Jake & The Gingerbread Wars (A Gryphon Chronicles Christmas Novella) (The Gryphon Chronicles) (13 page)

CHAPTER FOU
RTEEN

Go With the Floe

T
hey rested in their rooms again, saving their strength for when the time came to slip away during the party, as planned.

E
ventually, the penguins waddled back to fetch them, pecking on each of their doors and squawking an eager summons. The kids opened their chamber doors, spotted each other and Red in the hallway, and then walked together to the top of the castle staircase.

Though they did not breathe a word of their plan wit
h the toy soldiers lurking everywhere, the nods they exchanged confirmed that everyone was ready.

Archie had his t
ool-bag slung over his shoulder.

The girls were ready to make a run for it, too. They had complained to the Snow Maiden that the ice skates were giving them blisters, so she had magically changed their footwear into big, fluffy boots. This would make it much easier for them to flee when they seized their moment to escape.

Red was much recovered from his earlier ordeal against the yetis. When Jake saw the warlike gleam in his golden eyes, he realized Red was ready for battle again, if it came down to it.

Jake hoped it didn’t, but he gave the Gryphon a pat on his withers while
the others started zooming down the ice slide next to the staircase. When everyone arrived at the bottom, the penguins led them toward the great hall, running about in a state of excitement and eagerly flapping their flightless wings.

As they approached
, they could already hear the rollicking music of big, loud, frantic waltzes echoing down the hallways.

They gla
nced at each other in surprise and soon reached the edge of the crowded ballroom, its ice-sculpted chandeliers lit up with countless dazzling lights.

B
ut the biggest shock came when they saw the other “guests.”

I
t looked like a party inside Noah’s Ark. All the guests were animals, except for a few decidedly creepy snowmen that had somehow come to life.

There were m
acaroni penguins sporting grand yellow feathers on their heads; seals in their finest spotted coats; furry arctic foxes, pure white; and wolves with big fangs, sporting elegant winter fur of gray and silver.

A
few polar bears had lumbered in and were gorging themselves on vast quantities of frozen shrimp. Several festive caribou here and there had decorated their antlers with sprigs of holly for the occasion. They were bobbing their heads in time with the music while some of the other animals danced around.

Jake heard Dani gasp aloud at the sight of a
pair of massive brown walruses with mustachioed whiskers and terrifying tusks.

Poor Humbug;
some seal with a sense of humor was bouncing the elf on his nose. The wolves howled with laughter at this trick.

Then
the Snow Maiden’s chief polar bear caught sight of Jake and the others standing at the edge of the great hall. The giant, vest-wearing bear rose up onto his hind legs and narrowed his bright brown eyes at them in suspicion.

He rumbl
ed an ominous growl, informing Her Highness that they had arrived. She whirled around on her skates, then zoomed over and made a great show of greeting them with the utmost enthusiasm in front of all her guests.

Wh
at a phony she was, Jake mused. All signs of her earlier annoyance at them had vanished now that she had an audience.

She introduced them around and chatted them up and gloated at all the attention.
Soon, she was loudly recounting to her guests the story of how Jake and his friends had dealt with the yetis.

Al
l she seemed to care about was impressing everyone.

Naturally, Ice-a-belle was doing her best to get along. “It must
be frightening for all of you having such dangerous creatures as those yetis nearby.”

“They are
certainly unpleasant.” The Snow Maiden let out a sudden gasp of excitement. “Oh! I have an idea of something else we can do tomorrow for fun!”

“What’s that?”
Isabelle asked.

“
Tomorrow we’ll go yeti hunting!”

Jake stared at her
. “You must be joking.”

“Not at all! It sounds exciting. My father always let
them be, but you’ve shown they can be beaten. So why should we let such nasty monsters live so close to our castle and our forest? You wolves enjoy a good hunt, don’t you?” she asked her furry guests.

Not even the wolves looked ov
erly excited about hunting abominable snowmen.

“Oh, come, it’ll be excellent sport.”

“What would we hunt them with?” Jake asked.

“Whatever you like. My palace guards have weapons.
” She nodded toward the giant toy soldiers posted along the walls.

“Fine,”
Jake muttered. He did not intend to be here tomorrow anyway. Still biding his time and watching for the chance to escape, he took a goblet of some fizzy, foamy blue drink off the tray of a passing penguin waiter. He took a sip and frowned with no idea what it was. Banana-flavored root beer?

In any case, when the music changed, the Snow Maiden said it was tim
e to dance, and though Jake tried to make excuses, claiming he needed to finish his beverage, she gave him no choice.

She seized his wrist and pulled him away from the others to waltz with her, just like she had threatened
earlier.

Jake
cast a desperate glance over his shoulder at his friends as the Snow Maiden dragged him away. This was going to be ugly.

Fighting yetis was one thing, b
ut he did not know how to dance.
Humiliation ahead.

Oh, w
hy couldn’t she have picked Archie? he wondered with a silent groan. Learning how to dance was part of every proper young gentleman’s education; and while Jake had been roaming the streets of London like a wild, soot-streaked heathen, Archie’s tutor, Henry, had made sure the boy genius learned his way around a ballroom—at least enough not to make a fool of himself, as Jake was presently doing. Unfortunately for the Snow Maiden, she was a head taller than Archie and refused to dance with him because he would make her look like a giraffe.

Archie
, however, was a good height to dance with Dani, and Jake was shocked to see how much fun those two seemed to be having waltzing around while he was in agony.

It only made him fume the more.

As the Snow Maiden threw him around the ice, Jake struggled to keep his balance and glimpsed Isabelle sitting this one out like a wallflower. One of the creepy snowmen glided over to her and bowed, suavely asking her to dance.

Her answer:
she got up and walked away.

Well, Jake couldn’t blame her. Snowmen were not supposed to be aliv
e any more than gingerbread men, he thought, which brought him back to the matter at hand.

Escaping.

If they ever reached Santa’s compound alive, he was going to have a serious word with the old fellow about his granddaughter, among other things.

“You’re not even trying!” the Snow Maiden said in exasperation.

“Yes, I am! I told you I can’t dance!”

“
You’re about as graceful as a walrus.”

“
I can’t help it.”

“Follow my lead!
” she ordered. But just when Jake was wondering how long this torment could last, the castle doors burst open.

Without warning, a gust of sparkling snow blew in
, and a blond young man, windblown and rosy-cheeked, with half a dozen gorgeous, scantily clad, angel-winged Valkryies arrayed behind him came striding down the corridor.

The music stopped, the animals gasped aloud,
and everyone quit dancing, much to Jake’s relief.

“
What
is going on here?” the newcomer exclaimed, scanning the ballroom.

J
ake knew in an instant that he was the owner of the castle: Jack Frost.

Everyone stared at him, especially Isabelle, for the prince of wint
er was admittedly good looking (and as fashionably dressed as his sister). He wore a blue velvet jacket and a scarf tossed around his neck just so.

“He’s so
ooo cool,” a creepy snow-woman sighed nearby.

Jack Frost
had an air of roguery about him, however. Perhaps he had inherited his grandfather’s jolly sense of fun, for his blue eyes twinkled like he’d had a little too much eggnog. While the Valkyries posed and pouted behind him, his searching gaze picked his sister out of the crowd. “Well, well, having a party at my house and you didn’t even invite me—” he started, then he stopped himself. “Hold on!”

His stare homed in on Jake with elder-brotherly protectiveness. “Who’s that dancing with my sister?”

Aw, great,
Jake thought.

“None of your business!” the Snow Maiden replied
, skating in front of him. “What are you doing home, Jack?”

“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 corrid
or. 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 t
hey’d never get out of here if the soldiers decided to follow.

Heart pounding, h
e 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; t
he 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.