Jingles breathed deep as he knocked on the door with an anxiety-trembling hand . It was strange to Jingles, he never in his life feel so scared by something as simple as knocking the door. It was like once he had the dream it felt like he always had to worry about something, though he didn't know what. He no longer felt a happy feeling, but like someone was following him (other than his brother).
Just then an adult elf answered the door "Oh look, it's a couple of the Tinsel children." she smiled.
Then two more lady's came to the door, all three looking exactly alike. Jingles saw that they had different smiles, the only way to tell the three apart. The one who answered the door, had a simple smile, like when you're getting your picture taken. The one standing next to her had a similar smile, but with teeth showing. The last had a smile that was in between, with less teeth showing but cheeks all plump.
Jingles gulped and said "I wanted to ask you three some questions."
"Alright." said the one that had opened to door.
"Um," Jingles began to think, but was getting confused and distracted by the fact that he couldn't tell the difference between the three of them. And simply because it's rude to ask personal questions and not know that persons name "What are your names?" Jingles was trying to sound polite.
The three had a slightly confused look on their faces "Well, I'm Jangle." the one that opened the door presented herself.
"I'm Eggnog." said the one that had the toothy smile.
Then the one with the plump cheeks smiled again "and I'm Molasses."
Jangle then asked "Now what's your names?"
Jingles pointed to himself "I'm Jingles" then pointed to his brother "and that's my brother, Snowflake."
"Nice to meet you. We've heard about the Tinsel family, it's a big one." Molasses laughed a little.
Jangle stood there for a moment then questioned "Anything else you'd like to ask?"
Jingles knew he couldn't postpone the question any longer. His body started to tense and the words didn't want to come out. Jingles knew that this was his one chance at getting come good information, so he closed his eyes and then without thinking about it too much he said "I heard that you three saw a snowman that fell apart. Is that true?"
Their grins disappeared and Molasses looked nervous as she answered "Yes we did."
There was silence after that and Jingles, who had gained more confidence, broke it by saying "Did you see a creature by it? Tall and dark?"
All shook their heads no. Jangle's eyes looked up like she was thinking. "I do remember someone saying something."
"Me too." remarked Molasses "I think they said 'What's this' ? But I'm not sure."
Just then, like a window that had blocked memory was shattered, Jingles remembered the soot-cover snowman. It was roaring, but thinking about it, it wasn't roaring, it was yelling. The snowman had yelled 'What's this'. It said it like it got interested in something else before it ate Jingles. But why yell 'What's this' ? "Did you see anything else different last night?"
"No." they all replied with worried looks and trembling voices. They were obviously just as troubled as Jingles.
"Well thank you." Jingles smiled and waved goodbye, "I might stop by later to ask more questions." In an flurry of excitement Jingles hurried home, cutting the conversation short. The two brothers ran past houses that had children playing in front, or the smell of food pouring out of an open window. His stomach grumbled as he realized that he didn't eat anything. Jingles sat on his ice-cover porch catching his breath, his brother not far away.
As Snowflake approached him he looked at him confused "What's so important about the phrase 'What's this?'."
"In my dream," Jingles managed to say after huffing and puffing "The snowman that grabbed me didn't roar, it said 'What's this'! If I can find out what else it said I could be that much closer to find out who that was in our bedroom last night."
"Well," Snowflake urged "what else did it say?"
"I don't know?" he sighed "That's the problem."
"Come on," Snowflake begged, "dig deep into your dream and find it. Digging into the land of dreams and find just one phrase."
Jingles gasped "Say that again?"
"Just one phrase?" Snowflake look lost.
"No, land of dreams! It said something about a dreamland." Jingles began to think harder. "Wait it didn't say it, it sang it."
"Well what songs have the word 'dreamland' in them?"
Jingles frowned and sighed "I don't think there is one that has the word 'dreamland' in it."
"Maybe," Snowflake pondered.
"Maybe what?"
"Maybe it wasn't a song we know, but it made it up on the spot."
People sing all the time in Christmas Town. The thought didn't come to Jingles that the snowman made up a song. Interesting, her thought"So we know it's a tall, dark, singing snowman."
"And that's new to Christmas Town." His brother added.
"Why new to the town?" Jingles asked.
"Because," Snowflake said "He was asking 'What's this?' all of the time. I would ask that if I wasn't familiar with my surroundings."
Jingles thought about it and nodded in agreement "Good point."
Silence then overwhelmed the conversation for a few minutes. In the background was carolers singing 'Jingle bells' and the children playing in the park.
"Hmm," said Snowflake out of nowhere.
"What?"
Snowflake looked like he had an idea "Didn't you say we were going to the Van Snow's after talking to the Kris sisters?"
"Oh ya!" Jingles got up "Let's go."
The two ran to the tree store. They past house after house till they ended up at the edge of town. And there, along with other stores, was the Van Snow's Christmas Tree Store. Three trees stood in the frosted window of the store, and from outside you could see the joyful glow of Christmas tree lights.
As they walked in the smell of pine was everywhere and the lights on the trees were breathtaking as they twinkled like the stars. The trees in the windows had fake presents, all wrapped in crimson red with golden bows. Everything was so Christmassy Jingles almost forgot why he came to the store in the first place. At the counter was another adult elf with a name-tag that said 'Jolly'.
"Hi Jolly." Jingles tried to make a nice first impression.
"Hello, and welcome to the Van Snow's Christmas Tree Store, Hey!" Jolly had a surprised look on his face, "You're the Tinsel kids. Don't you have like ten brothers?"
"We have nine brothers" Snowflake proudly said.
"and two sisters." Jingles added.
"Oh," Jolly began to get worried "Sorry about that."
"It's fine." Jingles shook off the comment made by Jolly like he always does when someone messes up how many siblings he has, or his last name. It never really bothered him till now, something about the dream was changing him. "I just have a question to ask you."
"Sure." he grinned.
"May we look at your snowman out front." It's always nice to ask someones permission first Jingles said to himself after seeing the slightly confused look on Jolly's face.
"Of course, just..." Jolly was looked around the trees in the window "What happened!?" He sprinted outside. Jingles and Snowflake then quickly followed.
"What happened to the snowman?" he said baffled looking at where the snowman had once been. It seemed like the snowman was replaced by a carrot and some lumps of coal that lay on the ground "Where did it go!"
"Look!" Jingles pointed to the a pile of snow that had a green hat on top. It was in front of the Christmas wreath store next door. Then leading to the pile was large, round snow prints, like the snowman was jumping. Jingles looked closer and saw that there was two small foot prints in the middle of the round one. "Foot prints! Just like the ones on the roof!"
"The roof?" Jolly looked at Jingles a bit like he was crazy.
"Ya!" he answered "This thing has been all over Christmas Town."
Jingles then ran to the pile of snow. He saw that it was hollowed out a little, but still made of snow. Someone was inside it. Jingles gasped, and then he had an urge to look behind him. Once he turned around he saw more tracks.
"Thank you Jolly!" he said as he ran to the foot prints, "Thanks for everything!" Once again Jingles had shorten the conversation to run off and find more clues.
