A Mantle of White ~ Naughty and Nice Episode Two

Hello friends! I was really happy to see everyone’s response to episode one. It really does mean a lot that you guys like it. Are you guys ready for more Naughty and Nice?

I sure am! This episode is where things really get good and you start to learn more of what the story is actually about. Enjoy Jack and Nick’s shenanigans!

He’s Making a List – Episode One

A dim light filled the room and I awoke. Sharing a room with Jack had trained me to be a light sleeper unless I wanted to be pranked every night.

I slowly sat up, blinking sleep from my eyes. “What time is it?”

Jack didn’t look away from his laptop. Clickety-click went the keyboard. “2.”

“2 AM?!” I sputtered. I knew Jack could stay up late, but this was excessive.

Jack mumbled in reply. “Mhm,”

“Why hasn’t Mom made you go to sleep?”

Surely she wouldn’t allow him to stay up so late.

“Oh, she wants me to,” Jack grinned. “But ultimately, I won that argument.”

I decided not to ask. Sometimes it was better not to know what Jack had gotten himself into.

He furiously typed on the keyboard. I heard the victorious tap of an enter key.

A white light filled the room. It was brighter than I’d ever seen coming from a computer, but I also had never used a computer at 2 am before.

“Can you turn that down?” I stuffed a pillow over my eyes.

“This isn’t me,” he said, concern leaking into his voice.

I threw my covers off my bed and scurried over to Jack’s. His computer screen was glowing, unlike anything I’d ever seen before. “What in the gingerbread?”

Jack gripped my hand as the glowing screen flashed from red to green and back to white. Soft Christmas music began playing and then I couldn’t keep my eyelids open. I wanted to figure out what was happening, but my brain had other plans. I glanced over at Jack before dozing off.

We would just have to deal with this in the morning.

My eyelids fluttered open and I saw nothing but white. Cold seeped in through my fleece pajamas.

I shivered, frantically looking around for my brother.

There he was, sleeping on the slush. Of course.

Where were we?

I racked my brain and tried to remember what had happened. My last memory was of me falling asleep in my bed. I vaguely recalled Jack messing around on the laptop somewhere in the twilight hours, but I didn’t understand what that would have to do with waking up in a strange place.

Had it snowed overnight? I wondered. But why would we be in the snow?

The only thing I could think of was some sort of freak tornado-snowstorm that had whisked us away from all civilization.

We’re not in Kansas anymore…

Which, obviously not. I’d only been to Kansas once, and I didn’t remember much about it. It was actually pretty plain.

“Jack,” I whispered. “Wake up.”

“Noooooooo,” he complained. “I don’t wanna go to class.”

I nudged his side. “I think we have bigger problems.”

He stretched and yawned. Once he took in our surroundings, a victorious expression came over his face.

“It worked!”

“What worked?”

“My hack!”

I glanced around us. I didn’t see any computers. What hack had caused this?

“Explain.” I crossed my arms.

“Okay…” he said, teeth chattering. “But can we find someplace warm first?”

I nodded. Though my pajamas were warm, they did little to protect me against the powdery snow. We huddled together as we searched for shelter.

snow covered wooden house during daytime — photo via unsplash

Relief washed over me when we saw a red and white building, half-covered in snow.

Warmth.

At that point, I didn’t care who the house belonged to. Though, a certain fairytale did come to mind. I didn’t think any witches were going to eat us though. Besides, being eaten was preferable to freezing to death in my opinion.

Jack nudged the door open and we slowly entered the building. My jaw dropped when I took note of the size. It was much bigger than I’d have thought, but then again, the snow made it hard to judge the size. It was larger than anywhere I’d ever been, though probably not too much bigger than a large shopping mall. Despite hearing muffled commotion, I couldn’t see anyone.

I stopped shivering.

Ah…

The warmth washed over me and I never wanted to leave. It was the best feeling.

Comfort and joy.

After a few moments spent warming up, I remembered our purpose for finding shelter.

“Where are we?” I crossed my arms.

“About that…” Jack nervously laughed.

He was cut off by the oldest-looking child I’d ever seen.

“There you are! You’re late. Oh whatever, here are your costumes. Put them on and meet me in front of the boss’s office in ten minutes!” she chirped.

“Um,” I objected.

Who was this? Why was she telling us what to do?

“Oh right, you two are new!” she pointed to a door. “Those are the bathrooms where you can get changed. Then the boss’s office is down that hall. You can’t miss it!”

Before we could respond, she was off. Jack and I exchanged a glance. I supposed we didn’t have much choice but to get changed and do as we were told.

“What were you going to say earlier?” I asked. I sensed Jack’s hesitancy to reply.

“Um…I kinda know where we are.”

“And that is?”

“The North Pole,” he nonchalantly replied.

“The North Pole?!” I exclaimed. “You mean like, Santa’s Workshop?”

“That’s the one,”

I was speechless. How, why, what, HOW?

Reading my silence, Jack answered my questions.

“I felt bad that you weren’t on the Nice List, so I decided to try to hack into the website. But Santa doesn’t do things that way. Sure he uses technology, but he keeps a Master List, which is the supreme authority of who’s on the Nice List. So, any changes would have to be made physically.”

My reply was a quizzical look. That didn’t explain how we were here.