Chapter 2: Making Sischief
Four-and-a-half years later…
The sun kissed the face of Arendelle Castle and enveloped its warm embrace across the kingdom, signifying the start of a new day. However, this day was particularly special. Not only was it the first day of autumn, it was also the day of the 100th Arendelle Fall Festival. Arendelle's official welcome of fall with music, food, animals, dancing, arts and crafts, games and more. It was also the first Arendelle Fall Festival Arendelle held in twelve years. Everyone in Arendelle and any visitors were overjoyed to finally have a fall festival for the first time in what felt like forever. Though no one was more excited than Arendelle's currently slumbering princess. But that would soon change.
The quiet, peacefulness of the princess' bedroom was immediately broken by the loud and shrill ringing of the alarm clock on the pink nightstand. Princess Anna's sparkly turquoise eyes fluttered open as she reached out her left hand and turned off the alarm before waking anyone else who might still be asleep, but not before accidentally knocking some of her things off the nightstand first. Satisfied at her ears no longer being assaulted by the incessant, near-deafening ring, Princess Anna, who we will call Anna for the remainder of this tale, yawned and sat up in bed trying to will herself to get up and start the day.
With her hair sticking up in all directions like a lion who just got electrocuted and a bit of dry drool on her chin, she was well aware she never exactly fit the bill of "Sleeping Beauty", (her sister often joked that the "King of the Jungle" has awoken when she saw Anna like this), but hey she was asleep, so what did it matter? And lions were awesome, so that was a bonus. Anna turned again to the clock rubbing her chin with her wrist. The time read 7:15 in the morning. Anna squinted and scratched her head messing her hair up further trying to remember why the clock was ringing this early and why she set it for that early as Anna didn't usually rise for another hour or two. All at once, Anna remembered the day and smiled and gasped.
Like a bolt of lightning, she threw off her covers, grabbed her binoculars, ran to her window and threw open the curtains letting the morning sun wash over her before looking out at the main marketplace of Arendelle just in time to see a large homemade banner with the words "100th Annual Arendelle Autumn Festival" written in red, orange and yellow paint and framed with paintings of pumpkins, leaves and cornucopias. This banner was made by the local school as evidenced by the kids' prideful smiles and stances, paint-stained clothes and faces and the fact that the banner was technically spelled "100th Anuall Arendelle Awtum Festivull". Anna giggled at the misspell, remembering the time she misspelled the Duchess Virginia of Stoutor name on a banner when she was almost eight.
Coming back to the present, Anna lifted the binoculars from her eyes with a smile and exclaimed, "It's today!" She immediately showered and dressed, only pausing to look in the mirror. Anna had her thick, strawberry blonde, mid-back length hair down with a small bun in the back, with slight blush on her beautiful, slightly rounded face and pink lipstick on. For attire, she picked out a timberwolf, wrist-length-sleeved blouse under a candy-pink flannel bodice with a blue knee-length skirt. Anna looked at her outfit with her hands on her hips and her heart-shaped lips twitched to the side of her face like it always did when she was thinking. She couldn't help but think something was missing. "Needs something yellow." Anna decided looking around the room. All of a sudden, she found the perfect thing! With a wide-open smile, she rushed to the vase of flowers the servants brought for her, plucked off a piece of wheat, ran back to the mirror and tucked it behind one of her ears. Anna put her hands back on her hips, smiled and confidentally said "Nailed it!"
Now fully dressed, Anna ran out the bedroom down the hall picking her feet up as she did so "Ahh! These hardwood floors are freezing! We should look into some hot coal floors." Anna said as her smile turned into a grimace of temperature shock and then a look of disagreement as she shook her head "Uh, on second thought, maybe not hot coal floors 'cause then we would have all burns on our feet and good luck doing anything with those. Not to mention we might not be able to wear shoes and the poor cobbler would go out of business." She said frowning in sympathy, then her smile returned "Mmmm… cobbler. I love cobbler, I hope they have some at the festival. Except Mr. Kirpatsky's Moth Ball-" her rambling was interrupted when she almost collided face first with her sister's door, that was currently closed.
Anna knocked her signature "Shave and a haircut" knock, waiting for her sister to knock "Two bits" and open the door. She repeated but still got no response. Anna put her ear by the door and gently called "Hey, Elsa? It's me, Anna. The Autumn Festival's gonna be starting in a few hours. You gonna join me for breakfast?" Anna then put her face into the crack of the door, puckered her lips and bribed in a sing-song sort of voice "I'll get the cooks to whip us up some chocolate pancakes!" She put her ear up to the door once again to wait for a response when she was interrupted by a certain childlike voice Anna would know anywhere which caused her to take her ear away from the doorcrack and looked downwards "*gasp*, I love chocolate pancakes. Or anything with chocolate really. I also love making pictures with the syrup, except for that one time I made a face and the syrup ran and made the picture scary and then I couldn't eat it. I also love the fact that it has 'cake' in the name, but we eat it for breakfast! And cake isn't a breakfast food! It's like we're breaking some kind of rule and not getting in trouble for it." Anna giggled at the assessment and this caught the attention of the speaker.
The speaker was Olaf, a magic living snowman and one of Anna and Elsa's best friends. Olaf then waved his stick arm (literally his arms were made with two sticks), smiled and jovially said "Oh, good morning, Anna! I see that you're up kinda early too." while still keeping his ear (or where his ear would be) pressed against the door crack. Anna then asked "Uh, Olaf. What are you doing?" Olaf leaned away from the door "Well, I was just walking by and I saw you playing this game so I thought I'd jump in." he said cheerfully. Olaf leaned on the door again but his smile turned into a confused look "Though candidly I'm not seeing the appeal as much" he stated matter-of-factly.
Anna giggled and gently pulled Olaf away from the door gently saying, "I wasn't playing a game without you, Olaf. I was just checking to see if Elsa was up so we would both be ready for the Arendelle Autumn Festival nice and early." Olaf's face was struck with realization as he said "Ohh." His smile then returned as he slightly lifted his stick arms and said "Well, that makes sense." Anna nodded in agreement. However, Olaf then looked at Anna slightly puzzled again. "Soo, if Elsa isn't in her room, where is she?" he asked. Anna then looked across the halls like she was getting ready to cross a street "Good question." She said not looking at him with her finger on her chin like she always did when she was thinking. Anna was hoping she wouldn't have to scope out every room in the premises if it meant getting to the festival too late.
On the other hand, Elsa would never let anyone see her sleep in any room that didn't have a bed at the risk of being seen as "unprofessional" so Anna turned her attention back to the door. Anna was not going to let her own sister sleep in too late and miss the fall festival. Anna bent down to the keyhole, looked at Olaf, held out her hand and asked with a sly smile "Olaf, may I borrow your nose for a bit?" Olaf, thinking nothing of the request, plucked off his carrot nose and handed it to her cheerfully saying "Okay." After thanking him with a smile and nod, Anna inserted the point of Olaf's nose (which she supposed was now a regular carrot after not being attached) into the keyhole to use as a lockpick. A little over a year ago, Olaf had done this trick when Anna was locked in a room, literally freezing to death and in that time had been kind enough to teach her. Sure enough, he taught her well as after a minute or two of finagling with the lock, the door quietly pushed opened before them. Anna handed Olaf his nose, which he immediately put back onto his face, and then ran back into her bedroom holding something into her fist.
True to Anna's intuition, Anna (holding something behind her back) and Olaf walked into the room find nestled under a plush blue comforter a beautiful young woman with very fair skin and long, thick blonde hair in a French braid still asleep. This was Elsa. Olaf climbed onto the bed and enjoyed the feel of the bed. He sit-bounced for a few seconds while Anna pulled back the curtains letting the warm Autumnal sun pool throughout the room. Anna peeked over Elsa's bed and said with a smile "Psst. Elsa". When Elsa didn't respond, Anna jumped onto Elsa's bed on her hands and knees like she always did when they were little kids. "Elsa! wake up, wake up, wake up!" she said happily and anxiously as she nudged Elsa awake. Olaf joined in to sit-bouncing on the bed with a big smile. Elsa, blearily opened up one blue eye, looked at her clock which now read 7:35 and sleepily sighed, "Anna, it's not even 8 a.m. yet. Please, let's just go back to sleep." Anna laid on Elsa and said "We can't. Today's the Arendelle Autumn Festival. If we hurry, we'll be the first to reserve a spot to watch The Funky Skunky Fun Run!" Olaf beamed at the mention of this, he had no idea what skunks were but if they were associated with the word "fun", they had to be good.
Elsa, her eyes squinted as a result of both the shock of being in a dark room now oversaturated in light and the idea that Anna would use a skunk race of all things as incentive to get her up, said as nonchalantly as she could "Y'know, Anna. As much as I would love to see a gaggle of skunks chase each around, I unfortunately have a much greater royal dilemma to tackle at the moment, which is the acquisition of more uncharted territory in Slumberland." Elsa's smile of self-satisfaction as she closed her eyes was interrupted by Anna's reply of "Um, technically, Elsa a group of skunks is called a Surfeit. Not a gaggle." Elsa placed the pillow over her head so Anna and Olaf wouldn't see her deadpan look that said "Of course you would focus on that." She then put the pillow back under her head and then as calmly as she could said, "In layman's terms: sleep now, festival later." And with those words she nudged Anna off her bed (or at least would have had Anna's stance not been so strong). However, Anna got off the bed on her own accord with a look of annoyance at Elsa's stubbornness, which she realized was dumb as Anna knew that she was stubborn herself, but that didn't mean she had to take it directed towards herself lying down.
Anna then got a devilish smile (as devilish as Anna's baby face would allow) as she remembered what was in her fist Time to go to 'Plan B' she thought deviously. Anna, feigning fear and anxiety in her eyes and voice called "Elsa, quick! Wake up! There's a tarantula in your bed!" and with those words she took out the fake spider she made and walked it over Elsa's hips up to her chest. Elsa's eyes flew open wide (just before Anna pulled the fake spider away) and screamed "AAHHHH! Get it off! Get it off!" as she threw off the covers and inched herself to the left side of the bed until she ran out of bed and landed with a soft Thud! on the floor on her back. Olaf giggling in spite of himself at Elsa's usual regality being defenestrated by an imaginary spider. Anna with an innocent smile so big her slightly chubby cheeks almost touched her eyes, leaned over Elsa saying "Great, you're up! Let's head down to breakfast, I'm starving." Elsa, still annoyed, sighed and took Anna's hand to stand up. Elsa may be Queen of Arendelle, but she knew from experience that it didn't matter if you were a king, queen, duke, prince or magical ice person, when Anna had her mind and heart set on something, she would see it through. Elsa admired it when it wasn't being used to wake her up at the crack of dawn.
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Hey again, guys! Hope you liked this chapter. I hope it was a good intro to the characters and their personalities. BTW: a group of skunks is actually called a Surfeit, I googled it. And why was Olaf so fascinated by them? And where are Kristoff and Sven? Stay tuned and find out!