For the second day in a row I was woken up by my phone going off. This time I welcomed it, since it appeared that the Sandman had not come back for the second night.
"Hello."
"Jason says he's made a decision, see if you can get to the meeting place before midday."
"Got it, on my way."
The set up appeared to be identical to yesterday, although Billy was looking a bit happy this time, which was a relief, I didn't want to see him with coffee again.
Nigel called us over as I walked in and the call got under way.
"I have taken your idea into consideration and brought it up with the other Heads, and we have agreed to your suggestion." Said Jason, a neutral expression on his face.
Nigel managed to keep a calm demur, despite the massive grin that was forming.
"Thank you."
"It'll be held near Edinburgh, since these incidents seemed to involve the descendants of Jack Frost and most of the known ones seem to be in Northern Europe. It'll be on the 3rd of March under a moor to the west of the city."
"That's not enough to time!" Cried Tina suddenly, "We need to sort out passports, VISA's..." She had seemed to have forgotten our conversation yesterday.
"You're Descendants of the Guardians! I'm sure you'll find a way there. See you then."
With that the call disconnected.
"Aw jeez!" cried Billy, "We get a meeting, but it's too close to be able to get there officially."
"Then we'll have to do it unofficially." Mused Nigel, "I think I have something in the works that might be able to help us."
Nigel looked at me, "I'll tell your parents the plan, so you can get time off school, can we all meet at mine on the 1st?"
We all nodded.
"What have you got planned Nigel?" asked Sally.
Nigel smiled and his eyes took on mischievous look, "Now, that would be telling, wouldn't it?"
The next couple of weeks we didn't have any meetings, so we spent our time doing what we normally did.
All I could think about was the other Descendants of Jack Frost, how old would they be?
Would they be more powerful than me? How old would they be? Did they also have control issues? Did they all control ice?
These questions ran rampant through my mind most of the time, only during practice with Jack, school and the newly introduced therapy sessions did they leave, but they quickly returned.
The therapy was with someone from another HOG branch, she never told me who she was Descended from, but she assured me that I would see at the big meeting.
Finally the first rolled around. I had a backpack full of extra clothes, my toothbrush, toothpaste and hairbrush. I even had a spare set of glasses.
I walked over to Nigel's house, snow had finally begun to melt, which didn't really have anything to do with Jack's presence. It was also fairly late so that no one would see us travelling; we'd be travelling by the light of the moon.
I knocked on Nigel's door, only to be directed through a side gate and into the garden.
Once in I saw Nigel had been working on.
In the centre of the garden was a sled, as in a proper Santa Claus sleigh. The only difference was the lack of reindeer and the large, clear dome that covered the top of it.
The sleigh itself was painted red and decorated with intricate gold leaf designs.
Reindeer danced on the front, on the left side showed a mural of Sally and I using our powers to form snowflakes. On the right side was Billy and Tina, Tina hovering in the air and Billy crouched diagonally to indicate he was on a slope.
On the back was Nigel, holding up a pair of crossed swords.
"Whoah."
"Impressive isn't she?" asked Nigel a huge grin on his face. "Come on, let me show you."
We went round to the back and looked underneath.
"See those round things, powerful thrusters that'll keep us in the air, Oh and round
here..." We went around to the front and looked in the pilot's seat.
"Here's the control panel, it has a GPS, steering, thruster adjustment aaand..."
He reached in and flicked a switch. A compartment shot out to reveal...
"A snack drawer."
"Seriously?" I asked looking at drawer, which was full of random packaged food, including but not limited to cereal and chocolate bars.
"Never worse than hungry passengers, Jackie, nothing worse."
"Okay, are sure it'll get us to the UK? Aren't there people watching the airspace or something?"
"Who knows! But even if they are, I'll be relying on you and Sally to help us out of that one."
"You, know you've been lax about the rules since the first time I broke them." I noted.
"Well, these have been exceptional and allowed circumstances, after this, we will get in trouble for flying this thing."
"Whoa, nice ride!"
We looked behind us as Billy ran in and began inspecting it from every angle.
"Top notch stuff Nigel, not that I ever doubted ya mate."
Tina and Sally arrived not long after, and after another tour we were climbing into the bubble sleigh.
"This dome," explained Nigel, "is here to keep the air and pressure just right, we'll be going high up, and not all of us can breathe above the clouds."
We made sure that the dome was locked into place and we were sat in our places and buckled ourselves in. Nigel pressed the ignition.
There was a rumbling noise as we slowly began to lift into the sky. I couldn't help pressing my nose into the clear surface of the dome to watch the ground slowly get further and further away.
Up and up we went, higher than Nigel's house, higher than the trees. From here Nigel flipped some switches.
"Alright, everyone buckle up, there no guarantee how fast this baby goes."
"You mean you haven't tested it?" cried Tina, alarmed.
"Not this high up! Alright, off we go!"
There was sudden burst from the back and we shot forward and didn't slow down.
I let out a small shriek as I was pressed back into my seat. Burgess disappeared in a blur and we were heading high into the sky.
After a little while we were heading over the ocean at a more reasonable cruising speed.
Nigel looked over the back of his seat and said with a grin.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking, we have successfully taken off and expect to be in Scotland within several hours. Feel free to use this time to sleep, chat and eat, just don't get anything sticky on the seats, thank you!"
I smiled and curled up in my seat, with my bag as a pillow. I was asleep within minutes.
I slowly woke up as something smelling delicious was put under my nose.
"Wakey wakey."
I opened my eyes to see that a plate of bacon was being held by Billy by my nose.
"Mmmmmm, yum." I murmured sleepily.
"Well too bad, they're mine!" He cried, leaping back into his seat behind me cackling.
"Damn it Billy." I grumbled, now fully awake. He chuckled and began eating his bacon as I
pushed myself in a sitting position, rubbing my stiff neck.
"Stop teasing Jackie, Billy." Chided Tina.
"I was only trying to wake her up!" He protested with a mouth full of bacon.
"And giving her false hope, give her some bacon." Added Sally, with a small smile on her face.
Billy grumbled and caved to the woman's teasing and passed me a piece of bacon.
"Thank you!"
I shoved it in my mouth and began chewing, appreciating the smokey taste, not really caring that it was a little too hot.
"Sally, Jackie, heads up; we're coming into the UK."
Sally and I moved to opposite sides of the sleigh and held our hands outward, looking for
anyone trying to stop us coming in.
Nothing happened as we glided high over the island. It was early morning there and I could spot tiny ants going about their daily lives.
It took us about an hour to get to Edinburgh and we came in low over one of the many empty fields.
"A landing spot, guys!"
Sally took over and conjured a landing ramp and patch for the sleigh. We came a juddery landing and then to halt, with the sand disappearing once we'd come to a stop.
"Quick question Nigel." Said Billy after a few minutes, "this is now the second?"
"Yes."
"And the meeting is on the third, right?"
"Yes."
"So what are we going to do all day?!"
"There's town within walking distance if you're desperate, but otherwise, sit tight."
The hyper active Australian groaned and leaned back in his seat.
"Sally, can you please put me to sleep? I'll go mad otherwise!"
"And no one wants to be stuck with an antsy Billy." I muttered.
Sally nodded and complied, sending her golden sand into Billy's eyes and he was quickly asleep.
And we were presented with a new problem, Billy's snoring.
"I think I'll go for a walk." I quickly announced, unlocking my part of the dome.
I looked behind me to see if anyone was going to join me. Tina had brought some ear plugs and had them in her ears and Sally had formed her own earplugs from sand. Looking at the front I could see that Nigel had also managed to fall asleep.
"Just me then."
I brought up the dome and jumped through, quickly closing it behind me as I remembered that not everyone behind me was as tolerant of the cold.
I came back when I was hungry, and realised that I didn't have any UK money on me, so buying food was out of the question.
Billy and Nigel were still asleep, Tina had a book out and Sally was messing around with her powers. I jumped in and leaned over the front console to get something to eat. Once I had something I was off again. Only returning to the sleigh when it got too dark to see.
Why bacon?
Because it's BACON!