by Foley, E. G.
“Oh, surprised you, did I?” He let out a loud laugh.
She rolled her eyes. “Just take your friends and go to some other part of the castle. These are my guests and this is my party.”
“This is my house,” her brother said.
She stamped her foot. “You can’t come in and take over my whole party!”
“I can do whatever I want,” he replied, and the sibling quarrel that followed gave Jake and his friends the chance they had been waiting for—the perfect opportunity to escape.
But Jake knew they mustn’t be too obvious. He turned and scanned the crowd until his eyes locked with Archie’s across the room. He gave his cousin a meaningful nod.
Archie nodded back and took hold of Dani’s arm, murmuring in her ear. They headed out.
Jake glanced next at Isabelle, who had been leaning by the wall; she sent him a discreet nod, backing toward the corridor. Red was already slipping away. Meanwhile, a red-and-green sparkle-trail fading off in the same direction told him Humbug had also got the message and was zipping off at elf-speed to meet them at the exit.
Everybody was accounted for…
As the Snow Maiden argued with her brother, Jake backed away with an awkward look, as though embarrassed to be caught so close to the line of fire in a family squabble.
A few of the Valkyries glanced at Jake as though they thought they recognized him, but thank goodness, as a mere lowly twelve-year-old, he thought with a scoff, he was hardly worthy of their notice.
He all but tiptoed backward while the tall, blond, Scandinavian beauties went on waving their white-feathered wings with an air of boredom, hands on hips.
Jake glanced over his shoulder toward his goal—the other hallway. But scanning the ballroom as he stole toward the exit, he saw a couple of the giant toy soldiers looking in the direction his friends had gone.
He had to cover their retreat. He knew they’d never get out of here if the soldiers decided to follow.
Heart pounding, he glanced around the ballroom looking for a solution, and seized upon the first idea that popped into his head.
Using his telekinesis, he caused a large, snow-white polar bear to drop her blue drink all over herself.
The blue-stained bear turned around with a snarl, apparently blaming the big, brown walrus standing behind her for the mishap. She roared as if to say, “Why don’t you watch where you’re going?”
The walrus lifted its tusks in warning and roared back at her. “It wasn’t me!”
The polar bear roared outright, incensed by this defiance; the walrus headbutted her in answer.
The bear went flying backward, and in the next moment, the fight turned into a free-for-all. No wonder, thought Jake, for the room was filled with animals who usually regarded each other as predator or prey.
With the fur flying, the giant toy soldiers rushed to break up the brawl.
Jake darted out of the ballroom and raced into the corridor, confident that so far, no one even noticed they were gone.
“Jake! Problem,” Archie reported as he skidded to a halt at the end of the icy hallway, where the others waited. “The door’s frozen shut!”
“I’ll blast it. But first…” He took off the blue sash the Snow Maiden had put on him as part of his silly Prince Charming outfit and turned to Humbug. “Come ’ere.”
“What? I said I wouldn’t run off!” the elf exclaimed.
“You know full well you’re too fast for us. If you take off at top speed, we’ll be as good as lost. We’ll never keep up with you unless you are restrained. So hold still.”
“Hurry! We don’t have time for this!” Humbug protested.
“It would be different if you hadn’t already proved yourself untrustworthy!” Jake said.
Red backed him up with a growl.
“Fine,” the elf huffed. He lifted his hands, allowing Jake to tie the sash around his waist like a leash.
Archie checked his knot and tightened it a little while the sounds of the melee in the ballroom echoed down the hallway to them. Jake doubted they had more than another minute or two before the Snow Maiden realized they were gone.
“You’ll need your compass,” Humbug told Archie. “We’re heading northwest.”
Archie took it out of his tool-bag, while Jake glanced at the girls. “Ready?”
They nodded.
“Good. Stand back, then.” With a moment’s concentration, he summoned up his telekinesis, then fired it full force at the tall, frozen metal door. It flew off its hinges with a bang. At once, snow swirled into the hallway. “Let’s go!”
Jake held tightly onto Humbug’s leash as they ran out into the usual blizzard-like conditions.
Archie glanced at his compass, then pointed ahead. “That way!” he yelled over the wind.
“The woods?” Dani cried. “What about the yetis?”
“This time, no one’s going to summon them,” Jake said with a sharp glance at Humbug. “C’mon. The trees will give us some cover from the wind.”
Knowing that the Snow Maiden and her forces could easily follow their tracks in the snow, their only hope was speed. The more distance they could put between the castle and themselves, the better off they’d be.
Desperate as they all were to escape, it felt like they were going at a snail’s pace. Even with the magic spell that kept their high-fashion clothes somewhat warm, the cold numbed their limbs; the wind made breathing harder; and without Archie’s snowshoes, each step was more like climbing as they sank up to their hips in snow with every stride.
It was exhausting, and after five minutes, the snowy woods still seemed no closer. They were going as fast as they could, but Humbug was beyond frustrated at having to travel so slowly.
“Hurry up!”
“Don’t yell at us!” Dani warned. “You’re the one who caused all this when you threw Spiteful Spice on us!”
“How f-f-far is it t-to Santa’s?” Archie chattered.
“Two miles that way, once you reach the road!” Humbug pointed at the woods. “Now will you let me go?”
“Road? You must be joking,” Jake said. “How are we supposed to find a road under all that snow?”
But suddenly, there was a shout behind them.
They realized they had been discovered.
“After them!” the Snow Maiden bellowed, pointing from astride her polar bear.
The kids looked back in dread to find an army of giant toy soldiers pouring out of the castle. Two long rows of the tall wooden men came goose-stepping after them, their long wooden legs allowing them to march over the deep snow as if they were on stilts.
Half a dozen wolves also burst out of the doorway and came racing after them, barking all the while.
While the soldiers were relentless, the wolves were fast. They quickly flanked the Snow Maiden’s infantry lines, gaining on the kids with shocking speed. With their thick fur, the wolves were indifferent to the cold, bounding through the snow like they were born to hunt in it—which, in fact, they were.
“Head them off!” Her Highness ordered the menacing canines.
They obeyed.
Rather than attacking the kids, the wolves rushed past them and got into position ahead, blocking the way to the woods.
“What do we do?” Archie shouted. “Summon the yetis to keep them busy?”
“No!” everyone else said in unison.
“Caw!” Red flew off to keep the wolves distracted.
“Be careful!” Jake called, watching the Gryphon flap up into the sky.
Red proceeded to dive-bomb the wolves, taunting them by gliding just over their heads, lifting higher when the animals leaped up to try to catch him, their fanged jaws snapping.
While Red kept the wolves distracted, Humbug looked around. “Quick, that way!”
Following the elf’s urging, they ran down the slope between the woods and the castle, helping each other along.
Jake worried about where they might end up. The Snow Maiden would not leave th
e road to Santa’s compound unprotected.
But for now, they had no choice but to change course. It was that or get recaptured.
The twin lines of giant toy soldiers marched after them, while Red continued harrying the wolves from the air.
“Oh no!” Dani said when they found themselves coming up to the edge of the water. “We’re trapped!”
“You tricked us!” Isabelle said, turning to glare at Humbug.
“I didn’t, honestly!” he cried.
“Wait, look!” Jake glanced around at his feet. “We’re standing on ice.” At once, he drew Risker from its sheath and knelt down, slamming the blade into the ice with both hands. It cracked, but he had a long way to go. “Anything you can do,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Screwdriver!” Archie plunged his hand into his tool-bag and pulled out his screwdriver, along with a hammer.
While Jake continued sawing through the ice with Risker, Archie used the screwdriver like a chisel, angling the sharp tip against the ice and banging the top of the handle with the hammer to drive it in.
Dani and Isabelle started jumping nearby, using their own weight to help widen the growing crack in the ice. They steadied each other, for it was slippery, and falling into the Arctic Sea would surely mean death in minutes.
Finally, there was a great crack, a crunch, and a splash as the piece of ice broke off along the water’s edge. The girls dropped to their knees to keep from sliding off into the water as the ice floe rocked beneath them on the waves.
The boys reached out to push off the land, sending them farther out into the current.
The soldiers were on their way, with the Snow Maiden on her polar bear, giving orders like a general as she raced in their direction. “Stop them! They’re getting away!” she screeched.
But she was too late.
Jake beckoned to his Gryphon. “Come on, Red! We’re getting out of here!”
Red wheeled around up into the sky and flew after them.
“Caw!” Red did not like what he saw as he approached.
“Come on down, boy! It’s all right.” Jake watched nervously, knowing that if there was one thing Red hated, it was flying over the ocean. “You can do it! Don’t be afraid!”
Somehow, the noble beast forced himself to join them, and even used his wings to propel the ice floe farther out to sea as he descended, hooking his lion claws into the ice to get a firmer grip.
Behind them, on the icy shore, the Snow Maiden bellowed in rage, but her giant toy soldiers could go no farther.
Cursing with such language that would have surely got her name put down on the top of Santa’s Naughty list, she seemed half inclined to urge her polar bear into the water after them, but in the end, she didn’t bother.
They drifted out to sea.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Prodigal Elf
If it was freezing cold on land, the kids soon found it was unbearably frigid out on the Arctic Sea. There was nothing to break the bitter wind, and worse, the waves rocked the slippery slab of ice on which they stood, continually threatening to tilt them into the water.
They huddled together for warmth in the middle of their little floating island, holding on to Red, who kept them anchored to the ice by digging in his claws.
“We have to do something,” Archie said. “We can’t just drift out here until we die.”
“You are a genius, aren’t you?” Humbug muttered with his usual sarcasm.
By now, they were learning to ignore it.
“I could use my telekinesis,” Jake offered uncertainly, though he had no real notion of where to aim it, what to do.
“How’s t-t-that goin’ help?” Dani chattered.
“I don’t know!” he answered. Once again, the sheer pain of the cold was making it hard to think. Their faces stung and their limbs tingled with the first signs of frostbite.
“Let me try something,” Isabelle murmured. “I think I have an idea…”
“Isabelle, come back!” Dani shouted as the older girl moved toward the edge of the ice floe, still holding her hand.
Isabella ignored her and stared into the deep. With her blond hair blowing wildly in the sea wind, she lifted her free hand out over the water and closed her eyes with a look of concentration.
“What is she doing?” Jake whispered.
Understanding filled Archie’s freckled face. “She’s reaching out telepathically to any animals in the area.”
“Animals? We’re in the middle of the ocean,” Dani said. “The last thing we need is another polar bear—”
A sudden spout of water in the distance to the starboard side of their ice floe gave the answer.
Jake smiled in relief as Archie nodded.
“Look at that. Clever girl, sis,” he said. Then he glanced at Dani. “Whales aren’t fish, they’re mammals, remember? I guess that means she can talk to them, too.”
“Lucky for us,” Jake said.
Dani stifled a small cry of terror when a huge whale tail broke the surface of the water, as if the passing leviathan were waving casually at them.
The tail alone was larger than their ice floe.
“It’s coming closer!” Dani hugged Red harder, clinging to the Gryphon for all she was worth.
“Of course it did. She summoned it,” Archie said, peering toward the waves.
“Please tell me she knows what she’s doing. That thing is gigantic. What if it swallows us like Jonah?”
“We’re dead either way,” Jake replied.
“Please help us!” Isabelle called aloud, for their benefit, so the others would know what she was mentally transmitting to the massive creature. “We’re lost. We’re just children,” she added, since whales probably had a low opinion of the species that commanded the whaling vessels that roamed the seven seas. “Please, we need to get to Santa’s!”
Jake and the others gasped when they heard the whale answer Isabelle. Its mysterious, ancient voice vibrated the air around them with a series of clear, submerged tones, low then high.
But even Jake, determined as he was to act brave, let out a shout of terror as the impossibly huge animal surfaced and swam up slowly behind the ice floe.
Its long, charcoal-gray back was as big as the hull of the old Viking ship they had seen in Norway.
They gripped on to each other, but there was nowhere to run.
“It’s going to eat us!” Dani whimpered.
“I believe it eats plankton,” Archie said in a tight voice. “A gentle giant. Right?”
“We’re about to find out,” Jake muttered, while Dani pulled Isabelle back from the edge.
The whale lowered its barnacled head a bit—a head the size of a carriage—and pushed the ice floe gently with its brow.
“Mother Mary,” Dani whispered. “We’re moving!”
“Thank you so much!” Isabelle called down to the whale in relief as their frigid floating island ceased drifting aimlessly. Instead, it headed back toward the distant outline of the land. “Not too fast, mind you!” she added anxiously. “We don’t want to tip over!”
Jake’s heart beat a frantic staccato, but after a few minutes, he noticed in relief that the whale was pushing them toward a spot well north of the Snow Maiden’s castle. As an added benefit, the fishy-smelling breath coming out of its blowhole warmed the air around them just a bit.
“It’s a good thing he knows where Santa lives,” Archie said when he finally overcame his shock.
“All the arctic creatures know where Santa lives,” Humbug spoke up after a moment. “They come to us when they need help.”
“Us?” Jake echoed. He glanced skeptically at their little friend. “I thought you were done with all those tiresome Christmas preparations at the North Pole.”
Humbug stared at him, for once with no sarcastic reply at the ready.
Jake was rather intrigued. “Provided this whale doesn’t eat us, are you going to come in once we get there?”
“I don’t know.” Hum
bug’s gaze fell slowly. “I’m not sure they’ll let me in.”
“Oh, come. Santa and Mrs. Claus put out a reward for your safe return.”
“So they could punish me once they got me back!” he cried.
“Don’t be silly,” Jake said. “Even the Snow Maiden said Santa gives everybody second chances.”
Humbug heaved a sigh. “I don’t know. If I did, at the very least, I imagine I’m going to be in a lot of trouble. He’ll probably put me on reindeer stall-mucking duty.”
“Well, maybe you should just continue on your way to Halloween Town, then,” Jake said, slanting him a shrewd look.
Humbug frowned at him.
“Would you really rather dedicate your life to scaring people instead of spreading Christmas cheer?” Dani asked.
“Scaring people’s fun! Besides, people are a pain! They deserve it,” Humbug insisted, but he did not look as convinced about the whole thing as before.
“Well, suit yourself,” Jake said, but when he glanced at Isabelle, she gave him a knowing smile.
It did not take an empath to see that, despite his protests, Humbug was truly torn about what to do.
“Whoa, look at that!” Archie pointed toward the land.
They were approaching the narrow, rounded entrance to an ice-cave, like a tunnel in the glacier.
“Of course!” Humbug murmured, recognizing it. “The whale’s taking us to the runway.”
“What is it?” Jake asked.
“The tunnel Santa drives the sleigh through on Christmas Eve when it’s time for takeoff. He returns through it, too.”
“You mean we’re almost there? At the North Pole?” Dani exclaimed.
“You’re looking at it,” Humbug replied, nodding at the broad, snow-covered hill that bulged up, dome-like, just behind the glacier.
“I don’t see anything,” Jake murmured in amazement, scanning the landscape before him as the whale pushed them ever nearer to the icy shore.
“No, you wouldn’t, would you?” Humbug said. “That’s the whole point. The Great Igloo is perfectly camouflaged for its surroundings. Warm, too. You’ll feel better once we get inside.”