The North Pole Challenge (Flea's Five Christmases, #1) (10 page)

             
Flea sensed the familiar feeling of being watched and he spotted one of the ice-bank snowmen looking at him with its strange green eyes.

             
“I know that snowman, or at least one just like it,” Flea said excitedly as they walked beyond the bank. But before Niko could look, all of the snowmen dissolved back into the ground. “Was I being watched during the last couple weeks? I think I saw some of those snowmen outside my apartment.”

             
“How should I know?” Niko asked, the angry tone returning to his voice. “Santa Claus doesn’t tell me everything he sets up.”

             
Flea couldn’t believe that he’d been at the North Pole this long and hadn’t even thought about Santa until now. The man in the big red suit was yet another topic about which Flea had so many questions. But he didn’t get the chance to ask a single one before movement in the distance distracted him. He felt the slightest rumble beneath his feet as a huge rolling snowball quickly approached. Flea had no idea where the snowball came from but it was headed straight for them. He reacted accordingly.

             
“Watch out!” Flea yelled as he dived to the snowy ground. His huge hat nearly fell off and snow poured into his big green jacket in the process, but Flea preferred this to being crushed by a runaway snowball. When he looked up from the ground, he saw that Niko hadn’t moved and was staring down at him with confusion.

             
“What are you
doing
?” Niko said, shaking his head.

             
The snowball slowed and came to a stop a few feet in front of Niko. Flea watched in amazement as the large snowball slowly separated into three different balls – each progressively smaller than the last – and proceeded to stack themselves atop one another. Two eyes, a nose and a mouth formed on the top snowball and Flea found himself staring into the face of yet another snowman, this one with a distinctly different look from the ice-bank ones.

             
“Did you trip?” the snowman asked, its voice low, slow and a bit dopey-sounding.

             
Flea hadn’t even realized he was still sprawled on the ground, so he promptly jumped back to his feet.

             
“You can
actually
talk?” Flea asked.

             
A talking snowman was added to Flea’s ever-expanding list of things he never expected to see in life. The snowman’s eyebrows indented and turned downward and a frown formed on his face. Flea had clearly offended it.

             
“I’m the one with snow for brains but you’re wearing
that
?” the snowman asked. “You must be new here.”

             
“How did you –”

             
“Was there something you needed?” Niko asked, interrupting Flea’s conversation with the snowman.

             
The snowman turned toward the larger elf but now appeared confused.

             
“I’m having trouble remembering but I think… yes, I think there
was
something,” the snowman said, its words coming out at a snail’s pace even though its brain seemed to move even slower. “Oh yeah, I remember that it was something important, too.”

             
In the short time Flea had come to know Niko, he’d realized that the elf was short on patience and easily annoyed – at least that was how he’d acted toward Flea and his never-ending supply of questions. Flea expected Niko to explode on the simple-minded snowman but was therefore surprised when Niko smiled and spoke calmly to the snowy messenger.

             
“Well I told you to come and find me if there was a problem,” Niko said softly. “
Is
there a problem?”

             
The snowman’s brow remained scrunched up in confusion for several seconds until it finally relaxed and smiled.

             
“Yes, there is a problem,” the snowman answered. He paused just long enough for Flea to doubt whether the snowman remembered exactly what the problem was but he finally continued. “There’s been movement on the border since you’ve been gone.”

             
“
Forward
movement? Like movement beyond the red line?” Niko asked.

             
“I wouldn’t have rushed to find you if they’d gone
back
,” the snowman said. “I’m not that dumb.”

             
“I’m sorry for doubting you, I just don’t understand how they could’ve moved beyond the red line,” Niko said. For once, Flea heard fear in Niko’s voice and wished he knew what the elf and the snowman were talking about. “I need to see this right away.”

             
The snowman transformed back into a single large ball and rolled off in the direction he’d come from. Niko began to run behind him but stopped when he realized he wasn’t alone.

             
“Well don’t just stand there,” Niko barked angrily at Flea. “Let’s go!”

             
Flea ran after them, quickly falling behind since his shoes were terrible for running. The two silver balls
jingled
and
jangled
loudly with every step he took. They ran in a different direction from the school, instead heading to the huge building that Flea remembered as the toy factory. He looked up to see a huge clock face, its hands stopped just before twelve.
It’s like they’re stuck on 11:59,
Flea thought.
The clock must be broken
. When they got closer to the factory, Flea tried to look through the large glass doors but saw very little except for bright colors and a few flashes of movement. He only needed this brief glance to understand that the factory was the center of the North Pole’s main activity.

             
They finally reached a tiny building on the outskirts of the village. It was the first place that was truly a mystery to Flea, as this building hadn’t been part of the North Pole display he’d built on TV. The snowman entered the guarded doors and Niko began to follow before he stopped and turned to Flea.

             
“I need you to wait out here for a few minutes, I’ll be right back,” Niko ordered. “
Don’t
wander off.”

             
“Why can’t I come inside with you?” Flea asked. The two large snowmen guarding the entrance made Flea feel uncomfortable. Plus, he felt a slight chill the farther away he got from the rest of the North Pole. “What is this building? I don’t recognize it.”

             
“Secrecy is necessary to deal with North Pole security so I’m not going to answer that,” Niko said before turning to the pair of guards. “Whatever you do, don’t let him leave the North Pole border.”

             
“Yes, sir,” the guards answered in unison.

             
For several minutes, Flea waited outside the security building, staring in awe at his surroundings from another point of view. He had a moment to reflect on the crazy things that had happened to him today and with those thoughts came so many new questions. Impatience had never been a problem for him before now but that was probably because he never had anything exciting happen to him. When Flea could no longer stare at the village in front of him, he looked at the barren landscape beyond the security building. There was nothing out there but empty, snowy land. He felt a cool breeze blowing from that direction and had a bad feeling about what lay beyond the North Pole’s borders. Something had obviously worried Niko and Flea would’ve bet that whatever ‘problem’ Niko had been warned about came from somewhere out there. Flea took a step in that direction but felt a sudden warmth from his ringed hand. When he looked down, he saw a faint golden glow coming from underneath the red glove he wore.

             
A warning,
Flea somehow knew.

             
“Sir, please do not walk any farther in that direction,” said one of the snowman guards.

             
Flea wasn’t so stupid that he’d head off and look for trouble so he felt annoyed that Niko had ordered these guards to baby-sit him. The glowing ring worried him and he wanted to tell Niko, he didn’t want to stand around and wait any longer. Flea approached the entrance and tried to summon the strength he needed to sound threatening.

             
“I need to go inside,” he said, his attempt at firmness sounding audibly weak. Flea knew the snowmen weren’t likely to step aside because they feared him so he hoped that they would listen to reason. “I have something important I – ”

             
“Yes, sir,” the guards said in unison, sliding apart to let Flea through.

             
Flea tried to hide his surprise as he rushed through the entrance before the guards could change their minds. Just inside the door was a small hallway that Flea followed to the end. He saw a bluish light shining and heard Niko’s distinctively angry voice.

             
“I guess it’s a good thing that
he
didn’t stay with the rest of them for too long but I still don’t understand how this can be happening,” Niko said, a twinge of fear mixed in with his frustration. “The Army has been moving at the same slow, steady pace for years, now suddenly they’re able to take this giant leap forward? It just doesn’t make sense.”

             
“They began to move a few hours ago, not too long after you left to go on the secret mission with – ”

             
Niko angrily interrupted the slow-speaking snowman, who’d apparently shed some sort of light on the mystery.

             
“It’s the
kid
,” Niko said with certainty. Flea felt his stomach turn as
he
was apparently the ‘kid’ to which Niko was referring. “I
knew
he never should have been brought here. How can Santa expect me to successfully manage North Pole security if he’s not going to take my advice about such important matters?”

             
Although Niko apparently hated him, Flea still felt guilty about eavesdropping and decided now was the time to tell him about his glowing ring. Flea walked into the room ready to warn Niko but found the elf and the snowman turned away from him. The moment Flea saw what the two were looking at, he completely forgot what he was going to say. Against the far wall was a massive holographic image that reminded Flea of a futuristic video game. But he quickly realized it was some sort of map, one that showed rows upon rows of snowmen lined up in perfect battle formation. It was clear that these snowmen were nothing like the two kinds that Flea had already encountered here at the North Pole.

These battle snowmen were clad in armor made of sticks, were armed with sharp icicle-weapons and had bright red eyes that Flea recognized as evil. A red holographic line made up some sort of boundary but several rows of snowmen in the front were well beyond the red line, which was apparently Niko’s main cause for concern. But the snowmen weren’t alone in making up this massive Army. Pacing back and forth in front of the first row of snowmen was a huge white creature.

The creature was some sort of animal yet it managed to walk on two feet, which appeared quite unnatural. Just at that moment, the animal – which was clearly the leader – pointed to one of the snowmen in the front row and waved it forward. Flea watched as the snowman nervously shuffled forward. The holographic map had no sound but Flea could see that the animal yelled for the snowman to continue forward. The Army snowman followed orders, but once it proceeded a few feet beyond the animal, it suddenly disintegrated into a puff of snowy fog.

             
Niko’s slow-speaking snowman shivered.

             
“At least they can’t pass our borders,” the snowman said. “The Army is still a long way off from putting us in danger.”

             
But Niko was not satisfied.

             
“It should’ve been
months
until the Army could cross that red line,” the elf said. “This is not good, not good at all.”

             
Flea couldn’t stay silent any longer.

             
“How did that snowman just explode like that?” he asked.

             
Although Niko’s snowman might have been slow when it came to talking or thinking, he
wasn’t
slow when it came to reacting. In a split second, he stepped defensively in front of Niko, sharp icy edges forming at the ends of his arms. Niko was also surprised to see Flea standing there. He immediately waved his hand through the hologram and made it disappear.

             
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” the snowman asked, his voice still slow but somehow more menacing than humorous this time.

             
“It’s okay, remember you just met him outside with me?” Niko asked. “Flea is the new elf at the North Pole.”