This is part of the Halloween arc. Which is now an arc, apparently.
Jamie carefully cut some more holes in the folded piece of white paper, determined to outdo his little sister. He was not going to just sit here as a four years old girl managed to make more impressive paper snowflakes than him. That would not do. He was no artist, but surely he could do this. It shouldn't be so hard to make them look like snowflakes rather than white squares with holes in them.
They sat on Jamie's bed, surrounded by their Halloween candies, which they ate a piece of between each snowflakes. This had been Sophie's idea. She came to his room with a pile of white paper, saying that Jack Frost had come to Burgess but there was still no snow, so they should make their own. Jamie had been surprised when he woke up today to see that it had not snowed yet. He wondered what was taking Jack so long.
Jamie carefully unfolded his paper and smiled proudly as he examined his work. He had cut significantly more of the paper this time, actually revealing distinct points once he spread it on the bedcover. He raised it up for Sophie to see.
"See that, Soph? What do you think of this one?"
"What are you two making, paper lace?"
Jamie felt his cheeks flush in embarrassment as he heard the Guardian's words coming from the window. He was so sure he had a nice one, this time. Sophie laughed. He turned to give Jack a sullen glare, but paused when he saw the winter spirit.
"What's with the clothes? It's not Halloween anymore."
The Guardian had traded his usual blue hoodie and ancient-looking pants for a blue holiday sweater with a large white snowflake at the front and a pair of jeans. A green, red and white wool cap with Christmas patterns covered his white hair for some reason Jamie could not fathom. He would look like a normal, if unnaturally pale, teenager ready to go outside in the chilly early November air if not for his still bare feet and the frost covering the new clothes.
"Mines are getting cleaned at the North Pole. I had to wear something else until then."
"Is your hair getting cleaned, too?"
"Something like that."
Sophie interrupted his interrogation by running up to Jack and giving him a brief hug before taking his hand and dragging him to the bed.
"We're making paper snowflakes! Since you didn't make snow yet." she said, smiling happily at him. "Do you want to try?"
"Paper snowflakes? Those aren't snowflakes."
Jamie flushed again, looking at their growing collection cut papers. They did look like lace.
"Yeah, well, we can't all be snowflakes experts like you. Maybe if you had made some real snow for us, we wouldn't have to make fake one."
"I'll give you a snow day when I've had a chance to sleep. I had to make a trip to Australia and swing by the North Pole on my way here. I just thought I'd drop by before finding myself a nice spot to take a nap. But those snowflakes, you're going about it wrong."
"What do you mean, wrong?"
"They're squares. Your patterns are there four times, see? Snowflakes are hexagons. The patterns repeat six times. So those look all wrong to me."
"Oh."
Looking between the snowflakes they made and large one on Jack's shirt, he noticed the difference. It seemed minor to him, but it might be a pretty big deal to Jack. Snowflakes were kind of his thing, after all.
"Here, let me show you how to make real paper snowflakes."
Jack grabbed one of their square sheets of paper and folded it in a triangle, before carefully folding it in three. He then picked up the scissors and cut the points sticking out so he had a triangle with all of the sides equal.
"If you cut it like that, you get a hexagon, folded in six. Now we just need to cut the pattern into it!"
He folded his triangle in two again and began to quickly make cuts in the sides. Jamie watched with fascination as small pieces of white paper fell like snow on the bed. Jack looked like he knew exactly what he was doing and what the snowflake would look like once he unfolded it.
He got momentarily distracted when Sophie made a face as if she just had a sudden idea and got up from the bed, running to the chair where he had left his costume the previous night. He wondered what she was doing, but he returned his attention to what Jack was doing when the Guardian started to unfolded the piece of white paper to reveal a beautifully intricate snowflake that could not be confused for anything else.
"See? That's how you—hey!"
Jamie let out a gasp followed by a burst of laughter as Sophie tugged the wool cap off of Jack's head, uncovering the formerly white hair. It looked like he had decided to dye it rainbow and couldn't quite wash it off. His hair was now unevenly colored with various pastel shades. Sophie stared for a moment and started giggling. Jack looked embarrassed for maybe a second before running a hand through his hair with a bashful smile.
"Bunny wasn't impressed with my Halloween costume. White hair his hard to clean."
Sophie smiled and held up Jamie's white wig, the one he had worn yesterday.
"You can have Jamie's hair."
Jack laughed and took the wig from her hands. He put it on his head and tucked his own pastel colored strands underneath. It looked absurd, the hair obviously fake, but Jack did not seem to care. With a large smile, he picked up two more piece of paper and held them up for them.
"Now, what about those snowflakes?"
Thanks to Nicki K for the paper snowflakes idea. I had to actually try making some snowflakes before I could write this. I spent most of my morning doing that (and trying to figure out how to cut paper into a hexagon without too much math being involved. Turned out there's an easy way). I got really nostalgic. Especially when I realized the scissors I was using were the ones my mom bought for me when I started kindergarten about 20 years ago. I likely made my first paper snowflake with those. I can't believe they survived this long. Now I have a bunch of snowflakes decorating my wall. And they're a lot prettier than the square ones.
