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Chapter 7~ A Neon Storm
445Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKOuRVutNkn
They all gathered rather quickly in Grandpa Scott’s office, just as before. He’d called an emergency Council meeting as soon as the news had been passed along, and now, the group had been brought back together. And all eyes were locked on Mother Nature.
“There’s no need to panic!” she raised her voice over the hyperventilating Easter Bunny.
“What do you mean ‘no need to panic’? This is the perfect time to panic!” he hissed back.
Tooth Fairy calmed him down from his ledge. Grandpa stood and took a more composed stance in front of his desk.
“Storms?” he said, turning to Mother Nature. “What’s this all about?”
It was quite obvious how tired she appeared. She sighed and swirled her fingers through the air until a vision of Earth appeared from thin air. Kit loved to watch the magic and beamed from the back of the room. But, all across the magic earth dome were blotches of red and yellow. Mother Nature pointed them out.
“This morning, I woke to find myself feeling very…well, not myself. I’m sure many of you have noticed. I felt weaker in a way, but it was nothing too concerning. Only this afternoon while I was busy surveying the Earth for traces of Father Time did I notice changes to the weather patterns I approved for December 23rd. All along the northern hemisphere, temperatures were plummeting to numbers not seen in quite some time. There were also reports of rough hailstorms and blizzards. I asked my workers if they knew how this could’ve happened, but they were just as surprised as me.” She stopped for a moment to rest her drooping eyelids. A jolt shook her body again and she woke.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, embarrassedly. “Fortunately, I was able to weaken or dispose of as many storms as I could. But, I still feel a pulling—”
“Pulling?” Grandpa interjected.
“A pulling of my energy, perhaps my power. I’m not sure. But, I assure you all, I can manage this with no worry.”
Cupid scoffed. “Do you think we wouldn’t worry? You’re our friend, Mother Nature. If something’s wrong, we all need to pull together to find out just what it is.”
“No…” she started.
“Yes,” said Grandpa, “With all the chaos going on right now, we can’t risk any suspicious activity to just slip under our noses. Not like with Jack.” They all fell silent in their own thoughts.
But, Kit knew what they were talking about. Although she hadn’t been alive when the disaster involving Jack Frost and a certain snow globe took place, she’d heard the story many times from her father. But, all that was long, long behind them. Grandpa lifted his head and peered around, searching for something.
“Speaking of Jack,” he started, “where is he? He wasn’t here for the last meeting. Has anyone heard from Jack?”
Then, there came a unanimous grumbling from across the Council. None of them looked too pleased with their missing fellow councilman.
Bunny answered, “You know how he is, Scott. This time of year is the busiest for him. He never shows up to meetings anymore. He doesn’t warn anyone when suddenly he makes a surprise visit in the middle of spring. And I bet he probably has something to do with all these weather changes.”
That seemed to rustle the small group back up. Kit watched eagerly. She’d never met Jack Frost before but had heard all the horror stories. She never believed someone could do what he did in the past.
“No, no!” Grandpa argued, “We all know Jack’s had a long, tough road he’s had to travel, but we have to at least give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s not the person he was all those years ago. I think it’s best to reach out to him personally.”
Tooth scoffed and crossed his arms again. “And how do you propose we do that?”
There was the twinkle in Grandpa’s eye yet again, never failing to spark joy deep inside of Kit. She sat on the edge of her seat and hoped desperately to hear some news she could be included in. Some sort of plan. Something.
He grinned slyly and caught Kit’s gaze. “We take a trip little trip down south.”
**********
Of all the hundreds of thousands of scenarios that Bernard had imagined (in which Christmas would be destroyed for good), this one had somehow slipped his imagination. But now, he thought, this one might be the worst of all. Not because of the tear in time or the earth’s impending doom looming overhead. Not even because it meant he had to look totally calm and composed in front of someone he needed desperately to look calm and composed in front of. It was because he had to go to New York City.
“What about the snowflake fuel reserves?” Grandpa Scott rambled on while checking every inch of the sleigh.
“Already packed,” Bernard chirped.
“And the rations? What about those?”
Bernard cocked his brow and folded his arms. “Santa, you act like we won’t be in one of the biggest food hotspots on Earth. We’ll be just fine.”
Grandpa Scott turned around, suddenly pink in the face. “I want this to go as smoothly as possible. I’m not exactly thrilled about the idea that Kit will be risking her life with us.”
“This is New York, Kit’s home. Besides, I thought you were pretty encouraging of her joining us back there.”
Grandpa sighed and let his head fall in his hands. He leaned against the polished sleigh then watched the snowflakes slowly falling out in the courtyard.
“Of course I’m thrilled with her being here. But, we’ll have to travel in the more…unsupervised parts of New York. Kit…well, she’s just a kid. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to her.”
Bernard smiled to himself and laid a kind hand to the nearby Cupid and Blitzen. He watched the tired-looking Santa Claus with a wise gaze and said, “I think you’re underestimating her. I’ve known Kit for quite a long time. She’s stronger than you think. I don’t know…there’s something in her—something I just can’t understand.”
“Something powerful?” Scott cut in. Bernard paused as Scott continued, “I’ve seen it, too. And I know these kids she hangs around. It’s day and night, Bernard. It’s not just a sense of belief—it’s so much more than that.”
The two fell quiet and just watched the snowflakes swirl away in the wind. Tomorrow, they’d be leaving for New York. And Bernard was ever dreadful. Not because it was New York City but because of what New York City meant.
It had barely turned dusk when they set out for the Big Apple. All that was needed for the trip had been packed and stored away in Santa’s sleigh. Everything was in perfect working order, just as it was supposed to be. It felt like Christmas. There was even the magical excitement in the air as they settled in. Charlie had spent hours pleading with and persuading his father to keep Kit at home. But, it was no use.
“She’s roped into it now and it’s safer to keep her close by rather than alone at the Pole,” Santa explained every time. And now, Charlie was on edge. He remembered these little adventures he took with his own father. And now that he had his right judgment, he recognized the dangers he’d been in all those years ago. One slip-up and the world could be forever scarred. However, one thing reassured his anxious mind. Until Father Time was found, they had all the redos in the world.
Jack Frost had changed, for sure. Many in the Legendary Figure community claimed he was more “manageable” and “less heartless”. Others found him a bit more…
“Eccentric,” Scott said, tossing the comment over his shoulder. Kit squinted at him through the heavy wind chill.
“Eccentric? What does that mean?”
“He’s more passionate than what he used to be, Kit,” Charlie tried.
“Passionate about what?” she continued.
Bernard spoke up, keeping a tightened death grip on the sleigh’s safety rails. He wasn’t a fan of the flying part. “He’s a…well, he’s a…a connoisseur of city music.”
“What?”
“He’s a jazz cat, Kit.” Kit had to suppress a quick laugh coming up inside her. A jazz cat? she thought, Jack Frost is a lover of jazz music? Who even says ‘jazz cat’ anymore?
Kit gazed across the side of the massive, glossy sled down to the illuminated city. The neon signs flickered so bright and loudly that Kit thought they might finally burst. Time away from her home always brought back the confusion as to how people could stand such obnoxious tourism. It was quite obvious she wasn’t the only one affected. Bernard was squinting down at the city, entranced and blatantly disgusted all at the same time. She could see New York reflected in the whites of his eyes and smiled. They decided to land on the rooftop of a nearby apartment building in the Bronx. As soon as the reindeer got settled on the snowy rooftop, the crew climbed out one by one and collected their bearings. In the distance, Kit could hear Christmas carols ringing out in slow, crooning tones that she didn’t recognize from the bright, cheery versions back at the North Pole. While Bernard was busy tying up the reindeer to a nearby safety pole, Kit crossed to the railing of the roof that overlooked the downtown city about a mile away. There was the music drifting through the air like electrified snowflakes that landed across her hair.
“I simply must go…But, Baby, it’s cold outside…The answer is no…But, Baby it’s cold outside…Your welcome has been so nice and warm…”
It was one of her favorites.
“Kit!” called her father. She turned back to see the group heading towards the fire escape landing. “Are you ready to go?”
She glanced back at the freezing neon city. She suddenly didn’t feel at home at all.
“Ready.”
“This is, hands-down, the worst city on Earth. I don’t understand how all of you could live here!” barked Bernard with a reddened face and clenched fists.
“Oh, you’re just upset because you stepped in waste.” Kit said with a roll of her eyes.
“Not ‘waste’, Kit. Dog droppings! This is so disgusting. And it was on the sidewalk!”
Bernard scraped his boot harder into the pavement with a painful grimace. Normally, this kind of thing would take up Kit’s full attention but she was somewhere else entirely. It wasn’t safe in the Bronx at nighttime. She didn’t know those streets. She didn’t know what would be around that alleyway corner up ahead. And as much as she liked to pretend, she wasn’t as steel-skinned as her dad. She walked on her toes, eyes ablaze in the dark. After all, girls who lived in New York had night vision.
“There. Around the corner on the next block over. The Singing Raccoon,” Santa said under his breath. Kit sped up a couple of paces to match up with him.
“The Singing Raccoon?”
“It’s a cheap jazz bar that recently opened over the past year or so. It’s been pretty popular with the locals, but it’s been known for a couple of fights and…uh…bad business with its patrons. But, hey, it’s Christmastime. People should be trying to get on the nice list.”
Kit craned her head to look out at the illuminated building Scott had been referring to. The streets were pretty empty. Maybe New York had finally had a change of heart after all.
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