So, it turns out my mom read all my fanfiction so . . . hi, Mom! You can review below!
Jack did a lavish spin as he slid into place next to Tooth, leaving a thick trail of frost behind him. Mr. Moon scowled at him. "Jack, please, just downplay it just a little!"
"But that's so boring! Walking in here and bowing, then leaving! Where's the fun in that?"
"This isn't about fun, Jack," Mr. Moon said carefully, rubbing his brow. Jack and Emily exchanged a look, both thinking the same thing: It's a circus, what else could it be about?
Of course, Jack knew the answer: money. But, how did they make money? By making it fun for the patrons!
"Can we lose the trail of frost?" Bunny complained from the doorway, testing the slick trail with his foot.
"What do you want me to do, just walk in here and be like oh I'm Jack Frost, just take my word for it?"
"Just make the trail disappear behind you so Bunny doesn't fall on his face and it will be fine," Pitch insisted irritably, lounging at the doorway.
"Okay, let's take it from the top!" Mr. Moon conceded reluctantly. They all hurried to the entrance to start again. This time, Jack skated out more slowly, making sure the ice disappeared two feet behind him, and he did a mild spin as he stood in place.
"Better," Mr. Moon relented. He pointed at Jack sternly. "Stick to that! For the VIP show, you can embellish more."
"I know just what to do!" Jack said. He followed Bunny and Pitch back in to the dressing tent again. After Tooth flew out, Jack followed, skating like he did before, and stopped with a lavish spin, then tapped the bottom of his staff to the floor, making a crystalline star-burst erupt under his feet, and made a tiny snowflakes appear about a foot over his head so it looked like it was snowing just over him. Bunny hopped in after him, followed by monster Pitch.
"Excellent, Jack, excellent," Mr. Moon said. "Now, the rules: these people paid a lot of money to be proven that you're real. Do not speak to them unless they specifically ask you a question. Do whatever they ask you to do. It might be a little uncomfortable if they poke and prod you, just endure it. Under no exceptions are you to break these rules, do I make myself clear?"
"Crystal," Jack said uncertainly. Pitch, who was still in his monster form and lounging lazily in his spot, suddenly stiffened and let out a low growl. Mr. Moon checked his watch.
"Five-thirty already. The customers are arriving. Go back to the train, you need to stay out of sight until the show starts." As he headed off to who-knows-where, Jack called out to Emily, who was running around the top row of the stands with the fairies, and they all hurried back to the train.
"So, we just hang around here until eight-thirty," Bunny told him as he stretched out on the couch and turned the TV on with the remote.
"Who wants to play cards!" North exclaimed, producing two decks of cards and holding them up excitedly.
"Pass," Pitch, who had changed back to normal, said dully.
"Oh, come on, one game!" North insisted. "We play war*! Very easy!"
"As stimulating as that sounds, I have my booth to attend to."
"You don't have to be there for twenty minutes!" Tooth informed him. He rolled his eyes at her, but said nothing as he left.
The rest of them crowded around the table, even Bunnymund after some coaxing, and North dealt the cards.
Playing with a group of circus freaks turned out to be just as exciting as you might think. They had a list of rules written on paper at the table that they went over for Jack and Emily:
No games where you can see your cards if Pitch or Sandy are playing
(because they could tell what cards you had, apparently)
Pitch can not touch the deck longer than it takes to lift a card from it
(because he could somehow 'see' and move the cards through the shadows between them)
Tooth must remain seated the entire game if you can see the cards
(because she had a bad habit of flitting around above them and accidentally seeing their cards)
No Slap-Jack!
(because things get competitive and the table has just been replaced)
No gambling
(because Bunnymund might have a problem)
If the game exceeds four players, two decks are used
If the game exceeds three hours, or interferes with work, unless there is a clear advantage, it ends in a draw
(because settling a tie in a card game is not a good excuse to be late for a show)
War was pretty safe to play, since it was a game of chance, so there really wasn't much room for argument, but it was surprising how competitive they were anyway.
"Now, that's the third one in a row, mate," Bunny complained to Sandy. "You better not be cheating!"
Sandy gave him an exaggerated offended look.
"Ah, I keep getting threes and fours!" North huffed.
"Jack, stop frosting the cards," Tooth scolded, "how do we know your not cheating?"
"How would you even cheat like that?"
"Yay, war!" Emily cheered. "Me and Phil!"
Sandy ended up winning, and as North set up another round, Phil went to start dinner.
"Can I sit in the VIP box for the show?" Emily asked.
Jack made a face at the thought of little Emily's excited face amidst all those creepy men. "I don't know, Emily, maybe it would be better for you to sit with the rest of the people. There's a lot of good seats!"
Tooth seemed to understand his concerns and piped up. "We don't have a VIP show until Friday, so there's just kids that won prizes through the day in the box. You can sit there for now."
Phil grumbled something at North.
"What?! We are still playing!"
Phil continued to grumble and gesture wildly, making Jack and Emily giggle behind their hands.
"Alright, alright, we clean up!" He scooped up the cards on the table and arranged them back into their box as Phil set the table for dinner. He had made chicken stir fry.
Emily chatted about her day while they ate, and helped Phil with the dishes while the rest of them got ready for the show.
Tooth and her fairies helped each other clean their feathers, Bunny brushed his fur, Sandy smoothed his sand hair down, and, after finishing the dishes, Phil combed the fur on top of his head into a tuft that he tied with a rubber band.
They had to hurry to the tent so North and Jack could get into their costumes. Sandy put his cloak on and showed Emily to the entrance.
Jack was jittery with excitement. He kept switching from dancing around with his staff to floating over the heads of the people waiting to go on stage to peek at the show. Most of the people there seemed enthralled by the new boy. Several of them gaped openly at him until he looked at them, then they looked away shyly and busied themselves with their costumes and make-up, but no one talked to him.
After a while, the enthusiasm started to wear off, and he started to feel a little self-conscious. It seemed strange that not one of his fellow circus performers said anything to him, or any of the other 'freaks'. They talked to each other, but the only interaction they had with Jack and the others was to shoot them strange looks.
Tooth did her best to ignore them. Sandy smiled and waved pleasantly at them, Bunny glared at them, and North returned their looks. It would have been hilarious if it wasn't so disheartening.
Finally, Ringmaster Solveig made way for Mr. Moon to introduce his freak show. They lined up anxiously outside the door, making last minute adjustments to their costumes and composing themselves.
"Okay, remember your queue?" Tooth whispered to Jack as North lead Phil through the doorway.
"Yeah, I got it."
"Make sure the audience can't see you before you go in!" Sandy followed then, and Tooth bounced anxiously on the balls of her feet in anticipation. Two of her fairies fluttered around her, while one sat on her shoulder.
It was kind of weird to see her walking now that he knew her better, Jack decided as he watched her walk through the curtains. He didn't think he'd ever seen her walk since she had at the first show Jack saw. He thought back to when he had been sitting in the audience. It was only a couple of days ago, but it seemed so much longer.
It was almost surreal to be on the other side of the stage. On queue, he skated out into the ring. It looked bigger than he remembered. The audience was shrouded in darkness, save for a few flashes of cameras. That and the spotlights overhead gave the atmosphere a dreamlike quality. As he gave his staff a twirl and came to a stop next to Tooth, he saw Emily waving at him from the front row of the VIP box, and he gave her a toothy grin.
Jack gazed around in wonder at the people cheering at him, especially the childish voices squealing in awe. He bowed and waved at the crowd before skating back out behind Bunny.
"So, how was it?" Tooth asked eagerly.
"It was . . . exhilarating!" Jack laughed. "All those kids, they were so happy just from seeing me . . . us! It was crazy, and fun! I wish it wasn't so short!"
Tooth, Bunny, Sandy, and North laughed with him. Pitch crept up silently behind him, making him jump slightly.
"There will be quite a crowd coming out of the tent soon," Pitch said. "Perhaps you should wait at the entrance for your sister."
Jack nodded at him and sped off to go around the huge tent. By the time he got to the entrance, the audience was just filing out. Jack kept a sharp eye out for Emily, but before he saw her, some of the kids recognized him.
"Hey, it's Jack Frost!" they exclaimed to one another. A few of them yanked themselves away from their parents and rushed over to him, and he knelt down to their height.
"Did you enjoy the show?" he asked them as they jumped around him.
"Yeah, it was so cool!" a little boy said.
"My favorite was the fairy!" a girl in a pink dress said.
"My favorite was the clowns!" an older girl chimed in.
"My favorite was that scary nightmare guy!" said a boy wearing a Nightmare Before Christmas shirt.
Jack laughed at their enthusiasm.
"Come on, Jeremy, let's go! He's not real, anyway!" A teenage girl sighed impatiently at the Nightmare Before Christmas boy. He scowled at her and told her he would catch up with her.
"Ugh, whatever, don't blame me when you get lost!" she rolled her eyes and turned to stalk away.
"That's my sister. She doesn't believe in anything," the boy told Jack exasperatedly.
"Show us a trick!" The girl in the pink dress demanded, and the other children cheered in agreement.
"I don't know, I really shouldn't . . ." Jack trailed off, fighting the temptation to throw a snowball at that girl.
"Come on, please?!" Emily had joined the crowd now, and he gave her a playfully stern look, but as the kids stared up at him with their big, hopeful eyes, how could he say no?
Jack stood up and held out a palm. With the other hand, he pointed his staff at his palm and formed a snowball, coating it with a thin layer of ice so it would fly better, but not so much that it was painful. As the children 'oohed' and 'awed', he sent the ball flying until it hit the girl square in the back of the head.
She shrieked and shivered as snow fell down the back of her shirt. Jack and the kids laughed so hard that several of them, including the girl's little brother, fell over.
She stomped over and grabbed her brother by the arm. "Come on, we're leaving right now!"
The other children were being called and pulled away by their parents too, so they let out a chorus of goodbye's as they left. Jack waved back at them, still laughing, and turned to lead Emily back around to the train.
*Just in case anybody doesn't know how to play war or I've been playing it wrong my whole life, here is a run down of the rules:
It works best with two to three players, but you can have more. I've even played by myself.
You divide the deck evenly among the players with the cards face down, and no one can look at the cards in their stack.
Each player takes the top card of their stack and puts it face up in the middle. The person with the highest value gets to keep the cards in the middle. Ace is the highest value, Joker is optional and could be higher than ace or lower than two. The object of the game is to get all the cards.
If two or more people put the same card down and it is the highest value, they do a "war", where each of the tied players puts three cards face down and one card face up, and the person with the highest value gets all the cards in the middle, so all of the original face up cards, all of the sets of three cards face down, and the new face up cards.