Hard Work and Fun Times

Mid-April was probably a little late for a snow day, Jack knew, but his good time with Jamie was coming to an end. When summer arrived in this quiet New England town, it would be Jack's cue to head to the other side of the Equator, where winter would begin. Not that he would mind spreading the joy of snowball fights and sledding to the kids closer to the South Pole-but Jack had a soft spot for the first kid to ever believe in him, especially when that kid complained of an upcoming math test.

The fact that Easter was just around the corner and there was nothing Bunnymund hated more than cold toes was just an added bonus.

Snickering at his own mischief, Jack strode confidently down the middle of the dark street. Then a child's scream tore through the night. It was like someone had flipped a switch-Jack Frost went into full Guardian mode, jerking his head around for the source of the distress. He took off at a run, vaulting over fences and ducking under clotheslines until he landed in a crouch in the backyard of one of Jamie's friends' houses. Twin girls, Shiloh and Sarah, they were always up for a good time, and he couldn't imagine who in the world would want to hurt them. Even though Pitch was laying low these days, Jack had learned while working with the other Guardians that there were other threats to children around the world.

He could see a light on in the girls' room through the curtains of their window. He ducked beneath the ledge, peeking over cautiously, not knowing if the threat was human or supernatural. In the room, one of the girls gave another shriek, which was quickly echoed by the other. Tightening his grip on his staff, Jack prepared to leap to the rescue, then stopped. The girls were gasping and rolling on their beds, and he realized that they had not been crying out in fear. They were laughing.

Now utterly confused, Jack sidled over, trying to get a better view at who, or what, they were laughing at. The lamp on their bedside drawer was on, but the opposite wall by the closet was still cast in shadow. There was an indistinguishable figure there in the dark, which made him nervous. The dark was Pitch's territory, but he dealt in fear, not fun.

Though he couldn't see them, Jack could hear the unknown person speaking. Pressing his ear to the window, Jack listened.

"Okay, okay, my last one. You ready? Okay."

That didn't sound like either of the Freemans, the girls' parents. The speaker cleared their throat and asked, "So, how do you make a tissue dance?"

The girls shook their heads, unable to answer.

Triumphantly, the mystery joker delivered, "You put a little boogie in it!"

The girls laughed uproariously, and Jack heard their visitor say, "Thank you, thank you. I'll be back on Thursday!"

There was the sound of a door opening and closing. Then another, followed by the click of a light switch. Mrs. Freeman had appeared, hands on her hips and still in her pjs to demand why the girls were still awake and making so much noise.

Jack was similarly boggled. Had Mrs. Freeman not noticed the mysterious person leaving the girls' room? There was only one door in or out. Unless they'd escaped through the closet...

No, impossible.

The girls apologized to their mother and promised to go back to sleep. Mrs. Freeman tucked them both in again, turned off the light, and left. Jack waited a few moments before lifting himself out of her flower bushes and tapping his staff against the window. Where it touched, snowflake-shaped blooms of frost appeared.

Though they were laying obediently in their beds, trying to sleep, the girls heard him. Seeing the ice, they whispered excitedly, "It's Jack!"

Shiloh was the one that came to the window, opening it for their wintry friend. "Hi, Jack!"

"Hey, Shy. Hey, Sarah." Jack stepped up onto the windowsill, grinning, staff laying across his shoulders. "I heard you guys were in here having fun without me."

The girls giggled. Shiloh said, "Sorry Jack. It was Mike."

"Mike? Who's Mike?"

Shiloh smiled impishly. "Mike is a monster!"

Sarah pointed. "He lives in our closet!"

So, he hadn't gone out the front door after all. Jack put his head to one side, squinting through the room at the closet, now illuminated by the light of the moon. "In your closet? Can you show me?"

Sarah slid off of her bed and went to the door, Jack creeping after her, leaving cold patches on their bedroom carpet. When she opened the closet, nothing but darkness greeted them. When she pulled on the light, he saw nothing but hanging clothes, a baseball glove, and a box of building blocks. But no monster.

"There's nobody in here."

"Well, of course not, silly," Sarah said. "He's got to visit other houses too."

"Other houses?"

"Yeah! Like Santa."

Jack's brows furrowed as he studied the back wall of the girls' closet. The idea of monsters in closets wasn't foreign to him-he knew that Pitch played on fears like that when tormenting kids with his Nightmares. But Sarah and Shiloh hadn't been afraid of Mike, or his terrible, terrible jokes. Intrigued, Jack turned to Sarah and asked, "Hey, what day is it?"

"It's Tuesday."

"Cool." Already he had come up with a plan. "You kids get back to bed, okay? I'll see you again Thursday."

Wednesday came and went without incident. Forgotten was Jack's idea to start a snow day, much to Jamie's chagrin. But the math test hadn't been so bad, the boy had conceded. As Jack followed him home from school, the spirit of fun had quizzed him on the Freeman's mysterious friend Mike.

"He's a monster," Jamie had answered simply, the way children always did. "They say he's really funny. I wish I had a monster in my closet."

Jack had paused at that, balancing on one foot at the top of a stop sign. "Hey! You don't think I'm funny?"

Jamie laughed. "I'm sorry Jack. Of course I think you're funny. But you have to work at night, remember?"

"Nah, I wouldn't really call it work," Jack disagreed, hopping down. "Is Mike the only closet monster?"

"No, I think Monty used to have one, until he moved into his house. He has a different kind of closet, I don't think his monster fits there." Jamie pursed his lips, thinking hard. "And Pippa's big brother used to have a monster, when he was younger. But he was different from Mike. He was a scary monster."

Mysteries upon mysteries. "Scary like the Boogeyman?"

"No," Jamie shook his head. "Scary like a big purple alligator."

Jack threw his head back and laughed. "Purple alligator! There's no such thing!"

"Look who's talking!" Jamie retorted, sticking out his tongue.

Jack continued to snicker, but he knew Jamie was right. There were few things in this world that really were impossible.

Thursday night found Jack Frost in the Freeman girls' room, snuck in through the window just before bedtime. He watched, smiling contentedly as Mr. and Mrs. Freeman bid their daughters good-night from his spot beside the closet door. He balanced on top of his staff, exchanging whispered conversations with the twins as they waited for their monster to appear.

"So how long has Mike been around?"

"A couple months," Shiloh answered. "Before him was another monster, we never got his name, but he was big, and red, and had lots of arms and liked to scare us. I didn't like him."

Sarah shivered, drawing her covers up to her chin at the memory of this unpleasant creature. "Me neither."

Jack was so excited and curious that he thought he might explode. Funny in all his dealings with Pitch Black and the other Guardians that he'd never heard of these closet monsters. He couldn't recall anything about them from his own childhood centuries ago either.

Were they spirits, like him? Or beasts like the yetis that assisted North? His questions were about to be answered, it seemed, as he heard the closet doorknob turn, and the door eased open.

Jack put a finger to his lips, but the girls were already giggling. The door swung wide, toward Jack, hiding him from view. But he could see the outline of Mike lit from behind by a source somewhere in the closet. He thought he could also hear voices and footsteps, but from where?

"Evening, girls." Yep, that was definitely the voice Jack had heard on Tuesday. "How ya-"

Mike had turned to shut the door behind him, but froze at the sight of Jack. Jack, too, was stunned. He didn't know what he'd been expecting (alligators, maybe?) but Mike's appearance definitely took him by surprise. He was short, coming up to Jack's chest, and round, rounder even than North. In fact, he seemed to be only a green ball with legs and arms-but the monster's most startling feature had to be his single enormous eye.

Jack was the first to recover, flipping off of his staff and over Mike. The green monster yelled and tried to shut the closet door, but Jack was faster, diving toward the white light. He half expected to smash into the closet's wall, but in fact kept flying, tucking into himself when he hit the ground. Nimbly, he rolled to his feet, staff braced in front of him as Mike continued to shout.

He had only a moment to take in his surroundings. An enormous, warehouse-like room, flooded with sunlight, even though it had been nearly nine o'clock in Burgess. The floor beneath his bare feet was smooth, and the walls looked like ribbed metal and concrete. In front of him was a line of desks, piled high with paperwork, office supplies, and... toys?

But that wasn't even the best part. All around him were monsters.

Short ones, tall ones, fuzzy ones, slimy ones, some with a hundred eyes and others with a hundred arms. Some carried clipboards while others held honking clown noses. One juggled bean bags while another raced in circles on a unicycle. At the far end of the room, above the only apparent exit, was a block of televisions, displaying more monsters and what looked to be their names and some statistics, though those were meaningless to Jack. But they all froze when Mike's voice rang out, "Get back here, kid!"

Jack turned back toward the way he had come, half expecting for the door to the Freeman girls' room to have disappeared, but it was still there. However, there was nothing behind it-just a door, standing in a metal frame, opening into the girls' room. It was one of several, a bank of colorful doors. Instantly, Jack was reminded of Bunnymund's traveling holes, and wondered if there was some kind of magic at work in this bizarre, beautiful place.

Chaos erupted all around Jack, and his heart soared with delight. Several of the monsters approached him cautiously, like he was some kind of frightened animal. One with a mouthful of teeth and a wig the color of cotton candy said, "Hey, kid, don't be scared, we're not gonna hurt you..."

"Who you callin' kid?" Jack scoffed. "I'm Jack Frost. You think you guys know how to have fun?" He began to spin his staff in his hands. "Let me show you how it's really done."

He broke for the exit, the crook of the staff pointed down in front of him. Where it skimmed the ground, a swath of ice sprouted, and soon Jack was sliding speedily across the floor, out of the room, and into a carpeted hallway. There were even more monsters here-one wearing a blue hard hat was pushing a cart full of large yellow canisters toward him, but screamed and veered into the wall as Jack blasted by.

The spirited boy turned, skating backwards effortlessly to observe the consequences of his mischief. The canisters had tumbled from the cart, rolling across the floor, tripping the many feet of the monsters that pursued him. One opened, steam whistling from its top. Strangely enough, the sound also sounded like the giggling of children...

He faced forward in time to prevent himself from smashing into a monster nearly the height of the hallway. Furry and blue with purple spots, Jack paused just long enough to note that he wore a tie. He found his endlessly funny, cackling as he turned right and headed down another hall.

This one appeared to be full of offices, which were, Jack knew, not fun. He could change that. At an intersection of corridors was a water cooler; he tapped it as he went by. The freezing water expanded, bursting out of its plastic container and covering the floor with slush and ice. There were more shouts of anger and alarm as monsters slipped and fell, piling comically on top of each other in their effort to contain him.

From somewhere came the shrill ringing of alarms. Over them, a woman's cool voice announced, "Child detected. Security breach."

She repeated herself over and over as Jack heard doors slam shut behind him. Ahead, the hall turned left, and he followed it back out to the main corridor he had found himself in before. Some distance away, he could still see the monsters scramble to collect the containers that had spilled. They saw him, too, pointing and shouting, but he was gone before they could give chase.

As he continued down the hall, he passed more of those enormous rooms, still with more doors, and more clownish creatures, no doubt entertaining countless kids like Shiloh and Sarah. Sun still streamed in through the windows stationed high in the walls, and Jack was compelled to find his way outside. It would be just like the old days, when he made a mess trying to break into North's workshop and escaped the Yetis just in time. It had been far too long since he'd been able to cause a ruckus like this.

Again, he turned around, yelling toward the monsters chasing him, "Come on! That all you got?"

It was a mistake. The corridor ended, and he skated out into a wide, airy lobby. Over his head was a map of the Earth, divided up into time zones. Clocks ringed the room. Directly behind him, out of his field of view, was a desk covered in telephones, attended by one of this world's strange denizens. He smashed into it, hitting his head and sliding to the floor.

Groaning, Jack stared up at the ceiling. From over the top of the desk, a purple shape appeared. As it came into focus, Jack saw another one-eyed face, this time surrounded by a curtain of hair.

No, he realized. Not hair. Snakes. Out loud, he said softly, "Woah."

The purple lady screamed.

"Celia!"

It was Mike, his short little legs a blur as he ran at Jack, looking furious. Or at least as furious as a little green ball could look. Jack found his feet again and said, "Time to go." To his right were glass doors, and beyond them, a parking lot. The outside! He was as good as gone.

He stumbled, his head still a little hurt from the crash, but made it out of the door before Mike or any of the other creatures could catch him. As his feet hit the rough sidewalk, she shouted, "Wind! Take me home!"

Nothing happened.

He stepped onto the asphalt, a sea of cars spread out in front of him, in all shapes and sizes to accommodate the varieties of monster folk he'd seen that day. But he wasn't fascinated now-he was alarmed. The wind almost always listened to him when he needed it, especially when he was in trouble. What was going on?

Jack didn't get to find out, because in that instant, he was hit by a truck.

When Jack came to, he was being dragged along the concrete floor, his arms held by two sets of tentacles. It took him a moment to remember where he was-oh, yes, causing mayhem among the monsters that visited the Freeman girls. He smiled, still amused by his own shenanigans, but it was soon replaced by panic. Where was his staff? And where were his captors taking him?

They stopped, and he looked up. They were inside the first room Jack had entered, though now all the doors but one had disappeared. In front of him was Mike, scowling unhappily, and beside him, the giant blue one with the tie. On the other side of him was something like an enormous slug, wearing lipstick and glasses.

Jack couldn't help it. He laughed.

It didn't appear to help his case. Mike pointed at him with one sharp nailed finger and said, "Stop laughing! Do you have ANY idea of what you've just done, kid?"

Jack looked at the creatures holding his arms, but they didn't seem all that inclined to let him go. "I'm not a kid," he replied. "I told you, I'm Jack Frost."

The fuzzy blue one sighed, turning to the slug lady and speaking in a deep voice befitting his large stature. "He's not registered to the door. Or any of the doors. He's not one of ours, Roz."

"No, I don't suspect he is," the slug woman replied, sounding not unlike slow, horrible nails on a chalkboard. "Do you have that stick he was carrying?"

The blue monster produced the staff, and for a moment, Jack was gripped with fear. He pulled his arms free, reaching out for it. "Be careful with that! I need it!"

Mike and the other monster took a step back, startled, but the one called Roz slid forward. She took the staff and pointed at Jack with it. "Just like I suspected. You're that new Guardian." She jerked her head at the big one. "Open the door, Sullivan."

The blue monster went over to the metal frame. Jack recognized the door to the Freeman girls' closet, and when it was opened, he saw them, sleeping soundly in their beds.

Roz spoke to him again. "Listen here, Guardian." The way she said it, the title was almost an insult. "You stick to your side of the doors, and we stick to ours. Toss him."

Before he could react, Sullivan picked Jack up by the hood of his sweater and the seat of his pants. The winter spirit shouted, "Hey! I was just trying to have a little fun!" Then he was flying through the dark, landing at the foot of Sarah's bed. A moment later, his staff was thrown in after him, and the closet door slammed shut.

A few days later, Jack was regaling Toothiana with the story of his adventure. "You should have seen them, Tooth. Those guys think they can make kids laugh? Then the big guy, the monster king, or whatever, threw me-"

"You mean Sulley?" Tooth interrupted, turning from her group of fairies to correct him. "He's not their king, Jack, just their CEO."

"CEO?" Jack scratched the top of his head with his staff. He swore he could still feel a bump. "You mean you know him?"

"Oh, sure, I used to run into him on my rounds all the time." Toothiana murmured quick instructions to her last remaining fairies, then hovered beside him on the central platform of her golden palace. "Things used to be strange between the monsters and the Guardians, but ever since they switched to laughter instead of screams..."

"Laughter?"

"Yes, it's how they power their world." She shrugged. "I don't pretend to understand it. But you shouldn't have harassed them, Jack!"

"Harassed them! I helped them! I'm the Guardian of Fun, all I do is laughter!" As if to prove it, Jack somersaulted forward, walking on his hands. "You know, maybe I should go back, give them a few pointers..."

This time, Toothiana's tone was a warning. "Jack..."

"Yeah, yeah, you're right. I can't give away all of my secrets. It's bad for business."