The North Pole Challenge (Flea's Five Christmases, #1) (34 page)

             
“Flea!” Minko yelled behind him. “We reached the safety zone!”

             
Flea turned just in time to see his two friends disappear through the invisible barrier to the North Pole.

             
“Niko! They reached it!” Flea yelled. For several long, anxious moments, Flea watched the group of violent snowmen, which he continued to pick off one by one. But before he gave up hope, he saw Niko soar over the crowd, smashing several snowmen as he made his escape.

             
“Go!” Niko yelled as he sprinted toward Flea.

             
This time, Flea listened. After throwing his last snowball, he turned and rushed toward the barrier. Somehow Niko had mastered the art of running in the deep snow, but Flea had no such skill. His retreat was slow and Niko caught up with him in a matter of seconds.

             
“You have to go quicker!” Niko yelled, still annoyed even in the middle of a life-or-death situation.             

             
“I’m
trying!
” Flea yelled back. He wanted to run faster but his buried feet couldn’t keep up with the rest of his body and he fell. Niko sighed as he dragged him to his feet. When Flea glanced back to see the Army getting closer, he saw a bright silvery light that blinded him. Accompanying the bright light was a deep sonic boom that once again knocked Flea off his feet.

             
“Don’t look back,” Niko warned. For the first time since he showed up to rescue Flea and his friends, Niko actually sounded frightened. “Just run!”

             
But telling Flea not to look at the light was like telling a small child not to look at a Christmas tree full of presents. Through the light, he saw the polar bear reappear but he was not alone. Standing beside the general was the most amazing-looking being that Flea had ever seen. Not nearly as tall or muscular as the bear, this being was still a far more commanding sight to behold. He appeared to be the size of a regular human man but was made totally of a sparkling ice. His entire body shimmered in the night. Flowing in the breeze behind him was a long cape made of an icy – yet steamy – vapor. When the icy being looked at Flea, he had the most piercing set of ice-blue eyes imaginable, which seemed to bore a hole into Flea’s mind. His eyes were the only part of the ice-man that appeared human.

             
The Army had stopped its approach when the ice-man arrived but General Polar Bear didn’t hesitate to act. He sprinted toward Flea and Niko, swiping through any snowmen that got in his way.

             
“
You
must not hurt the split-eared ones,” the ice-man yelled at the general. His voice sounded similar to the noise made when he’d suddenly appeared, more of a deep sonic boom than a human –
or elf
– voice. The snowmen backed away to give him a clear path, as the icy being quickly glided over the snow. Flea was momentarily frozen in place as he watched the incredible being but the sound of Niko’s yelling voice snapped him from his trance.

             
“Run! It’s Jack Frost!”

             
Jack Frost almost looked too majestic to be dangerous. Flea considered throwing a snowball at him but doubted that would accomplish anything. Instead, he turned and ran behind Niko, who no longer seemed willing to stand still and fight so Flea could escape. Flea tried to run in his friends’ footsteps and saw that they disappeared just ahead. When he glanced back, he saw that Jack Frost and his general had both slowed as they got closer to the border and Flea knew he couldn’t be caught now. But when his eyes met Jack Frost’s, those icy-blue eyes skewed in such a look of anger that Flea understood Niko’s fear of the ice demon.

             
“Stop or I’ll destroy you!” Jack Frost boomed, the vibrations from his voice nearly knocking Flea down. But Flea managed to stay on his feet when Niko grabbed his hand and pulled him forward.

             
“Jump!” Niko yelled.

             
Flea jumped but his feet were so deep in the snow already that he didn’t get as high at Niko. Knowing that he would cross into the North Pole at any moment, Flea couldn’t resist taking one more look back. Jack Frost pointed his hand toward Flea and shot something; there was no doubt that his target was Flea and not Niko. Flea heard a high-pitched
squeal
becoming louder and just as he saw Niko disappear through the barrier, Flea felt a sharp jolt from behind as he crossed into the North Pole.

             
He crashed to his stomach on the snowy ground. Instantly, Flea felt the change in weather, as the wind no longer blew so hard and the cold wasn’t so biting. He also noticed the increase of light inside the North Pole, which always appeared to be at dusk. Flea lifted his head just enough to see the large ice-blocks already melting off his friends’ hands. He knew that the three others were safe.

             
At that moment, he felt an explosion of pain in his back and saw his friends rush toward him. Flea no longer had the strength to hold up his head so he collapsed facedown into the snow. He heard Minko and Rome both cry out his name just before his world went black…

-         -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -        -        -

             
Not surprisingly, Flea felt very groggy when he next woke up. But instead of laying in the cold snow, he felt warm and comfortable. He slowly opened his eyes and expected to see the bright red and green walls of his dorm room but immediately realized he was wrong. This room was much darker, with the only light glowing orange from the nearby fireplace. Flea knew that he was inside Santa’s cabin, a thought that might’ve excited him had his mind not been in such a haze. His eyes begged for him to close them, but he fought off unconsciousness and soon regained his sense of hearing, too.

             
At first, the voices sounded distant and he couldn’t understand any of the words being spoken. He did, however, recognize at least two of the voices that seemed to be speaking the most: Niko and Vork.

             
“He should’ve known better than to risk his life for his friends,” Niko said. “And when I rescued them from the Army, he refused to follow my orders because he didn’t want to take the chance of Rome and Minko being left behind. That’s exactly why I’ve never gotten close with anyone here.”

             
“Only he can save her.”

             
Flea was surprised to hear red-robe’s eerie voice.

             
“I
know,
you’ve
already
said that,” Niko said.

             
“We must all understand that Flea is very young and impressionable, especially for a human. He seemed to have bonded at school with those two rejects,” Vork added.

             
“No elf should be called a reject, Vork,” a fourth voice said. It was strangely familiar to Flea, though maybe this was how he’d always expected Santa’s voice to sound. “You even admitted that Flea and his friends made significant progress during the building season.”             

             
“But not nearly enough to be trusted inside the toy factory. They’re
all
too reckless,” Vork said. “That’s why I must agree with Niko: the boy has to leave for the safety of the North Pole.”

             
“Jack Frost will push his troops as far as they can go now that he knows Flea is here,” Niko said. “And since the North Pole border has shrunk much faster since Flea has gotten here, it won’t be long until Frost can reach us. And that’s saying
nothing
about the effect Frost will have on worldwide weather.”

             
“It
is
a dangerous situation, I must admit,” Santa said sadly.

             
From the sound of this conversation, Flea didn’t like his chances of being allowed to stay. But he was even more concerned about the future of his two best friends. Despite the pain in his back, Flea pulled himself up on the couch and battled the dizziness that threatened to plunge him back into blackness.

             
With the dim light from the fire, Flea looked across the small room and clearly saw Niko and Vork, while red-robe and Santa – who was by far the tallest of the bunch – remained in the shadows.

             
“Rome and Minko deserve the chance to become
real
builders,” Flea croaked, many of the words barely escaping his lips. The four quickly quieted and turned to him. Flea knew this might be his only chance to ask Santa a question so he tried to think of the best one possible. “Why does Jack Frost want to hurt me?”

             
But Santa Claus didn’t react. Instead, red-robe slowly floated toward the couch and gently guided Flea back to a laying position. In this dim light, the ancient elf looked much younger than Flea remembered, though he figured that his eyes were playing tricks on him. Flea grunted in pain as his shoulder burned cold. But when red-robe sprinkled dust on him, the pain went away and Flea instantly drifted back to sleep…

CHAPTER THIRTY

The Big Change

The next time Flea opened his eyes, he looked into the faces of two much friendlier elves. Minko and Rome sighed in relief and smiled when they saw their friend awake. The bright walls beyond his friends meant that he had been brought back to his room in the elf dorm. In the distance, he could hear the partying at the North Pole, though the heavy curtains were drawn over his window.

             
“How do you feel?” Rome asked.

             
“Comfortable, but I’m not sure beyond that,” Flea croaked. He felt embarrassed to be lying down in front of his friends so he pulled himself to an upright position. Moving gave Flea a better indication of how he
truly
felt. “Actually, my shoulder kind of hurts but it’s nowhere near as bad as before. What happened to me? Nobody told me yet.”

             
Rome frowned, clearly hesitant to relive the awful ordeal. Minko, however, excitedly jumped in with the details.

             
“You got shot in the shoulder by one of Jack Frost’s ice crystals,” Minko explained. “We were all really worried because the crystal barely missed your heart. You were really lucky to survive, I doubt Jack Frost misses very often. It’s a good thing it was so windy.”

             
“I’m sorry I almost…” Rome started to say through quivering lips. Eventually, the tears started to flow down her face again. “…I almost got you killed.”

             
“No, Minko and I are sorry for doubting you in the first place. I think we’re
all
to blame for what happened,” Flea said.

             
Flea meant to calm her down but this only made Rome cry harder, as she threw her arms around Flea and hugged him. She squeezed so hard that Flea’s shoulder burned, but he didn’t make a sound and endured the pain. Flea thought he saw a hint of jealousy on Minko’s face while Rome embraced him.

             
“Stop crying already,” Minko told her. “I didn’t know you were such a
girl
.”

             
Rome wiped the tears from her face and then slugged Minko in the arm, causing him to wince in pain.

             
“There’s no need to keep thinking about what happened. It’s over and we’re all safe,” Flea said. “I even got to see the inside of Santa’s cabin, though it was pretty dark in there. I just wish I’d been able to see him better and ask if he’s my… to ask him some questions. Did Niko admit anything to you guys about why Jack Frost was after me?”

             
“We were too focused on rushing you back to the village to talk much,” Rome said. “And once we reached Santa’s cabin, the snow guards popped up and stopped me and Minko from entering.”

             
Flea sighed. He felt more confused now than he had on the first day he arrived at the North Pole. But the sound of singing elves in the village center took Flea’s mind off his many questions. Minko – who kept glancing toward Flea’s closed curtains – obviously thought of the party as well.

             
“Did they unveil the sleigh yet?” Flea asked.

             
“No, probably any minute now,” Minko said longingly.

             
Although Flea still felt very weak, he forced himself up on two wobbly legs, much to Rome’s dismay.