“Look familiar, Sandman?” Pitch asked. “Took me a while to perfect this little trick. Turning dreams into Nightmares.”
The Guardians all gasped.
Pitch chuckled. “Don’t be nervous, it only riles them up. They smell fear, you know.”
“What fear?” Bunny asked. “Of you? No one’s been afraid of you since the Dark Ages.”
Pitch’s eyes flashed for just a moment, and Jack could see that Pitch lived to scare others. But then he managed a smile. “The Dark Ages,” he said as he began to reminisce. “Everyone frightened. Miserable. Such happy times for me. Oh, the power I yielded.
“But then you showed up!” he continued. “With your wonder and light! Lifting their hearts and giving them hope!”
He explained to the Guardians, “Meanwhile, everyone wrote me off as just a bad dream. ‘Oh, there’s nothing to be afraid of. There’s no such thing as the Boogeyman.’ Well, that’s all about to change.”
A cracking sound filled the room. All the Guardians turned to see a beautiful column crumble.
“Oh, look.” Pitch clapped his hands. “It’s already happening.”
“What is?” Jack asked.
“Children are waking up and realizing the Tooth Fairy never came,” Pitch said. “Such a little thing, but to a child . . . ”
“What’s going on?” Jack cringed as more columns fell and the palace broke apart.
“They don’t believe in me anymore,” Tooth explained sadly.
“Didn’t they tell you, Jack?” Pitch asked. “It’s great being a Guardian, but there’s a catch. If enough kids stop believing, all their palaces and powers go away. And little by little, so do they.”
Jack’s jaw dropped as he began to understand.
Pitch nodded. “No Christmas or Easter or little fairies that come in the night. There will be nothing but fear and darkness and me! It’s your turn not to be believed in!”
Bunny began to throw his boomerangs at Pitch. But Pitch escaped, flying through the palace on the back of Onyx, his favorite Nightmare.
The Guardians followed him. Jack brought up the rear.
Using eggs that were bombs, Bunny tried to slow Pitch down, but the eggs exploded in empty space.
“He’s gone,” North said, staring at the place where Pitch had disappeared.
CHAPTER
SIX
Tooth sat down. She held an empty tooth box. Baby Tooth rested on a broken box nearby.
Jack walked over to them and then crouched low beside Tooth.
Bunny told North, “Okay, all right, I admit it. You were right about Pitch.”
“This is one time I wish I was wrong,” North replied. “But he will pay.”
“I’m sorry about the fairies,” Jack told Tooth.
Tooth sighed. “You should have seen them. They put up such a fight.”
“Why would Pitch take the teeth?” Jack asked.
“It’s not the teeth he wanted,” Tooth explained. “It’s the memories inside them.”
Jack stared at her. “What do you mean?”
Tooth led Jack across the palace lagoon. The water under his feet hardened into ice with each step.
“That’s why we collect the teeth, Jack. They hold the most important memories of childhood.” Tooth showed him a wall mural. It was a picture of memories being gathered. “My fairies and I watch over them, and when someone needs to remember what’s important, we help them. We had everyone’s here,” she said. “Yours too.”
“My memories?” Jack asked.
“From when you were young,” Tooth answered. “Before you became Jack Frost.”
Jack shook his head. “But I wasn’t anyone before I was Jack Frost.”
“Of course you were. We were all someone before we were chosen,” Tooth said.
“What?” Jack didn’t fully understand.
North entered the conversation. “You should have seen Bunny.” He chuckled.
“Hey, I told you never to mention that!” Bunny said.
Jack was struggling with this new information. “That night at the Pond . . . I just . . . why, I assumed. Are you saying . . . Are you saying I had a life before that? With a home? And a family?”
“You really don’t remember?” Tooth asked.
Jack’s face was blank. “All these years, and the answers were right here.” He looked around the crumbling palace. “If I find my memories, then I’ll know why I’m here.”
The wind lifted Jack off the lagoon. He was ready to follow Tooth to his storage drawer. Jack said, “You have to show me.”
“I can’t, Jack,” Tooth said. “Pitch has them.”
“Then we have to get them back!” Jack looked over his shoulder at the ancient mural. It began to disintegrate.
“Oh no. The children!” Tooth cried. “We’re losing them. We’re too late.”
“No! No! No such thing as too late,” North said. “Wait. Idea! Ha!” North knew how the Guardians could help. “We will collect the teeth.”
“What?” Tooth asked.
“We get teeth! Children keep believing in you!” North declared.
“We’re talking seven continents,” Tooth said. “Millions of kids.”
“Give me a break!” North told her. “You know how many toys I deliver in one night?”
“And eggs I hide in one day?” Bunny put in.
North turned to Jack. “And, Jack, if you help us, we will get your memories.”
Jack looked to Tooth, who agreed to the deal. Sandy gave Jack a thumbs-up. Bunny just groaned. Jack turned back to North and smiled.
In Shanghai, China, North shot out of a chimney and raced across the rooftop. “Quickly! Quickly!” he said as Bunny popped up a roof away.
“Here we go, here we go,” Bunny chanted.
Jack zipped past Bunny. “Hop to it, rabbit. I’m five teeth ahead!”
“Yeah, right,” Bunny replied. “Look, I’d tell you to stay outta my way, but, really, what’s the point? Because you won’t be able to keep up, anyway!”
“Is that a challenge, cottontail?” Jack asked.
“Oh, you don’t wanna race a rabbit, mate,” Bunny said.
“A race?” North asked Jack and Bunny. “Is it a race? It’s going to be epic!”
Tooth darted around with Baby Tooth struggling to keep up. “Four bicuspids over there!” She pointed left. “An incisor two blocks east! Is that a molar? THEY’RE EVERYWHERE!” Tooth was overwhelmed by the task in this city alone. She flitted off the rooftop and straight into a billboard advertising toothpaste. “Ow,” she said, moaning and rubbing her head.
Jack leaped to the top of the billboard to check on her. “You okay?”
“Fine,” Tooth said. “Sorry. It’s been a really long time since I’ve been out in the field.”
“How long is a long time?” Jack asked.
“Four hundred and forty years,” she replied. “Give or take.”
Before Jack could respond, Tooth noticed a tiny glow under the pillow of a little girl in a nearby room. And without another word, Tooth rushed off.
Inside a dimly lit bedroom, Jack was about to snag a tooth when Bunny popped out of a hole in the floor. Bunny grabbed the tooth and then got away.
In the next city, North discovered two teeth under a pillow. He nabbed both. “Yipa!” he said triumphantly as he hurried off.
At another home, Bunny got several teeth from a sleeping child. “Jackpot!” He glanced around the room. There were hockey posters on the walls, and the shelves were loaded with trophies. “Looks like you’re a bit of a brumby, hey mate,” Bunny remarked.
North stood by a boy’s bed. “It’s a piece of pie!” he said softly. But as he reached forward, Bunny came up through a rabbit hole in the floor. While the two Guardians competed for the tooth, Sandy slipped between them and took the prize for himself.
“That’s my tooth!” North whisper-yelled at the Sandman’s back. “Sandy! Sandy!”
Bunny continued on his mission to sabotag
e Jack. When Jack came into the next room, Bunny opened a rabbit hole and Jack fell through. Bunny took the tooth and then disappeared down another rabbit hole.
Tooth reached under a child’s pillow and pulled out a tooth. The tooth was perfect, but there was a mouse attached to the root. Baby Tooth immediately tackled the mouse, shaking him free.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Tooth pulled Baby Tooth back. “Take it easy there, champ. He’s one of us. Part of the European division.” Tooth turned to the mouse and then asked if he was okay in French, “Ça va?”
In yet another city Bunny was about to grab his next tooth, but when he reached under the child’s pillow, he found a note instead. The note showed an arrow pointing toward the window. Bunny followed the direction of the arrow. There he found North, holding the kid’s tooth and grinning. “Huh?” Bunny said in surprise as North dashed toward another house.
Bunny was certain the next tooth was his, but when he reached the roof, he heard the cracking sound of ice and frost. “Crikey!” Bunny began to slip. Tumbling down the slick, tilted roof, Bunny passed Jack. Jack easily reached out and snagged the tooth from Bunny.
“Yes!” Jack cheered, but an instant later a stream of dreamsand surrounded Jack.
Sandy waved good-bye as he snagged the tooth for himself.
North dropped down a chimney into a cottage. He was excited to get this tooth and increase his count. As he touched down on the wooden logs in the fireplace, a fuzzy paw reached out. “Ha-ha! Ho, ho, ho!” Bunny laughed and lit the fire.
“Ahh!” North screamed, bursting out of the hot and blazing chimney to the cool safety of the roof.
North, Sandy, Jack, and Bunny met up on a rooftop. The competition had been good fun, and they each had a large sack filled with teeth.
“Wow!” Tooth was impressed. “You guys collect teeth and leave gifts as fast as my fairies.”
The Guardians stared at one another.
Tooth surveyed their panicked looks and asked, “You guys have been leaving gifts, right?”
They were all too embarrassed to reply.
A few minutes later the faithful Guardians stood in line at a coin dispenser. They each took a turn stuffing wrinkled bills into the slot, changing cash into coins.
Then they got back to work.
North took a tooth and then put a coin and a candy cane in its place.
Bunny carried coins in his thick, fuzzy paws. He left a coin and a pair of Easter eggs on a child’s bed.
Baby Tooth stuffed a heavy coin beneath a feather pillow.
Tooth left a coin for a sleeping child.
Sandy entered a house through the doggy door and then left a kid a coin.
A toddler spotted the Guardians through his bedroom window, jumping from roof to roof. He was so surprised, he dropped his cup of juice.
Finally the Guardians climbed back into the sleigh. Nearby, a Nightmare spy watched North take up the reins. As the Guardians lifted off into the sky, the Nightmare vaporized down a street drain, slipping into the sewer.
Pitch was inside his darkened lair, standing near a light-covered Globe, exactly like the one in North’s Workshop. Hanging on the walls around his head were the stolen boxes of teeth. The teeth glittered in the Globe’s light while Mini Fairies stared out, trapped in cages.
Pitch poked a finger at his Globe. He turned to the Nightmare that was slithering into the room. “Why aren’t the lights going out?”
The Nightmare let out a soft whinny.
Pitch stamped his foot angrily. If the lights weren’t going out on his Globe, it meant that children still believed. His voice boomed. “They’re collecting the teeth?”
The Mini Fairies began twittering at the news. Their hopeful, tiny, voices echoed throughout the Lair.
Pitch swirled to face them. “Oh, pipe down,” he demanded. “Or I’ll stuff a pillow with you.” Scowling, Pitch raised a hand and formed an image of Sandy in nightmare sand. “Fine, have your last hurrah. For tomorrow, all your pathetic scrambling will be for nothing.”
Pitch crushed Sandy’s image with his fist.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
Jamie’s awesome toy robot stood watch on his bedside table. As he slept, Jamie’s tongue rested in the new gap between his teeth.
Tooth fluttered over Jamie’s head while Jack stood by the bed.
“Left central incisor, knocked out in a freak sledding accident.” Tooth raised her eyes to meet Jack’s. “I wonder how that could have happened, Jack?”
Jack laughed, looking at the picture Jamie had drawn and hung on his wall. The one of Jamie on his sled, midair, pelting his friends with snowballs.
Jack blushed. “Kids, huh?”
Tooth smiled at the peacefully dreaming boy. “This was always the part I liked most—seeing the kids.” Tooth paused before adding, “Why did I ever stop doing this?”
Jack could see how much Tooth loved her job. “It’s a little different up close, huh?” Jack remarked.
Tooth nodded. “Thanks for being here, Jack. I wish I had known about your memory. I could’ve helped you.”
“Yeah, well, look, let’s just get you taken care of,” Jack said. “Then it’s Pitch’s turn.”
A sudden noise outside attracted their attention. Tooth and Jack both turned to the window.
“Here you are!” North was hauling a large sack over his shoulder. The windowsill groaned as North squeezed himself through. Sandy and Baby Tooth came in after.
“What gives, slowpokes?” North asked.
“SHHHHH,” Tooth whispered a warning. Jamie was still asleep.
“How you feeling, Toothy?” North asked softly.
“Believed in,” Tooth replied.
“Ha-ha!” North gave a little chuckle. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”
“Oh, I see how it is. . . . ” Bunny arrived through his rabbit hole. “All working together to make sure the rabbit gets last place.”
North held his finger up to his lips. “Shhhhhh.”
Jack raised his bulging bag of teeth. “You think I need help to beat a bunny? Check it out, Peter Cottontail.”
“You call that a bag of choppers?” Bunny’s bag was even bigger. “Now that’s a bag of choppers.”
“Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” North interrupted. “This is about Tooth. It’s not a competition! But if it was”—his bag was the largest of them all—“I win. YEEEEHAAAAAW!” North danced around Jamie’s room in a Russian jig.
Suddenly a bright light caught North in the belly.
“Oh no.” He stopped dancing.
“Santa Claus?” Jamie asked, rubbing his eyes. He sat up, holding a flashlight and peering around the room. “The Easter Bunny? Sandman? The Tooth Fairy?” Jamie popped up from his pillows. “I knew you’d come!”
“Surprise!” Tooth said, pretending that this was all very normal. “We came.”
“He can see us?” Jack asked.
Jamie scanned the room, completely amazed. He looked at everyone except Jack, whom he still couldn’t see.
“Most of us,” Bunny replied.
“Shhh,” Tooth warned. “You guys, he’s still awake.”
“Sandy, knock him out,” Bunny suggested.
“Huh?” Jamie scooted back on the bed.
“With the dreamsand, ya gumbies.” Bunny shook his head.
With that, Jamie’s dog woke up, yawned, and sniffed the air toward Bunny.
“No.” Jamie told the dog. “Stop! That’s the Easter Bunny. What are you doing? Down!”
The dog came nose-to-nose with Bunny.
“All right,” Bunny said. “Nobody panic.”
Jack thought it was funny. “But that’s a greyhound. Do you know what greyhounds do to rabbits?”
“I think it’s a pretty safe bet he’s never met a rabbit like me,” Bunny said.
Sandy made a baseball out of dreamsand as Jack rolled his eyes at Bunny. Jack noticed an alarm clock on the bedside table.
Bunny continued, “Six foot on
e, nerves of steel, master of Tai Chi, and the ancient art of—”
Jack couldn’t help himself. He reached over and pressed a button on the alarm clock with his staff. RINNGG!
“Crikey!” Bunny exclaimed as the dog leaped toward him. He hopped around the room, the greyhound nipping at his tail.
“Stop! Sit!” Jamie commanded. “Down, girl, down!”
The dog chased Bunny over the bed and up the walls while Tooth struggled to silence the alarm clock.
“Sandy!” cried North, urging him to throw the ball at the dog and end this madness.
But before Sandy could throw it, the dog knocked into him. Dreamsand went flying.
Tooth shook her head at the chaos. “This is not proper Tooth Fairy behavior,” she scolded.
North ducked when the dreamsand sailed toward him, causing the dreamsand baseball to smack Tooth directly in the face. The sleepy dust knocked her and Baby Tooth out cold. They both fell to the floor with a thud. A dreamy little tooth floated above each fairy’s head.
Streams of dreamsand filled Jamie’s bedroom.
Bunny dodged the dog, saying, “This thing’s rabid! Get this dingo off me!” He caught a whiff of sand. “Oh no.” Bunny yawned before falling asleep, dreaming of carrots.
Next to him, the dog toppled over and began to dream of bunnies.
“Candy canes,” North said before he also began to snooze. Unfortunately, when North fell asleep, he was still standing up. As his dreams took over, North hit Jamie’s mattress before hitting the floor, springing Jamie into the air like a catapult.
“Whoaaaa!” Jamie shrieked before Sandy caught him. Sandy dumped a bit of dreamsand on the boy’s head, then put him back into bed.
“Whoops.” Jack took a long look around the now-quiet room. Tooth and Baby Tooth were snoozing in a corner while Bunny was snuggling with North.
“Oh, I really wish I had a camera right now,” Jack said.
At that moment, Sandy spotted something dark and shadowy outside the window.
Rise of the Guardians Movie Novelization Page 4