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Out in the lobby, things had gone south.
“Downstairs, Jack!” Then Time’s hand covered Dee’s mouth.
“You won’t catch me, Jack. Now or later!”
Then they disappeared into the time-evator.
Jack pressed the call button. “Nutcrackers! Jammed!”
Into the stairwell, his body he rammed.
Over the stairs, he formed an ice chute.
Then he skated down. Man, did he scoot!
Jack reached the sublevel to find Dee sitting there.
“He tossed me aside, Jack, taking little care.”
“Tell me, Dee, which way did he go?”
“He went to the right. Be careful. Stay low!”
Jack found the mayor, and him he did seize.
“I’m sorry, Jack! Don’t hurt me, please!”
But Jack wanted to freeze him, he was so mad.
“You kidnapped my, pop! You deserve it, you cad!”
But Santa Claus appeared and calmed Jack down.
“Don’t stoop to his level, son. Don’t be anger’s clown.”
“I’m scared,” Father Time said. “I don’t want to end.”
“You’re year is up,” Santa said. “Now a new one begins!”
EPILOGUE
“So you buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium gave half of all that reward money to that little girl and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium her mother?” Dee asks in disbelief.
“Yep. Money well spent if you ask me.”
“Well, what are you going to do with the rest of it?”
She leans across our park bench and tickles my chin, teasingly.
“You know how I like bright and shiny things!”
I smile at her. I know she’s a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium creature of the night, but her beauty is especially stunning on sunny days like today.
Ha. Sunlight. Days.
I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever see either again. Thank Great Ak Santa’s back at the Pole and time in full swing once again.
“Actually, I’ve been thinking about moving my office to H-Town.”
“Here?” She gestures to the mostly deserted park we’re seated in, but I get her meaning. “But you always complain about how hot it is. And you’ve got that pet polar bear cub now.”
“Ha! He’s hardly a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium cub anymore. That one grows like a Christmas tree. Anyway, with the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium reward money the city gave me for finding Pop, I can buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium more than afford the cooling bill for both of us.”
“That reminds me, you never told me–when did you realize Father Time was behind all this?”
“He claimed Talbot confessed that buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium I was in on it with him. I knew that was bogus. It caused all the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium other clues that had been circling around in my head to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium fall into place.
“I guess it all worked out in the end.”
“More or less. There is only one thing I couldn’t figure out, Dee.”
“What’s that?” she asks as she snuggles against me.
“Why did you do it?”
Dee sits back up and looks at me in shock.
“Pardon?”
“Why did you convince Father Time to kidnap Pop?”
“Jack,” Dee says, “if this is some kind of joke, it’s not funny.”
“The only thing I can buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium figure is, somewhere down the line after we split up, your buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium ambitions for success got twisted into some kind of monstrous lust for buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium power.”
“Stop it, Jack. I said this isn’t funny!”
“Was it easy to seduce Father Time? To turn him away from his wife and unborn son?”
“I–I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“I’m talking about how you buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium always wanted to be a wrung above everyone else on the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium political ladder.
“I’m talking about how you buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium were the only one I told I was going to the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium October Country–the only one who could’ve phoned Talbot to let him know I was coming.
“I’m talking about why Talbot, a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium known felon and Halloweenian, would dare get involved in such a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium scheme behind Samhain’s back.”
“You think I brought Talbot into this?”
“Oh, I admit for the longest I assumed Talbot’s part in this was Samhain’s doing. But that wasn’t right at all was it, Dee?
“You played Talbot just like you played Father Time.
“Just like you’ve played me from day one.
“Even at the end–your own kidnapping. That hurt ankle of yours. It was all an buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium act. A set up so you could send me down the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium right tunnel for Father Time’s ambush.”
“This is ridiculous! I did no such thing! And I’d never heard of Talbot before in my life!”
“Oh no?” I say as I pull out the document Fred gave me. “This printout of his known associates reads different.
“Yeah, I had buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium a little more time to look over the names toward the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium bottom of the list after everything settled down. Imagine my surprise to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium find yours there.”
Dee’s shock turns to a scowl that turns into a self-satisfied smirk.
“Yes, Jack. You’re right.
“As always.
“It was me. It was always me.
“I convinced Father Time to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium stop the New Year. Do you think that fool could’ve ever come up a plan to make a grab for eternal power on his own?
“I’ve had you all eating out of my hand from the beginning!”
“Why Dee? Why did you do this?”
“Aren’t you listening, Jack? Father Time was always a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium boob. He was nothing but a figurehead during his entire administration. I was calling the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium shots from day one.
“It was a trend I’d hoped to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium continue for all eternity. From behind the scenes, I was going to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium rule the holiday worlds beneath the shadow of everlasting night.”
Dee snarls at me.
“But you had to come along and mess things up!
“I told that buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium old fool it was too risky to bring you into this, but he insisted it buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium would look suspicious if we didn’t.
“I could’ve figured out an excuse, but he wouldn’t wait. He made me call you right away, the old windbag!”
“And I’m glad of it.”
I rise to my feet.
“Well come on, Dee. Let’s go.”
“What?”
“I’m taking you in. Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”
Dee laughs, the sound high and shrill.
“You’re kidding, right? That printout is buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium circumstantial at best. Talbot associated with a lot of folks who buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium aren’t criminals.
“Jack, my dear, you have no proof and I’m certainly not going to confess.”
I sigh.
“You already have, Dee.”
Her face fills with alarm.
“What are you talking about?”
I open my cloak and shirt to reveal the wire I’m wearing.
“I told you buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium before, Dee. You should be careful what you say. You never know who buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium could be listening in.”
Dee’s jaw drops in stunned realization.
The feds I’ve had buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium listening in exit their hiding places among the trees and walk toward us.
“I wouldn’t try to run, sweetheart,” I say, my voice grim.
I turn and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium begin to walk away in the opposite direction of the approaching feds.
“Jack–!”
“Goodbye, Delilah.”
I hear the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium feds reach Dee and begin reading her her rights, but I don’t bother looking back.
Father Time was right about one thing–it’s going to be a long, silent night alone for yours truly.
#
Hoo-ray! Hoo-rah! Time was back in full swing.
Christmas was saved and now the New Year did ring!
Jack Frost saved the day. Now all was well.
But there was still one last piece of story to tell.
Jack and Dee sat on a bench in the H-Town park,
Laughing and talking, happy as a lark.
“I love this,” Dee said. “We should do it another time.”
“But tell me one thing, Dee: Why did you commit the crime?”
“What do you mean, Jack? This isn’t funny!”
“Don’t play coy, Dee. Was it power or money?
“Why did you have Father Time kidnap my pop?
“Confess, Dee. The final shoe, please drop.”
“You’re right, as usual, Jack. You always are.
“Without my brains, Father Time wouldn’t have gotten far.
“He was a patsy. I ran things from behind the scenes.
“I’m wicked Halloweenian, Jack. It’s just in my genes.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Jack said. “Let’s be on our way.
“Don’t make me laugh,” Dee said. “I’m not going away.
“You don’t have any evidence, facts, or proof!”
“I’ve recorded your confession, Dee. I’m a master sleuth.”
SECOND EPILOGUE
“Frost Detective Agency. Christy speaking—-just a moment.”
Christy puts the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium caller on hold just as I walk in the front door of my new office in H-Town. Why would I hire a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium witch as my administrative assistant after my dealings with Dee, you buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium ask? What can I say? I have a soft spot for Halloweenians.
“Jack,” it’s the chief of the Holiday Guard. She says it’s urgent.”
“It always is.” I waltz by Christy’s desk, dropping her lunch off in my wake. “Tell her I’ll call her back in a minute.”
“But Jack–!”
“In a minute, Christy!”
I saunter back to the room I’ve set up for Fred—-larger than buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium my own so as to accommodate his equipment, the little nutcracker–and knock on his door.
“Open, it is,” he calls from the other side. I open the door and find him at his computer, as usual.
“Heads up!” I say as I toss him his sandwich.
“Very much, thank you,” he says.
“What kind of hip-hop lingo is that?” I ask.
“Hip-hop, so last decade is. Talk in Yoda-speak, now do I.”
“Yoda-speak? Does this have anything to do with those movies you saw last week?”
“Greatest films ever, they were!”
I shake my head and leave Fred to his work.
I open the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium door to my office and a half ton of fur and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium muscle crashes into me.
“Down, boy!” I say as I scratch the polar bear’s head.
I hand him a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium large fish I got from the H-Town market. He swallows it buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium in a single gulp.
“Greatest films ever or not, I still don’t know if I like the name Fred came up with for you, Chewie.”
Chewie snorts and begins sniffing around in my bag.
“No, no! You’ve had your lunch. That’s mine.”
I sit and throw my feet up on my desk. I’m about to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium take a bite out of the snow cone I bought for buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium my lunch when my globe rings.
Reluctantly, I pick it up.
“Christy, I told you–”
“Frost?” It’s not Christy’s voice I hear, but that of the chief of police. “Frost, where have you been? No! Never mind that. Is your crystal ball on?”
“Why?”
“Just turn it on!”
“What’s the big–?”
“Turn it on, Frost!”
I sigh and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium pick up the remote and pop on the idiot ball I have buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium mounted on my office wall. The picture comes on to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium reveal someone in a mask standing in front of the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium familiar tanks of the H-Town magicworks.
“–And I will release this toxin,” the masked man’s image says, “into the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium H-Town magic supply in exactly one hour if Detective Jack Frost does not present himself to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium me, alone and unarmed. This is not a hoax–”
“Frost,” the chief’s voice says over the phone. “Frost, are you there?”
“I’m on my way, chief!”
Without bothering to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium hang up the phone, I leap over my desk and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium skate out the door, knowing Holiday Town is depending on me.
“I’m on my way!”
#
And so our story ends on this last page.
We hope you enjoyed it and found it all the rage.
We hope we entertained you and on a journey took,
Your imagination while reading this book.
But now is the time for sleep, work, school, and play.
We’ll always be here for you to visit another day.
We hope you’ll come back, should Jack Frost skate again.
There are more crimes to solve, more cases to win.
And so we bid you farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye.
Keep your head in the clouds, and the twinkle in your eye!
Stay young at heart and you’ll always be all right.
Thank you for reading THE LONG SILENT NIGHT!
#
Shane Berryhill is buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the author of THE ADVENTURES OF CHANCE FORTUNE series (official selection of Accelerated Reader, the NY Public Library’s Books for the Teen Age, and the Texas Lone Star Reading List). You may order copies from buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium your local independent bookstore, or purchase print and/or electronic versions from one of these fine outlets:MacMillian http://us.macmillan.com/series/TheAdventuresofChanceFortune
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and Twitter (twitter.com/shaneberryhill).
After a quick stop at the last Ice Age,
Jack Frost was poised and ready to take center stage.
But his pop Santa Claus needed an outfit.
So back into the past is where Jack Frost went.
Jack slipped into Macy’s Department store,
Grabbed a Santa outfit and headed out the back door.
Out in the alley, a little girl saw through his disguise,
Although Jack is hidden from human eyes.
He gave her piece of magic light on an ice chain,
Jack Frost’s loss was the little girl’s gain.
He wished her Merry Christmas and bid her goodnight,
Then went back to Holiday Town to make things right.
He burst into Father’s office, ready to rock.
The Holiday Guards he froze in an ice block!
“Look, Jack,” Santa said. “Father Time is on the news.”
“Move! To the press room! Not a moment to lose!”
The mayor was there, acting all haughty.
“Father Time,” Santa said, “You’ve been very naughty!”
With Dees as his hostage, Father Time ran.
“Quick, Jack!” Santa said. “You must stop that man!”
21
I reach the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium lobby just in time to see the time-evator doors closing on Father Time and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Dee. The Holiday Town mayor hurls a spell with his staff just as the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium doors shut and I drop to the floor, allowing it to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium pass harmlessly over my head.
I run to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the time-evator. I curse as I watch the lights over the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium time-evator door descend in number. Father Time is taking Dee to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the basement level. At least he’s not hoping around in time. There’s that to be thankful for at least.
I press the call button on the other time-evator but nothing happens.
“Jammed! Nutcrackers!”
I look around the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium room, searching for a stairwell. I spot a door in the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium corner and scramble over to it and fling it open.
Bingo!
I don’t waste time with the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium stairs. I simply form an ice chute that spirals down over them. I hop on and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium slide to the bottom where I burst through the doors and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium into the basement.
“Dee!” I shout. She’s lying against the wall cradling her ankle.
I rush over to her and kneel at her side.
“Can you walk?”
“No. I twisted my ankle when buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium he tossed me out of the time-evator. That’s why he left me behind.”
“When I get my hands on that lowlife–!”
“Don’t worry about me, Jack. I’ll be fine.”
She points to a tunnel on our right.
“He went that way!”
I linger for buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium only a second, caressing her chin between my thumb and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium forefinger. Then I rise to my feet and take off after Father Time. I don’t bother going dim. The magic of Father Time’s staff is too powerful for my clothes to hide me from him.
I run through a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium maze of tunnels filled with steaming pipes and fire hoses. I duck around a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium corner and dive just in time to dodge a spell from buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the end of Father Time’s staff. I hear him curse but when I pop up to return fire, he’s gone.
I proceed down the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium tunnel with caution. He almost had me with that little ambush. I’ve got to turn this game of cat and mouse around somehow.
I exit the tunnel to enter a large, underground loading dock. It’s filled with boxes, crates, and forklifts–any of which could serve as his hiding place.
What can I do to draw him out? I ask myself.
And then I answer myself just as quickly.
His Ego!
I recall how he enjoyed my recounting the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium events of his plan to remain Father Time–how he wanted me to know–how he wanted to have his Machiavellian workings appreciated.
Yes, it’s a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium man with an ego who thinks himself worthy enough to wield absolute power for buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium all eternity.
I slip behind a skid of shrink-wrapped boxes.
“Hey, FT!” I call from my hiding place. “I’ve got to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium hand it to you, when you screw up a plan, you buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium do it big time!”
I fall silent, listening for buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium a response. I hear nothing. I crouch and duck-walk forward to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium another hiding place behind a row of boxes.
“And right on inter-holiday news, too. I’ll bet every man, woman, and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium child in the holiday worlds are laughing their buns off at you buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium right–!”
I hear zapping spells streak across the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium room. They strike the boxes serving as my hiding place and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium send them scattering.
I duck and roll behind a forklift, dodging Father Time’s fireworks. A few more blasts hit the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium forklift before all falls silent again.
“That was a close ice shave,” I whisper.
If nothing else, I’ve learned he’s within striking distance. If he can buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium hit me, then I can hit him. I’ve got to press him. Get him fuming mad and careless.
“That the best you can do?” I shout. “I think you need your eyes checked. You missed me by a mile!”
I wait.
Nothing.
“But that’s to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium be expected from a Father Time whose year has passed. You must be buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium ancient by now! A real old codger way past his prime who’s too senile to realize when he needs to give up the reins!”
“Shut up!” Father Time screams.
I pop up from buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium behind the forklift, knowing he will be doing the same to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium try to get a shot at me.
I pray I’ll be faster.
I am.
But not fast enough.
My shot goes over his head as he ducks behind a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium stack of wooden pallets. It hits the wall behind him where buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium it spreads out in a large patch of ice.
“Peek-a-boo, I see you,” I whisper.
I count on him keeping still for buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium a moment and crawl forward to another hiding place behind a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium large barrel on his left flank.
“It must be buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium rough to see all your hard work and planning slip through your buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium fingers,” I say. “And to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium think, you were the very one to call in the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium guy who would bring it all crumbling down around you. Namely me!”
I get ready to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium wait out his fire and volley back, but no spells ever come. Inspiration strikes and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium I form an ice sculpture of myself. Just enough of its stocking-fedora is buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium sticking out from behind the barrel to make the old man think it’s me still crouched behind it.
I crawl out from buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium behind the barrels on my belly and inch my way to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium a position behind the dispatch desk.
“Yes, one of us was just a little bit smarter than the other,” I say throwing my voice at my ice-double. Like the whistling, it’s another little trick I’ve picked up along the centuries.
“Well, let’s be buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium honest here. One of us is smart, and the other is buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium just plain stupid–the one who buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium has delusions of grandeur and multi-world domination, that is. Not that buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium I’m naming any names.”
I crawl out from buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium behind the desk to a stack of pallets a mere ten feet to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the left of Father Time’s hiding place. Almost home. Just got to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium get him angry enough to pop out again.
“What would you do with eternity anyway?” I ask, again throwing my voice. “It’s not like you have the brain capacity to do anything–”
“Shut up!” he screams as he pops out from behind his hiding place.
I freeze him solid just as he lowers his staff to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium shoot. I sigh in relief and get up from my hiding place and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium walk over to him.
You can buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium imagine my surprise as I round the stack of pallets and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium see another Father Time crouched there, his staff raised to fire. It does and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium this time, it’s me who freezes!
Father Time rises to his feet. “Yes, one of us here is certainly stupid,” he laughs. “And since it’s not me, let me clear things up for you, Frost.”
He taps the back of the frozen Father Time’s head with his fist.
“Look familiar?” he asks. “He should. He’s me from three minutes ago–the me you made angry enough to come out of hiding.
“That was me before the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium near miss with your ice blast brought me to my senses. I realized I had buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium to bait you. And using my staff’s powers to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium bring this old boy into the present seemed like just the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium thing. Obviously, it was.”
Nutcrackers! My own trick used against me. What a snowflake I am!
“Oh, Jack my boy!” Father Time says, ecstatic.
He moves forward and seizes my shoulders.
“I’m almost sorry this has to end. This is the most fun I’ve had all year!”
He turns and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium paces as he talks. It must be something he does when buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium he gets excited–or angry–like back in the H-Town jail.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking, my boy, but don’t you buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium worry. As you pointed out, I am the master of this buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium year and all those that came before mine. And contrary to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium what I said earlier, as you might have guessed by now, the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium time-evator works just fine!
“I’ll just do a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium little time-traveling to the day this all began and make sure to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium smooth out the rough patches in my scheme you mentioned during our little talk earlier.”
He stops and whirls to face me.
“But what about you? There’s no guarantee you won’t come back into the mix to foul things up again.”
“Hmmm?”
Father Time strokes his beard and starts pacing again.
“Yes. What to do about you?”
A moment later he turns to face me again.
“I’ve got it! Oh, yes, my boy. This should be quite interesting. I’ve wondered about it before, but never quite dared to do it.”
He rushes up to me and puts his face in mine.
“I’ve always been buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium curious to see what would happen if I chronologically regressed a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium holiday person to the time before the humans–to the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium time before there was anyone around to give the forces and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium seasons of the world a name and a face.
“Would they explode, implode, or simply fade from existence? What’s say you and I find out, shall we?”
Father Time’s mirthless grin spreads wider than I’ve ever seen it.
“But I’m afraid, my boy, one way or another, it’s the long, silent night for you.”
He lowers his staff and points it at me.
That staff.
It’s the source of his powers. If only I could get it out of his hands.
The staff’s tip begins to glow and Father Time’s eyes grow wider and wider.
“Yes,” he says excitedly, “Yes! I can feel the years coming off you. Century after Century!”
Father Time’s nervous habit kicks in and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium he begins to rock back and forth on his feet.
If I’m going to get out of this and stop him, I’ve got to do it now, before I become less than a memory.
Unlike Old Man Winter, my powers are buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium somewhat limited. He can freeze with a thought.
Me? I like to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium channel the cold through my body, especially my hands. It’s not absolutely necessary, but it buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium makes it a heck of a lot easier for me. But it’s a hang-up that’s almost cooked my Christmas goose here.
To beat Father Time, I’ve got to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium think outside the icebox. If I have to use my body to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium channel the magic, fine.
But that doesn’t mean I have to use my hands.
“Closer, now!” Father Time says as he rocks excitedly. “Almost there!”
I send the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium cold snaking out from my feet across the ground. It forms a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium thin sheet of ice along the floor as it advances toward Father Time.
“Yes, yes!” Father Time is all but dancing now. “You’re there at the dawn of civilization. You’re little more than buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium a flickering image now. Just the spark of an idea in some Cro-Magnon’s–!”
The ice reaches Father Time’s dancing feet and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium he slips. For a moment, he seems to hover in the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium air, his arms and legs flailing like those of a lumberjack trying to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium keep his balance on a rolling log.
Then gravity kicks in and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium he lands smack on his back, the wind rushing out of his lungs. His staff goes tumbling out of his hands across the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium room and immediately his spell over me is broken.
I don’t give him time to recover.
I pounce on top of him, seizing his robes in my hands.
“You rotten, no good, liar!” I say, shaking him. “You were supposed to be our leader and you double-crossed us!”
I feel my anger rise within me and it brings the cold with it–the wild, uncaring blizzard that always rages in my heart–the storm that only wants to freeze and destroy!
“You kidnapped my father! Almost killed us both!”
The blizzard of my fury takes shape around us. In seconds, we’re knee deep in snow, Father Time’s clothes and beard frosted over.
“I should do the same to you! You’d deserve it! I should freeze you until you–!”
“Son.”
It’s Pop.
It’s Santa Claus.
His voice is soft. I feel his hand come to rest on my shoulder.
“This is not the way, son. You’re better than this.”
I turn and shout in Pop’s face.
“He tried to kill us! He tried to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium stop the birth of his own son. He wished that his own son never be buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium born!”
I turn back to rage at Father Time.
“Do you know how that feels? Do you?”
I feel Pop’s arms close around my shoulders.
“It’s okay, son,” he says. “It’s okay. Poppa’s here. Let him go, now. It’s okay.”
I shudder with anger and frustration.
And fear.
Fear of myself.
Then I abruptly release Father Time and bury my face in Pop’s beard and chest.
Pop hugs me and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium lets me cry there until the storm, both inside and out, passes.
Then Pop helps me to my feet.
“Take his staff, son,” Pop says. “Wait for me over there.”
I nod and obey, picking up Father Time’s staff and walking with it over to the loading dock entrance.
Pop lays his finger to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the side of his nose and the color returns to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Father Time’s face. Pop helps him off the floor.
“Your year is long up, my friend,” Santa Claus tells him. “You know that, don’t you?”
Father Time starts to protest, but somehow, when he looks into Pop’s eyes, all the anger drains out of him.
Father Time nods and begins to sob.
“I’m scared,” he says, his voice small and sheepish.
“It’s okay,” Pop says as he places a hand on Father Time’s shoulder. “New things are always scary at first.”
“I don’t want to end,” Father Time says.
“End? Why, there is no end. Only new beginnings, new states of being.”
Pop places an arm around Father Time’s shoulder and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium gestures to the air. A vision of a bright and shining future appears before them. It’s not fairy magic, but the magic of truth.
It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“Just as the humans rise from and return to the fabric of the cosmos,” Pop says, “so shall you buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium return to the fabric of time. You shall join with your buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium forefathers and go on and on to make up all the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium new years that come after you, forever and ever. This is buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium not something to be feared, but embraced.”
Pop turns to Father Time and holds him at arms’ length.
“Are you ready?”
The two men hug.
When they release one another, Father Time nods.
“Then go, my friend,” Pop says. “Join with the past so that you may become tomorrow unending.”
Father Time turns and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium walks into the vision of the future, his face alight with a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium brilliant smile. Then he and the vision of the years to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium come are gone.
#
Shane Berryhill is buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the author of THE ADVENTURES OF CHANCE FORTUNE series (official selection of Accelerated Reader, the NY Public Library’s Books for the Teen Age, and the Texas Lone Star Reading List). You may order copies from buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium your local independent bookstore, or purchase print and/or electronic versions from one of these fine outlets:MacMillian http://us.macmillan.com/series/TheAdventuresofChanceFortune
Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Chance-Fortune-Outlaws-Adventures/dp/0765314681
Books-a-Million
http://www.booksamillion.com/search?id=5227463454614&type=author&query=Shane Berryhill
Barnes & Noble
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/shane-berryhill
Shane loves to interact with friends and fans on
Facebook (www.facebook.com/shane.berryhill)
and Twitter (twitter.com/shaneberryhill).
Jack woke up and opened his eyes to see,
He was with Santa Claus back in prehistory.
“Pop, it’s good to see you, but it’s so darn hot.”
“Jack, we’re stuck here,” Santa said. “Such is our lot.”
“Where is here, exactly?” Jack asked. “Melting is my ice.”
“The age of the dinosaurs. And they aren’t very nice!
“Let’s get you in the shade, before you melt away.
“Somehow we’ve got to get you back home to present day.”
At that moment, a roar through the forest rang.
Then out from between the trees, a big T-Rex sprang!
“Let’s get the holly out of here! Come on, Pop, run!
“If that T-Rex catches us, you and I are done!”
Jack and Santa bolted, but much to their dismay,
There was nowhere to run, no path for getaway.
“I’ll freeze a tar pit, Pop, and let the T-Rex crash in.”
“No way, son! You’re weak. The act would mean your end!”
Jack froze the pit anyway, having little choice.
When the T-Rex fell in, to cheers they gave voice!
Then using a little magic leftover from Pole-side,
Santa called the time-evator to give them both a ride.
20
Great Ak, am I frosted!
If Fred where here, I guess he’d use video game terminology and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium say I was powered up, or leveled up, or whatever. That little trip into the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Ice Age was just the thing to put the ice back in my freezer.
But poor Pop. He went from one extreme to the other–tropical heat to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium freezing cold. I look at him in the elevator beside me. His skin is, for buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium him, an unhealthy blue, and his teeth are chattering.
“We’ve got to get you some proper clothes.”
“I won’t argue with you there,” he says through chattering teeth.
“Hmmm,” I say, “Is there any way to get to a specific time and location? These buttons don’t seem to pinpoint any time period smaller than a century.”
“Yes, I’ve used this time-evator before,” Pop says. “Just press the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium century you want and merely concentrate on the exact time and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium place. The time-evator will take care of the rest.”
I press the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium button for the twentieth century and concentrate. The time-evator dings and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the doors open to the bustling Thirty-fourth Street of mid-century Manhattan.
“Ho-ho-ho!” Santa laughs, his voice full of approval. “Macy’s department store, circa nineteen-forty-seven. Good call, son.”
“Wait here,” I say, “I don’t think anyone needs to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium see Santa Claus running around New York in his underwear.”
“Agreed.”
I go dim and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium exit the time-evator. I cross the street and enter Macy’s. It’s packed with humans shopping for buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Christmas presents. Holiday lights and decorations are everywhere and the music of Christmas carols floats softly through the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium air. I slip away from the masses to search the hidden areas behind the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium individual shops.
At last, I find what I’m looking for–a locker room with a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Santa Claus costume hanging on every hook. I pick one out that buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium looks like it would fit Pop and stuff it under my trench cloak. Then I head back toward the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium elevator.
I reach the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium street and see a small child in old, worn clothes staring at me, her mouth agape.
Sometimes kids–the ones with pure hearts and pure eyes–can see me even when I’m dim.
There’s a woman–I’m guessing the child’s mother–rummaging in a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium trash can behind her. It melts even my cold heart. I walk over to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the child, her eyes growing wider with every step I take. I put my finger to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium my lips, gesturing for her to be quite.
I squat down in front of her and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium gesture for her to wait a moment. I take out the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium borealis from my cloak and the little girl gasps as it buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium illuminates her face. I place it in her hands and then buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium form a sparkling ice chain that I attach to it. The magic of the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium borealis should be enough to keep it intact permanently.
“From Santa,” I whisper, giving her a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium wink. She places the chain over her head and slips it buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium around her neck. She cradles the borealis in her hands and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium then looks up at me, her tiny face full of love and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium gratitude. Without warning, she throws her arms around my neck and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium squeezes me in a tight hug. After a moment, I hug her back. I use my magic over cold to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium banish it from this child. Hugging me will be the last time she ever knows Winter’s harsh, bitter touch.
We separate and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium I motion for her to put the borealis down the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium front of her shirt.
“Secret and safe.” I whisper.
She gives an exaggerated nod of understanding.
“Merry Christmas,” she whispers.
“Merry Christmas,” I say as I rise.
I turn and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium walk back to the time-evator without giving the child another glance.
In the end, Frost is what Frost is, after all.
Pop is buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium ecstatic to see the clothes I brought him and immediately starts putting them on.
“Good job, Son. These are buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium just about like those your mother sows for…Jack? Are you crying son?”
“Something was in my eye,” I say as I wipe away a frozen tear. “Let’s go.”
Pop presses the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium button for present day and we rocket up toward Father Time’s office. I make myself forget about the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium little girl and concentrate on what I plan to do when buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium I get my hands on ol’ FT!
“Easy, son,” Pop says. “Save it, now.”
I glance around and see that there’s frost forming on the walls.
“He’s going down, Pop. For what he’s done, he’s going down!”
The door opens to Father Time’s office and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium every clock in the room goes off in alarm. Three feds I’ve never seen before are buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium there waiting on us. They raise their wands and fire.
But I’m ready for them.
I throw up a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium shield of protective ice and the spells go bouncing around the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium room. One even strikes its caster and he falls to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the ground, stunned.
A quick wave of my hand and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium a blizzard-cold wind gallops across the room, freezing the other two feds where buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium they stand.
I skate over the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium ice lain across the floor in the wake of my wind and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium grab the stunned fed by his sash, pulling his face up to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium mine.
“Where’s Father Time?” I demand.
He struggles unsuccessfully to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium speak. At last, he manages to raise an arm and point to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the large crystal ball mounted on the wall among the clocks. Father Time is buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium on it giving a press conference, Jasmine, Romeo, and Dee at his side.
“…Unfortunately,” Father Time’s image says from the TV, “Talbot’s accomplice, Jack Frost, met his end during an escape attempt.”
“The holly I did!” I shout. “Come on, Pop. We’ve got to get down there!”
We jog to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the time-evator and go inside. I press the button for present day and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium concentrate on the lobby. The press room is also on the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium ground floor. We reach the lobby and then bolt into the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium press room just as Father Time announces his regret that it buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium doesn’t appear there’s any chance of finding Santa Claus.
“I beg to differ!” Santa bellows.
Every head in the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium room turns and voices his name in surprise at seeing him. Cameras flash and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium he’s bombarded with a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium hundred questions. He ignores them all and shouts over the crowd.
“Father Time, you’ve been very naughty!”
“This man is an impostor!” Father Time shouts. “He’s with a known felon! Seize them!”
Jasmine and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Romeo spring into the air. The crowd shrieks as they dive-bomb us. A wave of my hand sends them falling to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the ground like the heavy blocks of ice that they now are.
Pop and I press our way forward through the crowd.
“It’s Father Time who is the criminal here!” I shout. “It was he who actually kidnapped Santa! Father Time said Santa was lost, but he was holding my pop hostage the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium whole time! Everything else is lies, just like him saying I was dead!”
“Is this true?” the reporters Father Time ask in a hundred different variations. “How do you explain this?”
Pop and I press onward to the stage.
“He didn’t want to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium give up being Father Time. And the only way he could stay in office was to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium make sure Baby New Year never arrived. That’s why he needed to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium keep Santa from delivering presents. He wanted time to stand still. He wanted it buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium to be Christmas Eve forever!”
The reporters bombard Father Time with questions until he loses it.
“Silence!” he screams as he waves his staff in a broad arc.
I erect a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium protective ice shield around Pop and myself just in time to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium prevent the time-dampening spell from washing over us. The rest of the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium crowd is not so lucky. The go as still as the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium victims in Old Man Winter’s palace, frozen in time.
Father Time grabs Dee by the neck and pulls her to him.
“Don’t follow,” he shouts, “or your little friend gets it!”
He ducks out of the room, dragging Dee along with him.
“Pop,” I say, “he’s got Dee!”
“I think I can buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium lift this spell off these good folks, son. You go on. I’ll catch up.”
I nod and run out of the room after Father Time.
Jack found himself in an H-Town jail.
“Just like old times. Yeah, just real swell.”
The wolf was beside him, drool hanging from his chin.
“Snap out of it, Talbot. Trouble we’re both in!”
“I’m afraid,” Father Time said, “there’s been a mistake.
“The interrogation spell was more than he could take.
“Why don’t you fess up, Jack? Why don’t you come clean?
“We know you’re the perp, working from behind the scenes.”
In that moment, Jack Frost’s cold heart fell.
He knew what his subconscious had been trying to tell.
The answer had always been there, circling in his mind.
“You kidnapped Santa Claus! It was you, Father Time!”
Father Time turned to his guards and said, “Shut the door.
“Such a bright boy, Jack. Please, tell me more.
“Talbot, Old Man Winter, they were all a smokescreen.
“From the beginning, it was you who was the fiend!”
“You kidnapped Santa Claus to stop time and halt the hour,
“It was the one way for you to always stay in power.”
“Brilliant!” the mayor said. “Too bad we have to stop.
“It’s high time I showed you where I’m keeping your pop.”
19
“Jack.”
I know I’m dreaming again when I hear Pop’s voice.
“Jack, wake up, son.”
It’s so hot in the dream. Like a sauna. It’s agonizing.
“Jack, it’s me, your father. Wake up, son!”
I feel my body being shaken. My eyes flutter open and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the large, dark silhouette of a man stands over me, the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium blazing sun forming a corona around him.
“Pop?” I ask. My voice sounds terrible–as brittle as a frozen twig.
“Quick, son. Let’s get you into the shade.”
Pop lifts me and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium carries me under the canopy of a nearby tree. Santa wipes the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium water of my melting scalp from my eyes and I see that buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium he has stripped down to only his boots and underclothes.
He’s filthy. His silvery hair and beard are full and unkempt. He’s also quite a few pounds lighter than when I last saw him.
“You’ve lost weight,” I say, my voice a whisper.
“And you will, too, unless we get you out of here soon.” He hugs me to his chest. “Oh, son! It’s so good to see you.”
“Where are we?” I ask. “How can the sun be out when it’s still Christmas Eve?”
“It’s still Christmas Eve in the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium time you came from. If I had to guess, I’d say we’re currently sometime around the end of the Cretaceous Period. It’s where buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Father Time and his cronies dumped me, and now you, for buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium safe keeping.”
I think about the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium elevator in City Hall, the one that runs from the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium big bang up to present day, and realize exactly how Pop and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium I got here.
“Oh, son, you wouldn’t believe the things I’ve had to endure!”
“You and me both–”
Pop gestures for buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium me to fall silent. I do so and try to listen. But it’s too hard. Too hard to do anything but lie here.
Great Ak, it’s hot!
Pop perks up beside me.
“Pop, what is–?”
Again, I fall silent at his urging. Then I feel it. The ground shaking beneath our feet every few seconds. The tremors are buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium small, but growing steadily. They remind me of the Cottontail’s thumping, only magnified a hundred fold.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Pop says.
He jerks me to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium my feet and throws my arm over his shoulder. He trots deeper into the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium rain forest surrounding us, more or less dragging me along. We pass around trees, deadfall, and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium bubbling pits of what will one day millennia hence be petroleum.
“What, Pop? What’s the–?”
I see the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium gigantic head of a tyrannosaurus rex drop below the forest canopy to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium sniff the ground. Pop dives behind a fallen tree, pulling me along with him.
“Okay, son,” he whispers. “He only smells me. You’re just water as far as he’s concerned. I’ll run to the left and draw him away from you.”
“No way, Pop,” I whisper.
“It’s not open to discussion, Son.”
“If you take off, I’m going to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium yell at the top of my lungs to make sure he has buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium a thirst quencher in me before he gets you as the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium main course.”
“You wouldn’t!”
I struggle to do it, but I grin back at him. It’s answer enough.
Pop scowls, looking as mean as a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium jolly fat Santa Claus can, which isn’t very much.
“It’s only a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium matter of time before the dinosaur finds us. What are buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium we going to do?”
“We’ll beat him to the punch. Look, I’ve got an buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium idea. See if you can get us back to one of those tar pits we passed.”
He nods and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium lifts me to my feet. We both glance back at the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium T-Rex. It’s still sniffing the ground, but closer now.
Too close.
We stumble along, circling back in the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium direction we came, the T-Rex doing likewise. At last, we reach a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium clearing overflowing with bubbling pits of goo.
“There,” I say, nodding to a large pit on our right. “That one looks big enough. Take us over–”
My words are buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium drowned out in the tooth-rattling roar of the T-Rex. We look back and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium see the dinosaur crashing through the forest toward us, its enormous, razor-sharp jaws spread wide.
“He’s spotted us,” I say. “Quick, get us to the other side!”
Pop moves as fast as I’ve ever seen. In seconds flat, we reach the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium opposite side of the pit.
“Lower me down,” I plead. “Hurry!”
I stretch my hand out above the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium tar pit, reaching out to the tiny droplets of moisture hanging in the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium air. Pop realizes what I’m doing and protests.
“No, son! You’re too weak! It’ll kill you!”
I ignore him and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium concentrate, praying I can do this before the T-Rex gets close enough to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium be spooked by it. A thin sheet of ice forms beneath my hand and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium begins to snake out over the pit.
“Come on!” I say.
The T-Rex grows larger and larger within my field of vision.
“You can do this! Come on!”
The dinosaur’s roar thunders in my ears.
The ice finishes covering the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium entire pit just as the T-Rex bursts through into the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium clearing. I collapse, rolling over onto my back so that buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium I see an up-side-down version of the beast as it buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium gallops toward us. It dodges around several pits and I begin to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium worry my plan won’t work.
“Come on, you big, stupid thing, come on!”
I shouldn’t have buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium worried. Instead of noticing the ice cover and slowing down, the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium T-Rex charges straight for us. The ice cracks with its first step and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the dinosaur tumbles face-first into the bubbling ooze.
“Yeah!” I shout.
I slam my fist on the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium ground in triumph as the T-Rex sinks below the surface. I turn, exuberant, to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium face Pop. My smile drops when I see the tears rolling down his rosy cheeks.
“He was going to eat us, Pop.” I say.
“I know,” he says wiping his face. “I know. But he was just an buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium animal, doing what he was born to do. He didn’t know any better.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re–” agony shoots through my body.
I look down and see I’m only an buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium ice shaving of my normal frosty self. That last little stunt with the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium ice cover did me in.
I’m melting.
Fast!
Pop takes me in his arms. “If only I had a little bit of the Pole here–a little bit of home grown magic. I could get us out of here lickity-split.”
I try to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium speak, but my mouth is only able to form a single world. “Pocket.”
Pop nods. He releases me and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium reaches into my cloak pocket. A smile lights up his bearded face along with the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium bit of aurora borealis as he pulls it out.
“If it’s one thing I know,” Pop says as he lays a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium finger to the side of his nose with his free hand, “It’s how to make an exit!”
I hear the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium ding of an elevator and then a rectangular hole opens in space before us. On the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium other side is the box-shaped interior of the City Hall time-evator.
He drags me inside.
“What floor?” He asks.
A smug grin covers my face.
“There,” I say, pointing to one of the buttons. “the last Ice Age.”
#
Shane Berryhill is buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the author of THE ADVENTURES OF CHANCE FORTUNE series (official selection of Accelerated Reader, the NY Public Library’s Books for the Teen Age, and the Texas Lone Star Reading List). You may order copies from buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium your local independent bookstore, or purchase print and/or electronic versions from one of these fine outlets:MacMillian http://us.macmillan.com/series/TheAdventuresofChanceFortune
Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Chance-Fortune-Outlaws-Adventures/dp/0765314681
Books-a-Million
http://www.booksamillion.com/search?id=5227463454614&type=author&query=Shane Berryhill
Barnes & Noble
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/shane-berryhill
Shane loves to interact with friends and fans on
Facebook (www.facebook.com/shane.berryhill)
and Twitter (twitter.com/shaneberryhill).
Jack Frost awoke in a cell with his old enemy.
“Talbot!” Jack said, “You’ve been no friend to me.
“Where is Santa Claus? Tell me right now!”
“Take it easy,” Talbot said. “Don’t have a cow!”
“Now listen, Talbot,” Jack said, “I’m not playing.
“Take me to my pop or your prayers you’ll be saying!”
“Ha-ha,” Talbot laughed, “You’re such a loon.
“I’ve been played for a sap, and you for a buffoon!”
“When we escape,” Jack said, “you’ll sing a new song.
“I’ve had things under control all along.”
“I don’t see,” Talbot said, “how we can get out.
“No matter how loud and how much you scream and shout.”
“I’ve got my ways,” Jack said with a wink.
“I come through in a clutch, perform best on the brink.”
“If you get us topside,” Talbot said, “I’ll go quietly.
“They’ve been keeping me here daily and nightly.”
The two of them escaped with the help of a mole.
They tunneled to the surface. Such was their goal.
But before Jack could take Talbot on to jail,
They were both put to sleep by the zap of a spell!
18
I awake from another nightmare, the leftover echo of Pop’s pleading cries in my ears.
I’m in jail.
Again.
Talbot beside me.
Again.
“Talbot,” I say as I sit up on the cell’s lone piece of furniture, a bench.
He ignores me and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium just rocks back and forth where he sits, a glazed look in his eyes.
“Talbot!” I demand.
Finally, he looks at me.
“I can count to ten!” he says with unbound glee. “One. Two. Apple. Ten!”
“Uh,” I say, “I think you skipped a few there, pal.”
“There was an unfortunate mishap during Mr. Talbot’s interrogation.”
I turn and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium see Father Time standing in front of our cell, Romeo and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Jasmine, healthy and whole, at his side.
“It appears the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Guardsman conducting the questioning used an improper spell. Rest assured he will be buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium reprimanded. However, not to worry. Mr. Talbot should be right as rain in a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium millennia or two.”
Father Time turns his attention from Talbot to me.
“We’re hoping you’ll come clean, son. And spare us all the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium potential for any further accidents.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask, bewildered.
“Please, son. Don’t play coy. Just tell us where buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium your father is so we can go get him and get things back to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium normal.”
I jump to my feet.
“You think I kidnapped Santa Claus?”
“The need for subterfuge has passed, Jack,” Father Time says. “Before things went awry in Talbot’s interrogation, he confessed you buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium and he were in on this together from the beginning.
“He told us how you buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium played the loving son all these years merely so you could one day usurp Santa’s place of power. When you saw that day wasn’t going to come fast enough, you took matters into your own hands.
“I guess the cube doesn’t fall far from the iceberg.”
“Liar!”
I leap at him, reaching between the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium cell bars to grab his robes. A few quick stunner zaps from buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Jasmine and Romeo knock me to the floor.
I lie there, knowing.
I curse myself for buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium being so stupid and not putting it all together sooner.
Father Time turns to his officers. “Shut the door.”
Romeo complies and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium closes the door to the room, shutting the five of us off from buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium any eyes and ears that might be pass outside in the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium hallway.
I rise into a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium sitting position, still trying to fight off the pain from the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium stunners.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask. “What have you done with Santa?”
Father Time squats, using his staff as a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium prop, so that he faces me at eye level.
“If you’re so smart, Jack,” he whispers as he smiles. “You tell me.”
I look at him and shake my head.
“Your wife. Your son. How could you do this to your own son?”
“Quit babbling, boy.” Father Time says. “If you’ve got something to say, spit it out!
“Please, entertain us. Show us those supposedly great powers of deductive reasoning you’re so famous for.”
I sigh, wishing I had buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium some eggnog to drink or a peppermint stick to gnaw on.
“Who benefits?” I say. “Who benefits from all this? That’s the question you always have to ask.”
I look Father Time dead in the eye.
“The answer is, you.”
“You wanted people to believe this was all about Santa, didn’t you? You wanted us to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium believe that the November folk, in their unbound jealousy, kidnapped Santa Claus to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium stop Christmas and put Thanksgiving at the top of the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium holiday list.
“But that’s only the smallest part of it, isn’t it? Santa’s kidnapping is buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium just a convenient smokescreen that both accomplishes and hides your real objective.”
“I’m impressed,” Father Time says, smiling mischievously. “Please, do go on.”
“You enlist Old Man Winter’s help to cover the kidnapping–ask him to brew up a blizzard that will cover the real perps’ tracks–Talbot for one.
“But I’m guessing these two thugs here at your side also, considering you’re letting them listen in on all this.”
I point at Talbot. “Take a look guys. This is what happens to those who serve your boss!”
Jasmine and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Romeo take a step toward the cell but Father Time calls them off. He’s enjoying this buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium little explain all. He wants someone to appreciate how clever he is.
What a Grinch!
“I guess it buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium was the promise of a cut of H-Town business that got the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Old Man to agree to help you. Income from the capitol city would more than buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium make up for any loses he might suffer from Santa’s absence at the Pole.”
Father Time nods. “Very perceptive of you.”
“It would have buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium been easy enough for your boys to get their hands on turkey feathers to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium toss around the crime scene for the frame up. Of course, everyone would immediately assume it buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium was Frankie the Gobbler. He’s been buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the most vocal of the Thanksgiving bosses in his contempt of Christmas.”
“Really, Jack,” Father Time nods, “You do astound me! So much so, one has buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium to ask why would I want to call in such a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium bright boy as your self on the case?”
“Are you kidding me?” I ask. “As you said way back, my rep’s well known. And with my own father being the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium one kidnapped, it would’ve looked odd–suspicious even–if you hadn’t asked for my help.”
Father Time grins, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Of course, of course. Nothing slips by you.”
“Talbot’s assassination attempt on you buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium was staged, as well. Like with bringing me in on the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium case, it was all an elaborate ploy to further cast suspicion away from buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium you and onto the Gobbler and his crew. Romeo’s attempt at capturing Talbot just made the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium whole thing all the more believable.”
Father Time’s grin fades into a scowl.
“But then, enter the bright and shining knight of ice crystal.”
“Yeah, exactly.” I say. “What you didn’t count on was my going after Talbot, much less coming back with evidence. He was supposed to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium make a clean get away.”
“Touché,” Father Time says, his tone mocking.
“I guess you’ve got City Hall and the area around it bugged. That’s how you overheard me say I was going to the October Country.
“You must have buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium immediately gotten word to Talbot so that he and his pack could lie in wait for buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium me.
“You probably reached him through Samhain, the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium being who hooked you up with Talbot in the first place.
“Like Old Man Winter, I guess you buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium also lured the Halloween crime boss into this caper with the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium promise of a piece of the H-Town underworld.”
“That’s certainly one way to skin a cat,” Father Time says, “Or, in this case, melt an ice man.”
“You’re plan stalled again when the Count gave me Talbot’s name. You didn’t factor in one of Samhain’s lieutenants having ambitions beyond those his master allows him, much less making a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium move on them.”
“So that’s how you found out who Larry was!” Father Time exclaims.
“Yep. But I should’ve figured out it buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium was you behind all this before then, back in the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium October County, when Talbot and his boys jumped me.”
Father Time leans in, genuinely interested.
“How so?”
“Let me back up a second.
“First of all, realizing that buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the crime scene was staged, that was no-brainer. That Old Man Winter and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Samhain had a hand in this, well, that was obvious too. But I couldn’t wrap my head around why.
“I should’ve realized it was for the only reason that either of them do anything–profit. Then I should’ve asked myself who in the Holiday worlds could’ve supplied them with enough income to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium risk their regular cash cows. That should’ve immediately led me to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium finger you, the man with all the wealth of H-Town under his thumb.”
“Good points all,” Father Time says. “But I don’t understand. What do any of them have to do with Talbot’s October Country ambush being your tip off?”
“Like I said, Talbot was there waiting on me.
“He knew.
“Someone–someone who had to be at City Hall–tipped him off. With all other roads already leading to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium you, that should’ve been the star on the Christmas tree.”
“All this impressive deduction,” Father Time says, “But you still haven’t answered the million dollar question, boy: Why?
“Why did I do all this? Why did I kidnap Santa Claus?”
I slowly rise to my feet. Father Time rises to his own so that we’re once again face to face.
“Because, you buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Grinch, the same reason your kind do anything. To gain power. And to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium keep it.
“Your one year of glory–of being mayor of the holiday worlds–it just wasn’t enough for you. You couldn’t bear the thought of Baby New Year’s arrival.
“Unlike your dignified forefathers, the years before you, you didn’t want to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium give up the throne and pass on. You wanted to be buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Father Time for all eternity!”
“And what’s so wrong with that?” Father Time screams.
He loses his cool, shoving his underlings out of his way so he can buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium pace angrily around the room. Finally he comes back to face me.
“What’s so wrong with wanting to live a little longer? To enjoy a little more of life?”
“Nothing,” I say, “for anyone else but you. You have power over time–of your buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium year and all those that came before you. That is buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium near absolute power. It is a blessing. But for any one being to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium wield it longer than your kind do is wrong.”
For all it’s worth, I give Father Time the Eye.
“You waited until Santa Claus had buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium cast the spell of eternal night. Then you kidnapped him to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium make sure he could never deliver Christmas presents to the boys and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium girls of the human world and undo the spell.
“You did this buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium so that no more days would pass, ensuring your position as Father Time forever, with no buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium thought of the cost to your family or the known worlds.
“In this act of ultimate selfishness, you’ve corrupted the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium natural course of things and brought shame to all the Father Times who buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium came before you!”
“Silence!” Father Time screams.
He lowers his staff and, well, I freeze–freeze in time that is. Like an ice sculpture.
After a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium moment, Father Time seems to gather himself. His grin and happy demeanor return.
“I know you can hear me, Frost. And I say to you, Bravo!”
He does a prim golf clap on my behalf.
“For the most part, your logic has brought you to the heart of things.
“Yes, I had buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Santa Claus kidnapped. Yes, It was to ensure he could never deliver Christmas presents to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the boys and girls of the human world and undo the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium spell of eternal night.
“And, lastly, yes, it buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium was all to prevent the birth of my son, Baby New Year, and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium keep myself in power for all eternity.
“There! You have my confession in full–for all the good it will do you.
“You really should have considered my offer to take the heat.”
“It wouldn’t have brought Pop back. Something would’ve conveniently happened to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium me in lock up before I made any contrived statement about his whereabouts.”
“Astute as always.” Father Time turns to Jasmine. “Prepare the mind-wipe spell.”
Jasmine and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Romeo turn to one another. Twin streams of ominous, silvery mist being to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium snake out of their wands and weave in the air.
My frosty heart hammers in my chest. I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to break free of Father Time’s spell. I’ve got to find Pop and stop this madman!
“Oh!” Father Time says as he uses his free hand to steady his staff. “Why Jack, you are the strong one, aren’t you, my boy. I feel you buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium struggling against my time-dampening spell. Do you have something you’d like to say before your IQ drops to that of a brick?
Suddenly, I feel his spell’s hold on my mouth disappear. Unfortunately, it buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium remains very much intact over the rest of my body.
“What have you done with my father?” I demand.
“Yes,” Father Time says as he strokes his beard in consideration.
He turns to Jasmine and Romeo.
“Belay the spell. I’ve got a much better idea for Mr. Frost, here.”
Father Time returns his attention to me.
“Good news, Jack, old boy! I’ve decided to let you see your father.” Father Time’s mirthless grin spreads wide across his face. “And I promise you, it will be the last thing you ever see.”
Father Time gestures to Romeo. “Zap him with a sleeper.”
“No wait–!” I yell. But it’s too late. Romeo raises his wand and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the all-too-familiar blackness covers my field of vision.
Who benefits from Santa Claus’s kidnapping?
Around the answer, Jack’s mind was quickly wrapping.
Talbot was the muscle, but the brains were at City Hall.
It was someone who had overheard Dee’s and his phone call.
Deep in the earth below Easter Valley,
The Burrows ran like twisting back alleys.
A notorious gang, there did dwell,
Big, bad, Easter bunnies, the Cottontails.
Jack ventured inside, hoping the glamour would stick.
He needed to stay disguised to pull of this trick.
The Cottontail gang, he needed to infiltrate,
And find the werewolf before it was too late!
He joined the bunnies in their assembly hall.
Bugsy their leader was the meanest of all.
He stood high on a pedestal and addressed the herd.
“There’s an intruder among us! That is my word!”
Jack spun on his heels and tried to run out.
But the bunnies grabbed him and his head they did clout!
They stomped him up and down without uttering a peep,
Until darkness overtook him and he went to sleep.
17
I am dreaming. I’m just a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium boy, back in the tropical rain forest, abandoned to thaw by the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Old Man and scared to death of doing so when buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium I hear the wonderful sound of sleigh bells ringing. It means the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium man who will become my father is here to rescue me in more ways than buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium one–in every way that matters.
Then I’m strolling arm-in-arm with Dee along the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Loveland shore on the day we first kissed. I lean in to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium do so, closing my eyes. When I open them to see if she’s doing the same, it’s not Dee before me but a snarling werewolf!
I awake from buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium my dreams with a start, rising up and banging my head on the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium low roof of the burrow in which I’m imprisoned. I can’t tell if it buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium hurts or not. My body already feels like one giant bruise from buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium my thumping at the hands and feet of the Cottontails.
“I was beginning to wonder if they’d killed you.”
I turn and see a familiar man whose face I can’t quite place sitting beside me. “Who are you?” I ask.
“You know perfectly well who I am,” he says.
“No, I’m afraid–” in two shakes of a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium snow globe, Talbot changes into his wolf form and then just as quickly changes back.
“See now?” He asks.
I tackle him in response and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium pin him to the ground. I raise a fist to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium strike him and he begins to laugh.
“To be such a cool character, you’re quite the hothead, Frost,” he snorts.
“Where’s my father?” I demand. “Where is Santa Claus?”
He finds this hilarious. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you!”
“Try me.”
“It wouldn’t make any difference, Frost. There’s nothing you can do about it. We’ve both been buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium played like drums. And now several hundred bunnies are about to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium make sure we both go the way of the dodo because of our stupidity.”
I look around the burrow, noting the logs jammed in the entrance–our prison bars.
“I can get us out of here.”
“Who are you kidding, Frost? You think your glamour is going to save you? The Cottontails smelled you, an buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium outsider, the moment you entered the Burrows. Besides, the magic’s gone now. I saw them wash it off you—-though the water did freeze when it hit your skin.”
I cross my arms. “Tell you buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium what: If I get us out of here, you tell me where buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Santa Claus is the moment we’re topside. Then you buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium let me take you in. I can get the feds to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium go easy on you.”
He chuckles.
“What are you laughing at, furball?” I ask. “Face it. Turning yourself in is your best option. You’re running out of places to hide.”
“You really have no idea who you’re dealing with, do you?” he asks, still chuckling. “Okay. Okay. Get us to the surface and I’ll tell you where the fat man is. Then we can worry about the rest.”
“Deal.”
I rise to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium a crouch and put my hand to my mouth, adjusting my fingers so that buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium I can get just the right pitch. Then I blow.
“What was that?” Talbot asks.
“A whistle,” I say.
“I didn’t hear anything.”
“You might have in your werewolf form. Besides, it wasn’t meant for you.”
“Oh, yeah? Who was it–?”
There’s the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium sound of fierce scraping from the other side of the earthen wall at Talbot’s back and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium then it collapses on top of him, covering him in dirt. A glaze-eyed mole on size with the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Cottontails pops its head in through the hole created in the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium wake of the fallen wall.
“You called?”
“Hermie,” I say, “I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life!”
“Pardon me if I can’t say the same,” the mole jokes, referring to its blindness. “How are you, Jack? Who’s the wolf I smell with you?”
“I’ve been buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium better, pal. This skuzzbucket of a werewolf is Larry. We need you buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium to dig us out of here. We’ve got to get to H-Town, pronto.”
“Certainly! Glad to help. Follow me.”
Hermie turns in the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium hole and begins to dig at an incredible rate of speed. I lift Talbot, dirt covering and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium all, and shove him in the hole ahead me so I can buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium keep an eye on him.
Hermie tunnels through the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium ground for what seems like hours, Talbot and me following at his heels. Suddenly he stops and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium sits up on his hindpaws.
“Hermie?” I ask.
“Uh,” he says, apprehension in his voice, “what does that human-drawn cartoon say? I think I should’ve taken that left turn somewhere or other?”
The floor gives way beneath our feet and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium we go tumbling downward through the air. I look down and, with surprise, I see I’m about to land directly on top of Bugsy where he’s perched amid the herd for assembly.
He’s just as shocked.
I land on him and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium we go tumbling off the pedestal into the herd. Talbot and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Hermie crash directly beside us.
Somehow, I’m able to get an arm around Bugsy’s neck before he can recover from the fall.
“Freeze,” I yell at the heard, “or your boss is a popsicle!”
The Cottontails start to creep forward. “Tell them to back off,” I say.
“You must be joking?” Bugsy replies.
I squeeze him tighter.
“Do I look like a clown to you?”
“Halt!” Bugsy screams.
“Wise decision. Now tell them to allow us passage.”
“But–!”
I tighten my grip yet again.
“Allow them passage!” Bugsy shouts.
“All the way to the surface.”
“All the way to the surface!”
Reluctantly, the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium rabbits move aside. We back slowly through them and enter the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium exit tunnels. We walk until we reach a turn that I recognize.
“Think you can get away on your own from here, Hermie?”
I don’t have buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium to ask the mole twice. I turn and see his hind-end disappear down a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium freshly dug tunnel.
“Well, uh, thanks–”
“Don’t mention it,” Hermie’s voice echoes back down the tunnel.
I square my jaw and form two blocks of ice around Bugsy’s hindpaws so he can’t follow. He cries out in surprise and outrage.
“You’ll never get away with this, Frost.” He says, his voice trembling with anger and cold, “I’ll make sure of it!”
“Yeah, yeah. Take a number.”
I grab Talbot by his arm.
“Come on. Let’s go.”
Moments later, we exit the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium tunnel through which I came in. Fresh air never smelled so good! But I don’t allow myself time to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium savor it. I turn and, without saying a word, imprison Talbot’s left foot in a block of ice.
“Hey!” he shouts. “That’s cold!”
“Where’s Pop?”
“Really, Frost! We just faced down the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Cottontails together. I thought you and I were pack now.”
“We’re definitely not pack. We had a deal–I get you to the surface, you tell me where Pop is. Now, talk!”
“Alright! Alright! I’ll tell you where you’re precious jolly fat man is. He’s–”
Talbot’s eyes roll back in his head and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium he collapses to the ground to reveal a troop of feds firing sleep spells at me from buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the ends of their wands.
“Nutcrackers!”
I turn to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium run. Before I can go dim, I feel a spell connect between my shoulder blades. The last thing I see is buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the ground rushing up to meet my face.
Jack set out for the Emerald Isle.
There was a leprechaun there who was high profile.
“Being on the run ain’t cheap. Talbot will need dough.”
“So to the leprechaun, the werewolf might go.”
Jack traveled between worlds over the rainbow bridge.
Soon the Isle came into view, just over the ridge.
To a small stone tavern, Jack Frost came.
For there resided Mickey, a leprechaun of great fame.
Thanks to the glamour’s magic, he couldn’t see Jack’s face.
Just as well, Jack thought. Disguise is best in this case.
“I’ll ask you a riddle,” Mickey said, “Best answer it true.
“Or you’ll be my servant, until time runs anew!”
For the riddle’s answer, Jack floundered and fumbled,
But his luck held, and upon it he stumbled.
“Fair enough,” Mickey said, “your answer was right.
“But to learn Talbot’s whereabouts, me you must fight!”
Through house and yard, they rocked and rolled,
But at last the leprechaun came up silver and gold.
“What a fight, Jack! Oh, what a rally!
“So I’ll tell you where Talbot’s gone: It’s Easter Valley.”
16
Who benefits?
On the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium way over the rainbow back to H-Town, I mull the question around in my head. Who benefits from buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Pop’s kidnapping? Many have their reasons, including the Old Man and Samhain.
The Old Man would have buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium free reign at the Pole. And the more stygian of Samhain’s crew would be buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium able to roam at all hours anywhere they wished in the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium eternal night of Christmas Eve. But I’ve plowed those snow drifts before and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium neither seems to fill the Christmas stocking. The costs seem to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium outweigh the benefits.
Elf unions aside, Pop is the reason the Pole, the Old Man’s cash cow, exists in the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium first place. Without Pop, there is no Christmas. Without Christmas, sooner or buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium later, there is no North Pole. It’s in the Old Man’s best interest to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium see that Pop stays in place and on task. What good is buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium it to be the ruler of an abandoned wasteland, after all?
Samhain and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium his crew are in a similar position. Who cares about running free under the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium moon for eternity if your clientele, namely trick-or-treating children, are not awake to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium keep the business going?
Pretty soon, you buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium and your ghouls would be forgotten about all together. And for buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Holiday folk, being forgotten by the humans is to cease to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium exist.
I’ve seen it happen.
Ever heard of Eye of Ra Day?
Exactly!
That’s the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium reason Holiday Town, a city for beings who are supposedly immortal, has buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium a cemetery.
Anyway, so neither the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Old Man or Samhain are to blame. But there is a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium connection with the October Country. Talbot’s involvement is proof enough of that.
Based on the rap sheet I had Fred pull, Talbot doesn’t have buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the brains or the jingle bells to pull off something on this buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium scale.
And let’s not forget, he was waiting for buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium me in Necropolis. Someone tipped him off that I was coming–someone who buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium had to have overheard my conversation with Dee back at City Hall.
Someone who benefits!
Without a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium snowflake of a doubt, before I take Talbot in, he and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium I are going to sit down for our own little heart-to-heart.
I reach H-Town and, out of habit, stop at a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium pay-palantir to call Mom. I freeze in mid-dial, realizing what a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium fruitcake I am. The feds will surely have Mom’s line tapped.
Poor Mom. She’s worried about her husband and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium now, with me on the run from the law, her son to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium boot. She must be doing horrible. It kills me not to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium be able to call her to let her know I’m alright, but that’s how it is.
No point in trying to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium call and update Dee, either. With the ruckus back in Loveland, it’s simply not safe anymore.
Heck, it never was.
I walk the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium back roads of H-Town until I reach the corner of Fifth and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Bunny Trail. I make a right on the ol’ hippity-hoppity-highway and before long, instead of pavement beneath my feet, it’s gravel.
Soon, I’m out of the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium city all together, heading down the forest path that leads to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Easter Valley.
The woods give way and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the open, rolling fields of Easter Valley reveal themselves. Even at night, Easter Valley is buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium a fine place to be, if a bit warm for my liking.
The flowers and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium trees are very alive and sway in time to the singing of night birds and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the blinking of fireflies.
It’s a happy scene.
You’d never know that just beneath Easter Valley’s surface, the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Burrows run long and deep, full of huge, nasty, anthropomorphic bunnies who’d just as soon thump you to pieces as look at you.
Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Easter bunnies are buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium full of goodness and sharing. And that’s true enough.
Velveteen, Hazel, and the others might run things up here–and even just below. But go down in the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Burrows far enough and you enter the sewers–metaphorically speaking–that are Cottontail territory. And it’s there that I must go.
I cross the field before me, looking for an entrance to the Burrows.
I am not disappointed.
I find a hole large enough to accommodate my size–or Talbot’s for that matter, which is a good thing since I’m following his trail–and head down inside.
It’s not long before the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium light from above peters out, so I take out the piece of borealis to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium guide me. I step over protruding roots and scurrying bugs, spiraling deeper and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium deeper into the earth.
I begin to wonder if I’ve entered an buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium old, deserted network when I hear voices up ahead. I extinguish the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium borealis and proceed toward the sound, hoping the glamour will be buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium enough to pass me off as a Cottontail.
I reach a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium bend in the tunnel and see light flickering from the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium other side. I peek around and see two bunnies, obviously Cottontails, arguing heatedly among themselves.
Though these aren’t the first Easter Bunnies I’ve ever seen, I’m still amazed at the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium size of them. No garden variety rabbits are these! Each stands the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium full height of a Christmas elf from hindpaw to ear tip. Their hand-like forepaws hold torches made of thin vines woven into tight bulbs. Light shines from buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the fireflies captured inside.
“I’ve been on watch for six hours!” the first bunny, a sour-faced rabbit with a chewed ear, says. “It’s your turn to take over!”
“Just because I happened to be passing by,” the second bunny, a rabbit sporting an eye patch, says, “doesn’t mean I’m your relief. I’ve got other orders! Maybe he’s your relief?”
I straighten where buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium I stand, startled to realize the patch-eyed rabbit is referring to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium me.
So much for hiding.
At least the glamour’s working. They seem to think I’m another Cottontail.
“Is that right?” Chewed Ear asks. “Are you taking watch?”
“I, er,” I say coming out from around the bend, “that is to say–” Suddenly the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium tunnel begins to shake, dirt and dust falling upon our heads, with what buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium sounds like the beating of a thousand drums.
“Assembly!” Eye Patch shouts and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium scampers down the tunnel in the direction opposite of me.
“But! But!” Chewed Ear pleads.
“Assembly,” I say shrugging my shoulders. I chase after Eye Patch down the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium tunnel. I hear Chewed Ear cursing and kicking at the tunnel floor behind us.
I follow Eye Patch into an buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium enormous rabbit-dug cavern already filled with hundreds of Cottontails. They push, shove, and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium argue amongst themselves, jockeying for a position close to the elevated platform of earth located at the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium cavern’s far side.
For my part, I settle into a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium hopefully inconspicuous position along the herd’s edge.
A fight breaks out between two of the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium largest rabbits in the cavern over who gets to stand nearest the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium pedestal. The smaller bunnies around them are knocked senseless in the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium wake of their battle.
I begin to wonder how much damage they will do before it’s over when the biggest rabbit I’ve ever seen comes bounding through the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium herd and thumps both of them into unconsciousness with a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium mere flick of his hindpaws. He leaps to the top of the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium platform and a name whispered in reverent fear passes through the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium herd–Bugsy.
He raises a forepaw and the cavern falls into total silence.
“Before I speak of the reason as to why I’ve called assembly,” he says, “let us again remember our dear, fallen general, whose mantle I reluctantly assume, though I am buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium unworthy.”
The herd stamps its hindpaws repeatedly upon the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium ground as a single unit and the cavern shakes.
Bugsy raises his forepaw again and the stamping stops.
“The herd above all else!” Bugsy says.
“The heard above all else!” the rabbits echo, their voices thunder.
“Loyalty to the herd!” Bugsy says.
“Loyalty to the herd!” the rabbits repeat.
“But what buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium if I told you, my loyal Cottontails, that there is an buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium impostor among us?”
The cavern erupts in shouts of outrage.
I gulp at my position along the herd’s edge.
“What should the herd do with such vermin?” Bugsy asks.
The bunnies scream unrepeatable things. I begin to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium back away from the crowd for a nearby tunnel. I can’t find Talbot if I’m pounded into an ice slushy by hundreds of rabbit paws.
“What if I told you, my Cottontails,” Bugsy continues, his voice taking on a razor’s edge, “that we know who the impostor is?”
I turn and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium bolt for the tunnel only to be greeted by four scowling rabbits. I try to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium shove by them but succeed only in being beaten down to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the ground. Then numerous rabbit feet eclipse my vision and everything goes black.
#
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Back at the Pole, Jack knocked on Fred’s door.
“Let me in, Fred. It’s not safe anymore!”
“Yo, J! Are you crazy? Get your butt inside!
“Your face is on the news. You need to hide!”
“Tell me, J,” Fred said, “I don’t understand.
“How exactly did you become a wanted man?”
“I’m afraid,” Jack said, “there’s been a misunderstanding.
“For a crime I didn’t commit, me they are branding.”
“I need to rest, Fred. May I crash on your couch?”
“Make yourself at home, J. My crib ain’t no slouch.”
But sleep wouldn’t’ come, so the crime Jack pondered.
Who kidnapped my pop? Over this question his mind wandered.
Could it be Talbot, the Old Man, or the Halloween folk?
I’ve got to figure this out, and that ain’t no joke!
Just when Jack had finally closed his eyes,
The police came a’ knocking, much to his surprise!
“Come out, Frost!” the cops said. “We know you’re inside!”
“J, you gotta bounce!” Fred said. “You must run and hide!”
“I know,” Jack said. “I’ll go in disguise by magical means.
“I’ll use a glamour so my true face can’t be seen.”
15
It takes a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium little longer to navigate the aurora borealis without Flash, but I make it buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium to H-Town just fine on my own.
Next, I set about the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium task of finding a rainbow in the night sky. Impossible to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium have a rainbow at night? Not in H-Town. There’s always a rainbow leading out of the city somewhere. It’s just a matter of knowing how to find it.
Good thing I’m a detective.
Who benefits? Another way of phrasing that question is to ask, ‘Where does the money lead?’
And when it comes to bankrolling a kidnapping on the scale of Pop’s, no buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Holiday folk would be more equipped to do so than the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium leprechauns of the St. Patrick’s Day realm–especially a certain leprechaun named Mickey O’Shaunessey, an buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium infamous money launderer who just so happens to be at the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium top of the my list of Larry Talbot’s known associates. And since it’s a leprechaun I’m hunting for, then a rainbow I’ll need.
I rummage in a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium city trash can until I find a clear glass bottle. Still bent over the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium can, I feel someone tap me on the back of my shoulder. I rise up and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium gasp to see a fed leering down at me.
“Move it along, you,” he says. “Get down to the homeless shelter with the rest of the rabble. They’ll feed you and give you a place to sleep.”
I sigh with relief. The glamour is buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium still working. When the fed saw someone rummaging in the garbage, he expected it buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium to be a transient, so that’s who he sees.
“Yes sir, officer,” I reply as I hide the bottle behind my back. “Certainly.”
I walk down the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium rain-puddled street, putting distance between myself and the fed. When I’m out of eye-shot, I duck down a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium graffiti-covered alleyway that has the last of the three things I need to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium come up with a rainbow.
I take the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium bottle and dip it into a rain puddle, letting it fill half full. Then I hold it buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium out and tilt it back and forth, allowing the light from buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium one of the lamps along the outer street to play against the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium bottle’s surface.
In no buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium time, a small scale prism effect occurs between the light, the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium bottle, and the water inside it. The effect builds and becomes self-sustaining until before I know it, there’s a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium full-sized rainbow arcing up from the alley floor into the night sky above.
“Saints’ begorrah,” I say with a wry smile. Then I begin walking up the rainbow.
What seems like hours later, the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium rainbow forks. One branch of it rises even higher to the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Norse god realm of Asgard. I know this because there’s a kaleidoscopic road sign sticking out of the rainbow saying so.
The other branch bends Earthward. I double check the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium road sign and, sure enough, it labels the downward branch as the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium route to the Emerald Isle. That’s the one I want.
I start down it buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium and, before long, I can see its end at a small island of rolling green hills amid a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium sea of crashing waves. Once on the island, I walk inland until I come to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium a modest stone tavern with a thatched roof. Young leprechauns in green frock coats and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium bowler hats stand outside, eyeing me wearily over their pints of ale.
“I’m here to see Mickey,” I say.
“Well, Mickey’s not taking visitors today,” one of the leprechaun’s says, his Irish brogue high and thick. “Try your luck tomorrow.”
The other leprechauns laugh and toast.
“He’ll want to see me,” I say.
The laughter halts immediately.
The talker puts down his pint and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium gets in my face, obviously not pleased I didn’t walk away when I had the chance.
“And just why would Mickey want to see you?” he asks.
“That’s for Mickey to know,” I say. “But you can tell him a friend of Larry Talbot’s has come to call.”
The talker’s eyes narrow at the mention of Talbot’s name. Without another word, he turns and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium goes into the tavern. A minute later, he reappears and motions for buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium me to join him inside.
I feel the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium other leprechauns sizing me up as I pass them by and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium head into the tavern. They’re spoiling for buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium one of the only five things a leprechaun cares about. Of the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium five, it’s the one I hate the most.
The tavern is buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium deserted save for the talker, a barkeep, and one older leprechaun sitting by himself at a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium table in the far corner.
He motions me over. “Come! Sit.”
I do.
The older leprechaun is buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium dressed in a green frock coat and bowler hat like the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium others. His face is wrinkled and his red sideburns are threaded with gray. He twiddles a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium pipe between his teeth. One of them is capped with brilliant gold. He’s short like the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium others, but thick and burly, with a mischievous gleam in his eye.
He reminds me of a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium leprechaun who visited the Pole once when I was a boy. He helped himself to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium our eggnog and got squirrely. It took ten of Alfie’s blue caps to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium bring him down and every one of them was black and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium blue when it was all over.
I wonder who buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the glamour makes him see me as. Probably a Halloweenian as I came asking for buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Talbot.
“Drink?” he asks, his brogue so deep and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium thick that it takes me a minute to realize I’m being offered refreshment.
“Egg–uh–blood wine?”
“Horrid stuff.” He gestures to the bar keep. “Bring us a pint.”
The leprechaun shifts in his seat and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium empties the tobacco from his pipe.
“So, lad. It appears you buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium have me at a disadvantage. You know my name, but I’m afraid I don’t know yours.”
“Call me Larry. Like your friend. Have you seen Talbot lately?”
The barkeep sits the drinks down between us.
“Not one to beat around the bush, are ye?” the leprechaun, now revealed as Mickey, says.
“I don’t have the luxury of small talk, right now.”
“Oh lad, pleasant conversation in the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium company of others is not a luxury, but an Irishman’s right. But, have it your way.”
“Is Talbot here?”
He drinks a long swig of ale and then wipes the foam from his chin.
“Do ye like riddles, lad?”
“I like them solved.”
“Good, good. I’ll tell ye what: I’ll answer your buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium question if ye can answer one of mine. But fail in the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium answering and ye become my servant for a century.”
Great. Dealing with fairies, I’ve always dreaded being put in a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium position where I have to make this kind of cornball choice. But I never thought I’d actually have to. Live and Learn.
“I really don’t have time for games and riddles.”
“Take it or leave it, laddie.”
I sigh. “Alright. Shoot.”
He grins, pleased to no end. “Riddle me this,” he says,
I never was, am always to be,
No one ever saw me, nor ever will,
And yet I am the confidence of all
Who live and breath on this terrestrial ball!
Nutcrackers. I don’t have a clue. Give me facts to solve a case, not some silly word-play.
Frustrated, I mumble under my breath. “If I don’t solve this and find Pop, there’s not going to be a tomorrow ever again.”
Suddenly, Mickey slams the pint of ale he’d been holding to his mouth down on the table.
“Well played, lad,” he says, “and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium solved in no time at all. Tell me, what exactly was it buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium that tipped ye off to tomorrow being the answer?”
My eyes briefly widen with realization.
“Uh,” I say, fumbling for an answer, “that old riddle? Everyone knows that. But I’ve done what you asked. Now answer my question.”
Mickey sighs deeply. “Very well. I believe the question you asked was, ‘is Talbot here?’”
Mickey leans back and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium crosses his arms, a smug smile spreading over his face. “Aye. He was, lad. But not anymore!” Mickey leans forward and slaps the table as he guffaws with laughter.”
“Where did he go?” I ask.
“Oh!” Mickey says, his eyes refilling with excitement. “That’s another question ye want answered lad. One that buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium will be costing ye!”
I roll my eyes. “Another riddle then?”
“No, no, lad,” Mickey says, shaking his head. “Truth be told I’m no fan of riddles, me self. They hurt me head!
“But I am buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium of faerie after all, and so felt obligated to at least take a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium pass at such where ye was concerned.”
Mickey takes off his jacket and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium begins rolling up his sleeves, the gleam in his eye growing, his pipe dancing between his teeth.
“For ye next test, I had something a bit more hands on in mind.”
I don’t like the sound of this and I’m right not to.
Remember that buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium one of five things I mentioned leprechauns love for that buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium I hate–the thing the younger ones were spoiling for? Apparently, Mickey is spoiling for it, too.
Moments later, he and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium I are out front circling one another, our dukes up, the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium other leprechauns surrounding us, booing me and cheering for him.
“Rules?” he asks.
“Uh,” I say, “no magic?”
With no harsh winter to pull from, I wouldn’t stand a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium chance against him in a magical battle here on his home turf.
Mickey grins. “Wouldn’t have it any other way, lad!”
He stomps my foot and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium serves me three quick knuckle sandwiches before I even know what’s on the menu.
He releases my foot and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium I go stumbling backward into a mass of shouting leprechauns. They just as quickly shove me back toward Mickey.
I duck just in time to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium miss a haymaker and manage to connect with one of my own that buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium leaves Mickey dazed.
He shakes it off and smiles from ear to ear, as happy as I’ve ever seen anyone.
Did I mention that leprechauns are insane?
To describe the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium rest of the fight would be pointless other than to say we both fought long and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium hard.
When at last I wake up, I see Mickey smiling as he stands over me, one eye blackened and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium his gold tooth missing, his hand held out to lift me up.
“Laddie, that was the most fun I’ve had in centuries!” Mickey says as he helps me to my feet. “A finer bout of fisticuffs, I cannot remember.”
“Yeah,” I say, wincing in pain. “Big fun.”
It hurts to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium talk. In fact, at the moment, it hurts to do anything. I struggle, but manage to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium raise my fists.
“Well, come on. Let’s go. Round two.”
Mickey and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the other leprechauns guffaw as he jovially slaps my shoulder.
“We’ll make an leprechaun out of ye yet! But no, lad, it’s over.”
“Not until you tell me where Talbot went to. Not by a long shot.”
“Easy, lad. Relax. The object wasn’t to beat me. No one can do that! Not here on the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Emerald Isle. You just had to take me for a dance and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium show me a good time, and that you did and more.”
I lower my fists as Mickey puts his arm around my shoulder.
“I’ll be buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium happy to tell a fighting man like yourself where that no-good wolf got to,” he says. “Twas me who buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium sent him packing there in the first place, and good riddance to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium him!”
I sigh with relief. If we’d gone another round, there would’ve only been buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium two more hits: Mickey hitting me and then me hitting the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium ground. For good.
“Where did you send him, Mickey?”
He grins at the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium other leprechauns, preparing them for the joke about to leave his mouth.
“Well, it buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium so happens, Mr. Talbot owes me a large sum of money. It also just so happens, he’s had buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium some, shall we say, unseemly dealings with the Cottontails that didn’t leave him on the best of terms with them.
“In fact, the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Cottontails were so terribly out of sorts about it, they offered a buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium hefty sum of gold for anyone who could, shall we say, reconnect them with Mr. Talbot.”
Mickey grins, ready to drop the joke.
“Now, there’s nothing more that a leprechaun likes than gold. And wouldn’t you know it? By the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium luck of the Irish, the sum of money the Cottontails were offering was equal to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium and beyond what our Mr. Talbot owed yours truly.
“So, when buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Talbot had the nerve to ask for sanctuary when still unable to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium pay off his debt, there was only one viable option left to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium me.”
Mickey puts his fingers to buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium his bowler hat, mimicking bunny ears as he begins hopping around.
Did I mention leprechauns are insane?
“Here comes Peter Cottontail,” he sings, “Hopping down on Talbot’s tail. Hippity-hoppity, Talbot’s taken away!”
The leprechauns slap their knees and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium let loose with gut-busting laughter. I’d find it buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium funny, too, if not for the fact that the Cottontails are buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium the most vicious, brutal gang in all the Holiday worlds and buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium I was about to have to walk smack down in the buy online Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium middle of them.