Sandy was getting frustrated. He had half a mind to stop in Burgess, visit a certain abandoned bed in the middle of the woods, and have a friendly chat with a certain unsuspecting Boogeyman. Who else could be responsible for all of his dreamsand being rejected? Giving dreams to every child in the world was quite a tiring task, and there he was, trying to do his job only to find his work to return to him void.
The tiniest thing could have made him snap. Some very unflattering pictures of the Boogeyman fluttered above his head as he heard someone approaching. He prepared a sand whip because he was especially angry that night. No good dreams had been given to kids in three weeks, can you believe it? Without looking, the Sandman whipped at something from behind him.
"Sandy! What was that for?" a familiar voice called.
Sandy dropped the whips and turned around to face Jack. Pictures flew above Sandy's head at the speed of light. He hoped that Jack got the message.
"Yeah, Sandy. I get it, you're stressed out. North told me," Jack replied.
The winter spirit would never understand how happy it made Sandy to be understood. He recalled a time three years ago when the Guardians had met at the North Pole. He was waving, jumping, signaling like mad to get the Guardians' attention, but the only thing that could get them to look at him was when he grabbed an elf and shook its bell to make a sound. Silence was such a roadblock sometimes. Above his head he showed a question mark, a picture of Jack, North at the North Pole, and himself.
"I was getting to that. To sum it up, Jamie's dead, and I went to North for help."
Sandy's mouth fell open, and an inaudible scream came out… or didn't come out. You get the point. More pictures flashed above his golden blonde hair. By now, Jack had decided to sit down on Sandy's golden dreamsand cloud like a patient at his therapist. The pictures shown were Jamie's face, a knife, a gas mask, a mysterious man, and another question mark.
Jack shook his head. "No, he wasn't killed with a knife. Actually, he was kidnapped and placed in a coffin, where he almost suffocated. Then, when people found him, they rushed him to the hospital after a few hours. The paramedics couldn't revive him." Jack was getting really tired of telling this story. He just handed Sandy the front page of the newspaper so that he could read what happened.
Seriously. How was Jack supposed to move on with the case if every five minutes, he having to retell Jamie's tragic story to someone who was out of the loop? After Sandy had finished reading, Jack asked, "So… I wanted to get some information from you about Grimm."
Sandy raised an eyebrow, giving Jack a questioning glance. "I met him and Mother Nature at the North Pole earlier today when I went to talk to North. So… do you know anything about him?" Before Jack could ask another question, Sandy took a ball of dreamsand and threw it in Jack's face. Before Jack could say another word, he was out like a light. He slept soundly on Sandy's dreamsand cloud.
In Jack's dream, he was somewhere extremely dark. He was familiar with the Sandman's dream techniques, but this dream seemed to have a mind of its own. It took him wherever it wanted to go, and as far as Jack knew, that place was nowhere. He heard low whispers all around him. Jack went to protect himself with his staff, only to find that it was missing. Suddenly, he felt bare, like one of his limbs was missing. His dream self drifted through the darkness.
All of a sudden, he heard a familiar, yet bored voice. "Number seventeen, what did I tell you about sneaking out without my permission?" Grimm? Jack thought. Sure enough, the blackness parted to reveal that Jack was within Grimm's realm, that he had appropriately named the Underworld. It was slightly luxurious, what with the red velvet carpets and curtains, but it was almost too dark for Jack to see them. The only thing that gave him light was the torches of blue fire that were on the walls or hung from the chandelier in the ceiling.
As dream Jack looked around, he saw that he was in a long corridor. At one end, he could see Grimm scolding one of his de-animated corpse helpers, and the other end revealed thousands of doors. He couldn't help it if he was curious. Who wouldn't be? There were a thousand doors! Of course, there was no time to check them all out. Besides, who knew what horrors awaited behind those closed doors? An army of skeletons?
He returned his attention to Grimm and the skeleton. He inched past velvety chairs with golden frames and hid behind Grimm's throne. Grimm stiffened as if he had sensed the winter spirit, and Jack paused cautiously. When Grimm relaxed, so did Jack, and Grimm continued scolding the skeleton. Jack peered around the throne and stared at Grimm. He appeared at least ten feet taller when he was in his own realm.
The skeleton was a different story. He was actually disturbed by what he saw. Not afraid, just disturbed. The skeleton was wearing a pair of skinny jeans that hung too loosely on its bones, and the shirt from Abercrombie & Fitch wasn't exactly being worn by the attractive all American kid, if you know what I mean. Apparently, Skeleton Number Seventeen was actually a teenage girl…skeleton…thing. "To not to," Skeleton Number Seventeen said sullenly.
Grimm snorted and conjured up a spell. The corpse became skin, flesh, and bone, albeit pale skin. Now, Skeleton Number Seventeen had short, curly orange hair that stuck out to the sides. Not red, orange. Grimm flung a large top hat back at her, and Skeleton Number Seventeen squealed with glee and hugged the hat as if it were her only joy in life… afterlife. Whatever.
Grimm stood up from his throne with one last hesitation before walking down the corridor and disappearing behind one of the doors. Jack cautiously escaped from his hiding place behind the throne as Skeleton Number Seventeen walked away. "What the heck was that?" Jack muttered, maybe a bit too loudly.
Skeleton Number Seventeen whipped around. She saw Jack, and her blood red irises stared at him quizzically. Was this a new skeleton that Grimm hadn't told her about? He sure looked like one in the blue light, what with his thin frame and pale skin. Oh no! She had scared the new guy! She could tell because he was quaking slightly, and he was slowly trying to edge away from her gaze. "Hiya!" she said. Whoops. Too perky. "You must be the new guy. I'm Svetlana Seventeen, and I'm crazy. Who are you?"
Jack stared. Should he lie and say he was lost so he could get out of there? Should he tell the truth so she could help him escape? He honestly didn't want her help; she was too creepy. "I'm Jack," he responded, keeping it simple.
Svetlana squealed. "Jack? Jack as in Jack Sparrow? Is that an alias?" she gasped. "Are you Johnny Depp? Oh My Grimm, Oh My Grimm! I love Johnny Depp. I even died my hair and curled it to look like his hair in one of his movies, see?" Jack stared in horror as Svetlana pointed to her orange corkscrew hair. "And- and I snuck on the set and got his top hat. Isn't it amazing?" He had actually met one. A real life, flesh and bone, fan girl. Of all the disturbing things he had seen, this was by far at the top of the list.
She gasped again. "Are we on the set of one of your movies? Sorry, Mr. Depp, sir. I'll get out of your shot!" she said, about to hurry away. How embarrassing! Getting in the middle of a movie shot of all things. Had she really gone that low?
Jack grabbed her arm. "No! No, my name really is Jack."
Svetlana nodded her head as if she understood. "Oh, I get it. You celebrities need your privacy. So, you're Johnny Depp incognito, right?"
Jack shook his head disbelievingly. How could she be so oblivious to the fact that he looked nothing like Johnny Depp? "No, my name really is Jack!" he said, a bit more forcefully.
"Oh, okay, Jack," she said, winking obviously. Jack sighed. "What can I do for you?"
There was no way around it. "I've been stuck here in a dream, and I need to get out. Can you help me?"
Svetlana nodded and began leading him to one of the strange doors at the end of the corridor. "That's the funny thing about dreams. You think you're dreaming, but everything feels so real, right?" She stared at the ceiling strangely. "I mean, I'm real, right? I know I'm not a figment of your imagination because the me right now is just a projection."
"A projection?" He hadn't meant to strike up a conversation with this oddball, but he couldn't help it. This was interesting stuff.
Svetlana nodded as they turned a corner. Jack noticed that her feet were barely touching the ground, and she was glowing with a strange blue light. It must have had something to do with that spell that Grimm had cast on her. "Right now, I'm millions of miles away, and so are you. When you dream, the people you see inside of your dreams are real people, but they are just projections. In a way, they allow people to be in two places at the same time."
"Can everyone 'project' or whatever?" Jack asked.
"Everyone, with a little practice. Projection is an art. I'm just a rookie, but when you started to dream that you were here, the projection came naturally. I can also project my projection, but it requires much more of my strength. Watch," she said. Suddenly, Jack felt as if he had crossed his eyes. Svetlana now had a second Svetlana standing next to her. The first tilted her head, and the second did so as well. Freaky.
"See, there is one side effect of projecting. Since it requires a lot of energy to project outside of a dream, I would have to sleep for long amounts of time. But, since I'm essentially just a skeleton, I don't sleep. I think that there was another one, but I kind of forgot it. Maybe I grew out of it."
"So, every time you project outside of a dream, you're just draining yourself?" Jack asked. This projection information was interesting. Could someone really use projection to be in two places at once? A thought occurred to Jack. Whoever was in the cemetery with them, probably the 'Blocked Number' guy, wouldn't have left any footprints if he were a projection. He put a hand out to touch Svetlana's second projection to check his theory. Sure enough, his hand passed through.
"Yep. I know that I can't sleep because I've already tried everything. I've even touched some of Sandy's dreamsand, but it just falls through my fingers." Suddenly, she sighed wistfully. "Are his dreams really as nice as they say?"
"Yeah, yeah, they're great. Now, which one of these doors leads out of here?" Jack asked, impatient. He needed to get out of there! He and Sophie needed to look over those papers they found in Jamie's backpack for anything helpful. The sooner that he got out of that dream with that Wackadoo, the sooner he could get to Sophie.
Stubbornly, Svetlana ignored him. "I was only able to try it a couple times. Grimm doesn't like it when I leave the realm. I don't know if you heard him earlier, but boy was he mad at me! I snuck out to go see that new movie, The Lone Ranger, with a couple of my other friends, but the Reaper Guards caught us as we were coming back. I got it the worst though. I'm supposed to be the oldest. 1,700 years of living in the realm is supposed to make you wiser, but I think it just makes you insane, being cooped up and all, and-"
"Svetlana, you're rambling," Jack commented, using Sophie's phrase. Maybe, if he could find some way to ditch her, he could find the exit by himself. Was she really this scatterbrained? And what about all those mood swings? One minute, she was light and airy, and the next she was brooding and mysterious.
"Fine," she grumbled. She turned a quick corner, and opened a small door. It was about the size of a mouse hole, and there was no way Jack could fit through it. His hand couldn't even fit through it! "Get through there, and you'll be back wherever you came from."
"What the heck! I can't fit through there!" Jack was getting fed up with this girl. She was most definitely a piece of work.
Svetlana huffed. "I was going to tell you how to get through it, but you cut me off because I was 'rambling'. Now, if you don't mind," she said, glaring at Jack pointedly. "I would like to show you how to get out."
She closed her eyes and focused. The second projection of her began to shrink, and the first Svetlana began to glow a blue color. The second Svetlana squeezed through the tiny mouse door and made it to the other side. "There," Svetlana said proudly, opening her eyes. "I just showed you how to get through the door."
"…But you're still here," Jack said bluntly.
"Well, duh. If you were listening, I told you that I wasn't allowed to leave the realm. If I were to actually leave the realm, I would just appear back here, thanks to the spell Grimm put on me."
"So, how do I get to the other side, then? I don't know how to project," Jack said. At this comment, Svetlana grabbed onto Jack's shoulders. Her eyes glowed a pale blue color, and Jack felt like his atoms were splitting in two. If they were to join back together, would Jack explode like an Atom Bomb? She took her hands off of Jack's shoulders, and she waved.
Why was she waving from up there? Why was she so big? It literally took Jack seconds to realize that she had shrunk Jack's dream projection to fit through the door. He quickly passed through it and saw Svetlana's second projection on the other side. He uttered a quick thank you as she gave an impatient huff, and he awoke.
When he awoke, Jack was on his pond. How he had gotten there, he didn't know. Did he fall off of Sandy's dreamsand cloud somewhere along the ride? "Ugh, I feel like I was stuffed into some sort of box," Jack groaned as he stood and stretched. He looked around and grabbed his staff, glad to have it back within his grasp. The sun was already far above the horizon that mysterious Monday morning. Monday, Jack thought. Sophie has school. How were they going to investigate if Sophie was in school, learning about who knew what?
That problem had a simple fix. Jack decided to give the town a surprise snow day even though it was a little late. As the snow fell and the inches piled on, Jack flew to the Bennett house. Inside, little Sophie was already awake.
It had been hard for her to fall asleep. After all, the night that she'd had was pretty exhilarating. But, that pattern that Pippa was talking about sounded familiar. She had tossed and turned all night. As Pippa described the symbol, Sophie had had no trouble picturing it in her mind. But how? Had she seen it somewhere before? Had Jamie done a report on it for school one year?
Suddenly, a memory hit Sophie like a boulder, and she sat up in her bed quickly. Jamie's backpack, she thought, her eyes widening in epiphany.
Jamie had come home from school by way of the bus like he had always done. He entered the house, his muddy shoes getting wet dirt all over the floor. He flung off his backpack and dashed into the kitchen, rummaging through the fridge. "Soph, could you put my bag up for me?" he asked.
Sophie rolled her eyes at his laziness. Where would he be without her and her mother? She hefted his backpack up off the floor, and she carefully carried it to the laundry room. She set it down and was about to head out when something caught her eye.
Don't get me wrong; Sophie had seen her brother's backpack many times before. There wasn't really anything special about it. It was a blue bag with multiple pockets and zippers. There were a few doodles here and there, but nothing that really made it stand out. Today, however, there was a small symbol in the corner.
It was small enough to not be noticed unless you were really looking at it, but it was large enough for you to see it well. There was a perfect circle drawn in brown Sharpie in the bottom right corner of the bag, as if it had been traced a with stencil. A lighter color brown divided the circle and made it look like a yin yang. Two small brown dots were located outside of the circle, one lighter and the other darker.
As Sophie stared at it, her eyes became foggy, and her mind was less focused. She decided that the symbol was just something that Jamie had drawn while he was bored, and the fogginess was just the beginning of a head ache. She left the bag on the washing machine, turned off the light, and left the room.
Every now and then Sophie would sneak a peak at the strange symbol. Later that month, Sophie was diagnosed with dyslexia.
"…But, that memory doesn't make sense," Sophie said aloud. "The backpack that we found in the graveyard didn't have that symbol on it. No one could have washed it off because it still had all those other doodles on it." But it also didn't have the flash drive in it either. It seemed like almost everything that could've been in his locker was in that bag. "…Unless that bag wasn't really Jamie's backpack. Maybe, they buried Jamie with his actual backpack, but whoever dug up Jamie's grave wasn't looking for his flash drive. They were trying to get to his backpack! And- and if they took Jamie's actual backpack, then the papers that we have came from the decoy."
At that exact moment, Jack appeared at Sophie's window, bringing dark snow clouds with him. She sprang out of bed and threw up her window, glad that she was still awake enough to tell Jack her discovery. "Well, there goes my theory," Jack grumbled.
"Huh?"
Jack recounted his adventure during the night, explaining projections and other nonsense to Sophie. He told her his theory about how whoever dug up Jamie's grave must've been a projection, and he warned her to avoid insane, fan girl skeletons. "So, what do we do now?"
Sophie sighed. "Well, I've got to go to school…" she trailed off.
Jack looked at Sophie playfully. "I thought you knew me better than that, Soph. Have a little faith," he said, punching her in the arm lightly. "Check out your window."
She looked outside and saw that there were inches piled upon feet of snow outside. No one would dare hold school in weather like that, and more importantly, no one would be outside to interrupt their investigation. It was a winter wonderland outside. Sophie smiled to herself. It was awesome. She quickly hugged Jack and dashed inside of her bathroom to change clothes.
When she returned, she was fully equipped for the snow day, but she was not going to be playing in the snow that day. She was wearing an all white outfit so that she would blend in better if she had to hide. The all black that she had been wearing the night before would have been a poor choice. "Mom! I'm going over to Macy's today! There's no school," Sophie called as she ran downstairs. Jack was going to be waiting for her outside, and they had to get started investigating early.
"Y-yeah, sure. Have fun," her sleepy mother answered from her bedroom. She must've cried herself to sleep last night. Sophie felt bad, but she was going to find out who killed Jamie. And when she did, her mother wouldn't be so sad anymore. It was perfect logic, duh.
Sophie ran outside, looked around to make sure that the coast was clear, and dashed into her backyard. There Jack was, waiting for her. "How'd you get out of the house so fast?" He didn't think Sophie's mother would be very enthusiastic to let her child go so quickly after she lost her first one.
"I told her I was going over to Macy's house," Sophie quipped.
"Macy?" Jack asked. He had never heard Sophie talk about her before.
Sophie shook her head at Jack's apparent confusion "She doesn't exist. I made her up to get out of the house. Now, we need to get back to that cemetery."
"You want to check out that backpack again? In broad daylight?" Jack asked incredulously.
Sophie scoffed at Jack. "Of course not! Don't be ridiculous. I want to check out the site again."
No better idea was proposed, and the wind flew the duo the cemetery. They touched down. Jack hadn't been in this area of Burgess, so the ground still had no snow. Their feet crunched on the ground as they walked back toward Jamie's grave. Jack stared at the pile of dirt that he had seen the night before. If he squinted hard enough, the dirt appeared to glow with a strange blue light. It looked familiar, but he couldn't place it.
Sophie proceeded to go around the base of the headstone. "Aha!"
"Aha what?" Jack asked, coming around to Sophie's side. "What did you see?"
"I couldn't see it last night. If we use your theory about Grimm and my theory about the backpack, we can be one step closer to solving this case. Look all around the base of the stone. See how it glows with a really faint blue light? That tells me that your theory about the projections could be true. Since Grimm isn't a skeleton, it wouldn't require a lot of energy for him to project himself. That means that at the same time that he was at the North Pole, he could have been projecting part of himself over here."
"And that would mean that he could be in two places at once! If he were here digging up the backpack while I was at the Pole, he could have switched them out, and we never would have guessed. But, wait. That could also mean that the projection of him was solid. I've touched a projection, and it wasn't solid," Jack said ponderously.
"Well, there goes that theory. But, if a projection has to be solid, why is there blue light surrounding the grave? What else could have caused it?" Sophie asked. They stood there in quiet silence for a while. If anyone had passed by, they would have assumed that Sophie had paused to take a moment of silence to remember her brother. What was actually happening was that Sophie was feeling like she had run into a dead end.
All of a sudden, a new hope sprang up in Jack. "Wait, if there's a decoy in that grave, then Jamie's real backpack has to be somewhere. We just have to find it."
Sophie agreed. Quickly, she turned to Jack. "If we're going to find out who killed Jamie, we need to solve this mystery like Jamie would. If you were Jamie pretending to be Jamie's killer, where would you hide that backpack?"
Jack arched an eyebrow. "Are you okay? You sound tired. That last question didn't even make any sense."
Sophie scowled. "I had a rough night, okay? Deal with it," she said harshly.
"Note to self: Always let Sophie get twelve hours of sleep," Jack mumbled to himself.
Sophie didn't hear, and Jack was glad. He would hate to feel the full wrath of a five year old genius. "Where to now?" she asked. All of her suggestions had come to dead ends, or so she thought. Either way, the duo's next objective was to find Jamie's real backpack.
"Back to Jamie's room," Jack said decidedly. "I remember seeing it there when I landed in Burgess yesterday morning." When Jack had first seen the backpack, he hadn't thought much of it. Why would he have? He hadn't even known that Jamie was dead. Now that Jack thought about it, he realized that the backpack was more important than they thought.
What if it wasn't us that the 'Blocked Number' guy was watching? What if it was the backpack? Jack thought. It was possible that whoever killed Jamie was also the one who dug up Jamie's grave to switch the backpacks. If so, he probably couldn't get to the real backpack while Jack and Sophie were in the house, so he distracted them to get the duo off his trail. That would mean that while Jack and Sophie were digging up the decoy, the 'Blocked Number' guy could have been inside, retrieving the real backpack.
Since Jamie asked to be buried with his backpack, it would be extremely suspicious if an identical one was found in his room. But, why was the backpack so important? Jack knew. It was the flash drive that they were all after because it would reveal all of the answers. They raced on the wind through the sky back toward the Bennett house.
The sight that greeted the duo's eyes once they reached the late boy's room was astounding. It looked as though Ms. Bennett had swept into the room and practically rearranged everything. Mythology books and fairy tale books actually sat neatly on Jamie's bookshelf. When had that ever happened? All of Jamie's drawings of the Guardians had been taken down off the walls, and his clothes were placed neatly in the hamper. Textbooks sat on the desk like normal.
More importantly, Jamie's backpack was nowhere to be found. "Did your mom come through here, Soph?" Jack asked, staring in awe at the clean room. Turns out, there really was a floor in there. Who knew?
"This isn't right," Sophie frowned. "My mom couldn't have come through here. For one thing, last night, my mom couldn't even bring herself to look at this room. Also, on my way downstairs earlier, I passed by here. It was the same as yesterday."
Simultaneously, the two came to the same conclusion. "Someone snuck in here while we were in the cemetery," Jack said gravely. How could he have been so careless? He obviously didn't fly fast enough. It was completely his fault, and now he had let little Sophie down. "Look, Sophie, I'm so sorry that-"
"Sh. What are you apologizing for?" Sophie asked. "We have better things to do right now than feel sorry for ourselves." She wandered around the room, inspecting things carefully. "Whoever entered Jamie's room and cleaned it must have left some sort of clue or accidentally dropped a critical piece of information. Let's look for it."
Somehow, Jack was shocked by the young girl's hope. Now he understood why she was Bunnymund's favorite believer. He took to searching along with her, and minutes later, they turned up with nothing. "I don't get it. How could someone be stealthy enough to sneak into a second story building, steal a backpack, clean a room, and get off scot-free?" Sophie asked, frustrated.
Jack stared. It was like the answer was right under his nose, but he was too blind to see it. Literally. He was staring at a piece of paper on Jamie's desk, and his vision was all foggy.
"…And, when I went inside, I saw this piece of paper on the counter, but I couldn't read the words… somehow, it was like looking through a cloud of mist or something. Either way, I saw this pattern on the bottom of the paper."
Pippa's words bounced around in Jack's mind, and he found himself looking for a pattern on the paper. He held it up to the light, and sure enough, there was an impression on the paper. He stared at the strange impression. It was the yin yang reminiscent symbol that Pippa had described! His eyes felt like they were crossing, and he had to tear them away from the paper. "Soph! You gotta see this."
Jack handed Sophie the paper while rubbing his eyes. He was sure that he had seen some words on it, but they were all unreadable. It was like the letters were all jumbled. When he opened his eyes, everything looked fuzzy, like it was coated in a fluffy, white blanket. He shook his head, and his regular sight returned. Odd… Jack thought.
Somehow, Sophie could read it just fine. "My dyslexia usually jumbles letters around," she said. "But if the words are already jumbled, my dyslexia must make them look normal."
"So what does it say then?" Jack prodded.
Sophie cleared her throat unnecessarily and began. "Greetings, Sophie Amelia Bennett and Jackson Overland Frost. I have come to recognize you as close associates of the late Jamie Bennett, and therefore, you are of particular interest to me. Unfortunately, you have decided to undertake the Case of Jamie Bennett and the Missing Myths. This means that I can no longer protect you from my associates. I am giving you a choice. You can either give up this investigation and be safe from harm, or you can continue and face inevitable punishment. I believe that the best choice for you is obvious, but either choice benefits my colleagues and me. This is your pick. –Sincerely, B.J."
All of a sudden, Jack wasn't so sure he could go through with this investigation. He wasn't worried for himself as much as he was worried for Sophie. She wouldn't survive if they were suddenly attacked because she wasn't immortal like Jack. Sophie was not only his friend, but she was also an obligation. He was a Guardian, so by law, he was required to protect Sophie. If she were threatened, wouldn't it be his job to keep her out of harm's way?
Not only that, but Jack could feel himself losing his center. He was the Guardian of Fun, but the last two days had been the most serious of his life, well besides the Blizzard of '68. He had come down to Burgess expecting snow days, laughter, and good times. What he got was mysteries, murder, and threats. How much more could he take before he lost himself completely?
He voiced his thoughts aloud to Sophie with a serious demeanor. She stared at him a while and walked closer to him until she was standing right in front of him. Ever so gently, she reached up a tiny hand to his face. She brought it back and proceeded to slap Jack in the face multiple times until his cheeks were sore. "OW!" he screamed. "What the bloody heck was that for?"
Sophie's face was calm. "You were being an idiot," she said nonchalantly.
"Thank you Dr. Bennett for clearing that up for me," Jack said sarcastically, rolling his eyes and trying to bring feeling back into his face. "How could I ever thank you?"
"No, what I mean is, you said something really dumb. If someone is trying to stop us now, that means we must be getting really close to the truth. Come on, haven't you ever watched an old detective show? The freelance detective always gets put down by the police. Well, the detective never gives up, and he's always the one who solves the case."
Jack stared at her. "There's no way you're five."
Sophie chuckled nervously, like she had something to hide. "My mom played Beethoven and Bach when I was a baby, and I always watched old Sherlock Holmes movies with my brother. Stuff like that sharpens your critical thinking skills. Now, we have to keep working on this case."
Jack took the paper back. He didn't want to risk looking at the symbol again for fear of what it did to his eyes the last time. He stuck it in his red toy sack. Instantly, he thought of something. North. He was almost positive that there was some sort of spell on that symbol. If anyone knew anything about magic, it was North. Jack recalled hearing him talk about his magic teacher, Ombric. "Soph, how would you like to take a trip to the North Pole?"
A/N: Hey guys! I'm back (even though I updated just last week XP) with a new update for y'all. Yes, I am from the South. So, the winner of the review contest for Chapters 1 and 2 was Jessica North because she came the closest with her answers. (And also because she was the only person who reviwed *tear tear*) So, she will receive the hint. Anyway, here are the culrural references for Chapter 3:
1. On one line, I talk about the corridor with one thousand doors, and I mention an army of skeletons. What idiom is this a reference to? (This might just be an American thing. I don't really know.)
2. Later, I talk about Skeleton Number Seventeen wearing an Abercrombie & Fitch shirt. I say that it isn't exactly being worn by the average, all American kid. What is this a reference to?
3. "I'm Svetlana Seventeen, and I'm crazy." What book is this quote based on? One or two words may not actually be in there though.
4. In what movie did Johnny Depp have bright orange hair? Who did he play? What year was it made?
5. Here's an obvious one. When Jack wakes up on the pond, he says something. What childhood tale is this a reference to?
Good Luck! Like before, you CAN use the internet. Please review with your answers!