Chapter 1: Busted

So, whaddya wanna know? Wanna know about the greatest adventure of my life? Loved it? Hated it? Glad I went on it? Well, I can't just tell you one answer. There's just so much to talk about, but how am I supposed to know you will believe me? I mean, traveling to Disney -and I'm not talking about Florida, California, Hong Kong, Tokyo, or France- I mean the actual Disney. Going through different worlds, meeting familiar characters, and even playing small roles in their stories? Sounds like I got a hold of the wrong stuff and dreamt it all, right?

Well, that is where'd you'd be wrong.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me introduce myself: Francesca Cole -just call me Frankie- Guardian of Disney. And I know what you're thinking; what is a Guardian? Well, that's kind of a long story. Then again, that's probably why you're here, right? To know my story, to know how exactly I became Guardian, to know how I went on the best adventure of my life and eventually did a complete 180.

Let me set the scene:

New York City: Busy, messy, sometimes rude, pretty at night, and nobody gets any sleep because of the traffic. Yep, that's my home. Now, you're probably thinking that I was some quote-unquote "normal girl" who tried to fit in even though nobody wanted her around or wanted to be famous in the big city. Well, wrong again! I was anything but normal. Middle child of three and a bit of a rambunctious troublemaker. But I was raised by the infamous rule of all troublemakers: You're only in trouble if you get caught. Which is kind of how everything happened.

One particular night in August, my friends Alex, Pearl, and I decided to have some fun just before we head back to the soul-crushing, spirit-destroying Hellhole known as high school in two weeks. And our version of fun was as simple as it could get: Simple art. We jumped across rooftop to rooftop like a trio of ninjas until we came across our perfect canvas: An abandoned blank billboard.

"This is perfect." I stated before turning to the only guy in our group. "Alex, you packing?"

Alex gave a smirk before digging into his backpack and pulling out two small cans of paint and a small tube.

"Oils or acrylics?" he asked Pearl and I as he showed us the paint cans.

"Acrylics wash away." Pearl stated. "Oil us up."

Alex gave a nod before taking a pocketknife and cutting a slit into the oil paint can lid and jamming the tube into the hole. He quickly turned to Pearl for confirmation about a specific question.

"You got the balloons, right?"

"Depends." Pearl started as she dug into her pocket in her jacket and pulled out a pack of balloons while pointing a thumb at me. "Does her dad sell lamps from the 70's?"

Alex smirked as Pearl threw him the packet of balloons and started filling them up with oil paint. It didn't take long for half of the balloons to get filled up with paint and split evenly among the three of us.

"Lady and gentleman," I smirked as I aimed a balloon towards the blank billboard. "Let's load 'em up."

We then proceeded to throw the balloons at the billboard, every burst onto the blank white canvas into an assortment of colors. We were making art in our simplest form: vandalism. It was the only thing we seemed to bond over. Well, that and Disney movies. We always made sure to try to incorporate that into our art in any way we could. Heck, one time, Pearl once painted a whole mural of Hades, the villain from my favorite Disney movie Hercules and who also happened to be her favorite villain, during one of our taggings. We were dedicated to our art and our love of our Disney movies, and that's something to love, right?

Well, others didn't really think that that was such a good thing. You see, we were still breaking the law and vandalizing city property. Unused city property, but city property. And if our nosy neighbor Mr. Charles Esme didn't bust us for vandalizing, the cops would. And we had a particular cop that loved seeing us get into trouble.

"Hey, what're doin' up there!"

Speak of the devil.

The three of us stopped our paint-bombing when we saw a flashlight light up towards us, and a pencil-nosed, pencil-thin cop that wreaked of dead fish -who we call Officer Fishbreath for obvious reasons- was looking up at us angrily for our newest art piece to the city: a flying lantern that looked exactly liked the ones in Tangled.

"Run for it!" Pearl shouted as she hurled Alex's backpack at him.

We were completely and utterly screwed now. Alex threw me his backpack for some reason, and we bolted as fast as we could. The three of us ran to the opposite side of the roof to try to avoid getting arrested by Fishbreath. And sneaking down the fire escape proved useless when we saw the cop chasing after us. We booked it down an alley, but while Pearl and I managed to jump a fence, Alex got his left pants cuff caught on the top rail spikes.

"Frankie, I'm stuck!" he called out to me.

I rushed back to the fence and tried my best to pull him free. "I gotcha, Al!" I told him. "You're gonna be okay, I promise!"

I was determined to get him free out of the fence without him getting hurt, but my promise was broken when the taser hit Alex in the leg. I dropped him in shock, Pearl staring in horror at our situation. Fishbreath came out from behind a corner, his taser still on Alex -who was on the ground twitching from the shock- and aimed his gun at Pearl and me. He did realize that this was considered child endangerment, right? Regardless of what we did, we were just stupid kids doing stupid things.

"Hands where I can see 'em!" Fishbreath barked at us.

Pearl and I slowly raised our hands, one of mine still holding Alex's partially zipped backpack.

"Wait, we're just innocent kids!" I said as I tried to reason with the cop.

And as if the universe just loved screwing with us, the paint cans comedically fell out of Alex's backpack along with some of the balloons that we didn't get to throw. The balloons burst open as soon as they hit the pavement, staining my old shoes with orange oil paint and purple acrylics. Fishbreath glanced at the shoes before looking back at Pearl and me. The two of us gulped, knowing that we were so massively screwed.

"Whoops." we muttered.

One Hour Later

Well, it didn't take long until the three of us were busted out of our holding cell in the local police department. Unfortunately for us, we were bailed out by the most unbelievable, high expectation having, person the entire city of New York has given within the span of 45 years:

My mother.

I should've known she'd bail us out the moment the cops unlocked their single cell in their department to let Alex, Pearl, and I go free after an hour-and-a-half of being locked up. And I know what you're thinking: I should be happy knowing that my mom cares about me so much that she would be there to bail my friends and I out of jail should the occasion call for it. And I would, if she didn't say what happened next.

"Are you kids okay?" my mom asked the three of us as we were escorted outside.

"We're fine, Mom." I assured her as the cop left to go back inside the precinct.

Pearl nodded in agreement. "Yeah, we're okay, Mrs. C."

"Good." my mom said calmly before turning into angry mom mode. "Then what were you three knuckleheads thinking?!"

"We just wanted to have some fun." Alex said as he flinched in fear.

"Yeah, and Frankie was too scared to do it." Pearl said.

I gave her an offended look. "No, I wasn't!"

"Alex, Pearl, this doesn't concern you, and you're lucky I won't tell your parents you were vandalizing city property again." Mom said before angrily glaring at me. "Frankie, on the other hand, is in bigger trouble."

Mom then dragged us into her car and angrily drove us off to take us home. After dropping off Alex and Pearl to their homes -an apartment building a block away from mine- Mom drove me back to our home, which rested on top of my dad's shop. Dad made himself a living selling and repairing both used and old appliances. Mainly the ones from the 60s and 70s, but there were a few gems from the 40s too. And you'd be surprised to know how many people appreciated the older appliances, and that's sort of why Dad bought the shop underneath our apartment building.

We all lived there with the soon-to-be college student Ty, my older brother and Mom's favorite kid. But don't let the good grades, perfect attendance record, or interest in dentistry fool you, Ty was literally the worst and quite the spoiled brat. Worst of all, he'd hide his true colors away from Mom so he could keep being the golden child. Yeah, the lady of the house always wanted me to be as "perfect" as he was.

Speaking of houses, once we were in the apartment, Mom furiously rushed me to our kitchen to find my dad hard at work fixing an old Hoover model vacuum. She was determined that Dad would give me a suitable punishment or a yell after what I had done.

"Hey, Frankie. How was your day?" Dad asked me as he looked up from the vacuum.

"I-"

"She and her little friends did it again." Mom rudely interrupted me. "Throwing water balloons full of paint on a billboard!"

"Did you really?" Dad asked with an interested smile on his face. "What'd you paint this time?"

"Ed!" Mom shouted his name.

Dad stifled a small laugh as he rephrased himself. "I mean, that was very wrong, indeed, Frankie. Very wrong of you."

I gave a small smirk knowing that he didn't really mind that I was trying to have a bit of fun.

"Oh, honestly, you're really going to give her that crap?" Mom told him in a very unamused way. "She vandalized city property!"

"Carol, we were like that when we were her age." Dad tried to assure her. "Heck, my buddies and I used to rearrange letters on signs to make them say stupid things."

"This isn't about what you did, Ed. It's about what Frankie did."

"Mom, we just wanted to have some fun before school started up again." I interrupted. "Besides, we were fine until Fishbreath showed up."

"Stop calling that police officer Fishbreath." Mom scolded me. "And if you wanted to do something fun, do what your brother did."

"Which one? The baby or the prodigal son?" I gave a snarky remark.

Yeah, Ty wasn't my only brother. I had a baby brother named Leo, and like Ty, he was favored by my mother. But he's barely a year old, so I guess he gets a pass.

"Don't get smart with me, young lady!" Mom snapped at me furiously. "When Ty was your age, he never did anything to get into trouble with his friends. They all went to movies or had study nights together. They didn't vandalize things!"

"Ty so did stupid stuff with his friends!" I snapped back. "And half the stuff he did, he blamed on me!"

Yeah, Ty wasn't as perfect as my mom made him sound. In fact, take everything bad that I did and double the trouble with Ty. He used to sneak beer and drugs into the apartment when our parents weren't home countless times. And if Mom saw what was left over, take a lucky guess who was blamed for it. That's right… yours truly.

"Your brother would never do such a thing." Mom said defensively.

"He knows, that's why he blamed me."

"You know what? I've just about had it with you." she said, the final straw now being drawn. "Until school starts back up in a few weeks, you are grounded!"

I stared at her wide-eyed. "What?!"

"No tv, no sneaking out, no friends!" she began to list the things I couldn't do now. "And I think it's best that you stayed home alone when we move Ty into his college dorm. Maybe then you'll learn some responsibility."

I growled as I stormed off to my loft room, not caring about my punishment. "Fine with me so long as I don't have to hear another unbearing comparison of me and him."

"Francesca Cole!" Mom shouted in an offended tone.

"You know, if you didn't want a screw up for a daughter, maybe you should've stayed on the pill!" I yelled the last word before slamming the door shut behind me.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love my family. I really do. But when you constantly have to live in the shadow of a supposed "perfect" older brother and a perfect baby brother, the feeling of being constantly upstaged will always be there. And Mom just makes things worse by the reminders of what Señor Perfecto Tyler does or has done compared to the things my friends and I like to do.

And speaking of friends, a few minutes after I cooled down from the argument, my old rotary phone that sat on my bedside table rang. My dad gave me one for my 16th birthday because he and I both had a love for old appliances. But don't worry, I still had a cell phone. So, I'm not completely old-fashioned.

"Cole residence." I answered the phone.

"Hey, girl." Pearl's voice called from the other line. "How's it going?"

"Grounded. Big time." I told her.

"For how long?" she asked in an unsurprised way.

"Until school starts." I answered her. "I swear, it's like she doesn't even care about me having fun or having a life if I'm not gonna end up like Ty."

"You, my friend, are living a Cinderella life." Pearl stated.

"Yeah, but instead of an evil stepmother, I'm stuck with an evil mother." I sighed as I laid down on my bed. "Y'know, I actually wish my life was like a Disney movie. Maybe then I wouldn't be treated like some third-rate child."

"What about your dad?" Pearl asked. "What did he say?"

"Well, he stopped himself fixing up an old vacuum when I walked in,"

"As usual."

"And he didn't blow his top off or anything." I finished. "I swear, he was previously married to someone else when I was born before he married my mom."

"Yeah, your dad's honestly the best." Pearl said. "Unlike mine who doesn't even know I exist."

Yeah, unlike the relationship I have with my dad, Pearl unfortunately lives with a work obsessed dad who hardly pays any attention to her. She still has her mom, but her dad somehow won Pearl over in their divorce. No one really knows why though. Her mom's the better parent.

"At least Alex has his moms to look out for him." I said with a shrug before asking about our other friend. "How's he doing anyway?"

"It'll take more than a taser shot to put him down." Pearl answered.

"Good."

I heard a door open on the other end of the phone. "Gotta blaze, the old man's home."

"If he notices you tell him I say hi." I told her.

"Can do. Good luck with solitary confinement." Pearl then bid me a farewell before hanging up the phone.

"Thanks." I said to her. And with that, both phones were now hung up.

I decided to put pajamas on and get myself into bed after this crazy night and pulled out my sketchbook of the many drawings I've made of Disney heroes and princesses from my bedside table to try to get a new sketch or two in before I turned in for the night. But just when I was about to crawl under my blankets and start drawing, I heard someone knocking on my door.

I huffed when I assumed who was behind the door and put my sketchbook back on the side table. "Go away, Mom!"

"Not your mom." my dad said as he opened my door a little.

My face slightly fell when I realized my mistake. "Hey, Dad."

"So, what did your friends and you paint tonight?"

"Floating lantern."

"Putting the old telephone to good use I see." he told me as he sat down on my bed.

You see, whenever my friends and I got busted for our painting projects, they'd always contact me through the rotary phone so my mom wouldn't take away my cell phone if she ever found out. But the only other person who knew about my little trick was my dad, which you could obviously tell.

"Are you gonna tell Mom?" I asked sheepishly.

Dad gave me a smile and a wink. "I'm her husband, I don't have to tell her anything about you that I don't want to talk about."

I gave a sigh of relief and a small smile. "Thanks."

"Look, I know she's hard on you, but she just wants to look out for you."

"It doesn't feel like it."

"I know. Heck, your grandpa was the same way when I was your age."

"But she's been like this since the moment I opened my eyes." I told him about my problem with Mom. "All it ever is with her is "Ty this, Ty that" or "Frankie, why can't you be more like your brother Ty?" I'm sick of it!"

"Well, you don't have to be like Ty." Dad tried to assure me. "You can be someone better."

I rolled my eyes. "Like who?"

"Well, like one of these." he suggested as he handed me my sketchbook of the many drawings I've made of Disney heroes and princesses. "You know everything there is to know about these characters, so maybe if you start acting like one of them, maybe your mom might go easy on you."

"I don't know."

Dad gave another small smile as he gently nudged a knuckle against my cheek. "Hey, you've just gotta give yourself some time…"

I rolled my eyes as a smile crept on my face to finish the quote from A Bug's Life. ""I'm still a seed.""

Yup. You all can see why exactly I like to keep my painting and art projects strictly Disney. Other than old appliances and stuff, it was another thing my dad and I could bond over. Quoting, trivia, you name it. Disney was our thing, and I loved that about us.

"That's my girl." Dad said before giving me a kiss on the forehead and headed out of my room.

"I love you, Daddy." I told him as I took off my glasses and tucked myself into bed.

"Love you too, sweetheart." Dad said as he shut my door and turned off my light.