of the boys had been assigned to the stables while others maintained campfires and pitched tents. Their hands were now rough from the hard work, but none of them had lost their vitality and their hope that they could somehow live through this and go home.

One of the boys, Aaron, who was the eldest after Jack at the age of thirteen, leaned over his gruel one day to speak to Jack, "I didn't know you had a brother, Jack."

Jack laughed nervously, "Thanks for keeping it a secret."

Aaron nodded, "Of course I would. You know what would happen if they caught her? I'm not doing that to any of my brothers… or sisters… here. We're in this together."

Jack nodded and Aaron changed the subject, "Do you remember little Mikey?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Yeoman's son?"

"The very same. I heard from the soldiers here that a lot of them went off to a battle yesterday and they assigned Mikey to drum duty on the front lines."

Jack looked at Aaron, shocked and Aaron nodded in response. "He didn't come back."

Jack felt a hole rip into his heart at this news. He knew Mikey from the schoolhouse, where all the grades shared their one teacher. Mikey always sat in the front row and while he had been shy, he was smart as a whip; at only five years of age, he was at a level in mathematics that trumped many of the fourth grade students' work. To think of that innocent boy being put in the heat of battle with only a drum for protection was beyond cruel. What was worse, it had more than likely been friendly fire that killed him.

"I'm only telling you this because I want you to know to be careful. After that stunt you pulled a couple of weeks ago, they're bound to want to pick the biggest troublemaker for drum duty. Keep your head down."

Jack felt a lingering sense of guilt; they had been in the camp for four or five weeks now and all he had been thinking of was how to get himself, Mary and Franklin from the camp. He hadn't even given a second thought to the others who had been captured with them. He decided that, though there would be more children he had to look after, they would all escape together, or not at all.

Nevertheless, he nodded a thanks to Aaron's warning and stood up with his bowl and deposited it in the dirty-dish basin that he would be standing in front of for the next few hours.

~~GF~~

An hour in to washing the dishes, Jack had been letting his mind wander. After speaking with Aaron and the other boys, he had a newfound desire to find a means of escape, and fast. But first, they needed a way to protect themselves. He thought of what he had to work with. Himself, Franklin and Aaron could probably get by, but the majority of the boys were from the ages of five to eight. How could this possibly work?

Jack cast his eyes around the dining tent and noticed for the first time that Cook had a large amount of knives. This could even the playing field a little bit, he thought. Knives were nothing against muskets, but at least they would give everyone some form of protection; a fighting chance. There were enough knives in Cook's collection that he wouldn't miss a few if they happened to go missing. With this thought, Jack wrapped the large knife he was holding in a dish cloth and slid it into the waistband of his pants.

Someone suddenly grabbed at his shoulder and Jack's heart jumped into his throat. He turned around to see Cook leering at him; a face he always reserved just for his scullery boy. Jack's pulse quickened—had Cook seen?

"Why you so quiet, whelp?" Cook asked him loudly.

"I was just thinking." Jack responded, hoping to diffuse the situation without getting hit again… or caught stealing a knife.

Cook laughed at him, spraying Jack with saliva, "All a slave like you's gotta think about is which dish you'll be cleaning next."

"Funny enough, that's exactly what I was thinking about," Jack said with a light, undetectable sense of sarcasm. Cook's smile faltered slightly, thrown off by Jack's cooperation. It was no secret that the two of them were like water and oil. Or fire and oil. The fact that Jack was speaking politely to the man he loathed made Cook suspicious.

"What're you hiding?" Cook asked finally.

"Nothing," Jack answered quickly and Cook laughed gruntily.

"If it's nothin', my mother's the Queen of England."

"I didn't realize you were royalty," Jack retorted, "Look, I don't like being here as much as you don't like me being here. Can I just get my chores done so I can go?"

Cook eyed Jack again, his small gray eyes narrowing as he stared at Jack mistrustfully. Then with a swift motion, he reached his hand quickly into Jack's pants pocket. Jack shouted out of surprise, but was thankful he hadn't tried to hide his knife in his pocket. The knife was wrapped safely against his other hip.

"What's this, now?" Cook said, withdrawing his hand from Jack's pocket and clutching something gold and glittering. Jack thought that by now, he should be used to feeling angry and uneasy around the cook, but he was sorely mistaken as looked into Cook's hand and saw his mother's heart-shaped locket dangling in his meaty grasp. He had completely forgotten that he had hidden it away. Had it really survived the trip in his pocket all this time, only to end up in the hands of Jack's greatest foe?

"A thief and a burgler, you are!" he shouted at Jack, who made a grab for the locket. Cook's arms were longer, though, and his hand, which was placed on Jack's chest, held the young boy at bay.

"That's the same thing," Jack told him as he reached for the locket, "And I'm not a thief; that's mine!"

"Not anymore," Cook laughed, pocketing his mother's most precious treasure.

"Give it back!" Jack shouted at him.

"No," Cook said, hitting Jack roughly upside the head and shoved him back at the basin. Jack hit it roughly, causing the dishes to clattering warningly, "Get back to your chores, brat. Any more complaints from you and I'll report you to the General." With that, he walked away, chuckling at his newfound present.

Jack returned to the basin, absolutely livid. He grabbed two more of Cook's knives, wrapped them as well and slid them next to the first knife.

An eye for an eye, he thought.

~~GF~~

Christmas passed with much celebration from the soldiers. This was the first Christmas away from home for most of the boys, so they tried to gather together as much as possible. Jack opened the barn as a possible meeting place for them. It was warm and rarely occupied by soldiers, so many of them gladly accepted the few hours that they weren't required to work and sat huddled together, talking of what they would be doing for Christmas.

Jack's knife collection had grown in the last week and he now had enough knives for the oldest boys of the group. He didn't tell Mary about his plan, but he let Franklin in on the knives' hiding places, just in case he wasn't able to finish his work. Franklin seemed excited that Jack was going so against the Red Coats and enthusiastically offered to help Jack steal other weapons from the soldiers. Jack declined, worried that Franklin would get caught. He was still stealing food and Jack felt that was enough.

Before the new year, Franklin contracted an illness and Jack and Mary had to work hard to get all the chores done in his stead. He was too unwell to move, so this meant Jack had to go without rolls while Franklin was down-and-out for the count.

After a few days, Cook started to notice the missing knives. He called the General in to complain to him, "I had more knives than this ruddy pile," Cook told the General angrily.

"I realize you are upset, Francis, but this is hardly the sort of thing you would normally concern a general with."

"I understand, sir, and I apologize for taking your time," Cook started ruefully. He turned to where Jack was washing dishes and pointed a sausage finger at him, "But I know he's got something to do with it."

Jack kept quiet, trying to look innocent as he dutifully scrubbed one of the bowls.

"What proof do you have?" General Walsh asked the disgruntled cook. Cook rubbed his stubbled chin and reached a hand in his pocket, pulling out Kassandra's locket, "He tried to take this from me, naught but a few days ago. If he's capable of stealing this, a few knives would be no trouble for him."

Jack kept his head down, brushing one particularly stubborn stain on the metal bowl he was washing. He heard General Walsh's large shoes pounding quietly toward him. Only when Walsh was right next to him did Jack look up at him, trying to act surprised at his sudden appearance. The general was carrying a switch with him.

"I thought we might have made it clear with your last punishment that you were not to take things that don't belong to you," the general spoke in a dangerously hushed tone.

"I didn't take anything," Jack said, returning his eyes to his bowl, "I only clean what's in the basin. Maybe he misplaced the knives or something."

"That's the stupidest excuse I've ever heard," Cook yelled at Jack.

Jack, finally having enough, threw the dirtied rag into the soapy water, splashing himself and the general. "Hey, idiot, did you even bother looking for the knives before you assumed that I took them?"

Jack was hit at the back of his neck with the switch, though it wasn't as hard as Jack knew the general was capable of hitting. He turned to look at Walsh, who held the switch up in warning.

"You will never again address your masters in such tones," he warned angrily, his eyes flashing. He paused for a moment and his voice switched instantly from rage to casual as he directed his next thought at Cook, "Although he does pose a good question. Did you look for the knives?"

"Well, no," Cook admitted. He turned to his work station under Walsh's watch and started moving his materials around on the counter, searching under jars and barrels.

"Oh," he said, holding up two knives that he found underneath a container of spices. Jack smiled behind their backs; he had thought ahead a long time ago. For every three knives he stole, he would hide another knife for Cook to find. If Cook assumed that he was merely losing the knives himself, he would make the educated theory that any extra knives that were missing from his stock would turn up eventually. In reality, however, Jack would have them hiding away in the barn, waiting until his escape plan was flawlessly formulated.

"There you have it, then." General Walsh said with finality. Before he turned to leave, he spoke to Jack, "Of all the slaves in this encampment, you are the one whom I am watching the hardest. I suggest that you keep your mind on your work and nothing else. Otherwise, it will not only be you who pays the price for your disobedience. You have a younger brother with you, am I correct? It would be a shame if something were to happen to him."

With that, he swept out of the dining tent, leaving a speechless Jack and Cook in his wake.

~~GF~~

This chapter is a bit shorter today—only about five pages. Sorry about that! The next chapter will be a bit longer, so this seemed like a good place to finish this chapter.

For those who want something to do while they wait for my next chapter can check out my one-shot Return of the Guardian's story called "In the Blink of an Eye"! :)

Reviews, as always, are so very appreciated!