by Paul Mason
Just what was going on? The slabs had come all the way from the Himalayas. There was no way the yeti from the mountains could have come here, surely? But, if it wasn’t them, then who? The yeti nearby? thought Ella. They could have done it. But how did they know the slabs were here?
She saw Uncle Jack staring at her. “The stick I picked up in the bush,” Ella stammered. “I was wondering where I’d left it. The possums must have knocked it over.”
“Don’t go leaving your things lying all over the house, there’s a good girl,” said Jack. He double-checked he’d locked the door, tugging vigorously at the handle. Then he went from window to window, jerking at the latches. Satisfied at last, he gestured to Ella to go up the stairs.
On her way to her room, Ella spied Uncle Jack’s book on the table. It was his yeti journal, the black notebook he’d checked all the time in the mountains. Ella picked it up. On the cover in neat writing was the name Ray Stevens. Ray Stevens – the explorer who took the yeti photo, the one who thought he saw yeti in the bushes nearby? Why did Uncle Jack have Stevens’ journal?
Ella opened the book and began flipping through the pages. The journal was full of entries, maps, photographs and newspaper clippings. She read a few of the headlines:
YETI PHOTOGRAPH A HOAX!
YETI FINDINGS FAKED!
NZ EXPLORER A FRAUD!
EXPLORER’S SHAME…
The article about the hairy creature in Greyton was in there too. Then Ella came across the famous Stevens yeti photograph itself. It was grainy and the yeti was not much more than a haze – but the hairy back, the long arms… It was just like the yeti they’d seen in the mountains.
She turned to the last entry.
I just don’t have the drive any more - I’m throwing in the towel. That’s what the sceptics want. Their words still give me grief. But I know what I saw in the mountains and in the Greyton bush! I know the yeti are out there. They exist all over the world, I feel it in my heart.
I’ve spent a great deal of my life searching deep into the wilderness and, in the end, I am no closer to finding yeti than when I began. But perhaps that’s just as well. What if I had discovered yeti? What then?
I just hope that, if someone finally unearths the truth, they treat the yeti with the dignity and care that they deserve, and not as animals in some circus.
I dreamed one day of contributing to science, but now I will leave all this behind and go back to the quiet life. To enjoying my home and the affection of my dear daughter Lucy, and little Deborah and Jack, my beloved grandchildren. As it should be.
Ray Stevens, 1971
A funny feeling came over Ella. She read the last line again. Dear daughter Lucy, and little Deborah and Jack, my beloved grandchildren.
Ella’s grandmother Lucy had died before she was born. Mum’s name was Deborah. And Mum’s older brother was Jack – Uncle Jack. Which would make Ray Stevens Ella’s great-grandfather.
Can this night hold any more surprises? she thought.
*
The yeti strode through the forest, climbing uphill, seeking the deepest darkness where they could hide and keep a lookout. Songg slipped into a thick, low bush, the others behind him. Through the leaves, they could see the dwelling of the humans, now lit up as if it was in bright sun.
“Everyone OK?” asked Jiffi, panting. The others nodded.
“My ears are still ringing,” said Tick.
“What on earth was that noise?” gasped Plumm.
“More human awfulness,” Songg grunted. “Were you seen?”
Dahl shook his head. “I don’t think so. The screaming began and we ran.”
“I think it was an alarm,” said Tick. “Like we blow in the sett to warn of danger. It came the moment I stepped inside the den. I saw a red firefly blink at me from the darkness – some sort of watch guard.”
“The firefly must see if someone’s coming and then start the noise,” agreed Dahl.
Tick didn’t think this was a good time to mention that he’d left his staff behind.
“What do we do now?” asked Plumm. “We can’t get the slabs if that happens as soon as we set foot inside the place.”
Dahl thought for a moment. “We’ll stay close by tonight while we work out a new plan.”
*
As soon as she woke up, Ella calculated the time difference in London – Mum and Dad’s last stop – and called Mum. She didn’t talk too long before she got to the point.
“It’s been great spending time with Uncle Jack and getting to know him. It’s made me think I should learn more about all my family – maybe make a family tree to share when I get back to school.”
“That sounds like a great idea,” said Mum.
“Thing is, I don’t know much about the rest of them at all. Like, who was my great-grandfather?” asked Ella, holding her breath.
“OK,” said Mum slowly. “You want to go that far back? My grandfather’s name was Ray. Ray Stevens.”
Ella gulped. “Not Stern?”
“No, my father’s last name was Stern. Mum took his name when she married.”
Ella clutched the phone. “What was your grandpa like?”
“I never really knew him that well, to be honest. I was a bit young. Grandpa Ray had been some kind of explorer back in the day, I think. But you should ask your Uncle Jack. He was the one who was close to him.”
Ella’s pulse quickened. “Uncle Jack, good idea.”
“Listen, I’ve got to go, sweetie. We’re on our way to a business dinner,” said Mum. “But call me tomorrow, OK? We’ll be back next week – can’t wait to see you.”
“Will do, Mum. Bye!”
Ella sat down on her bed with a thump. Ray Stevens, the discoverer of the yeti, was Mum and Uncle Jack’s grandfather. So Jack must have learned all about yeti when he was growing up. And about how everyone labelled his grandfather a cheat.
So that’s why he’s so obsessed with finding the yeti, thought Ella. He’ll have a hit show as well, of course, but this isn’t about wildlife or nature at all. Uncle Jack wants to clear Grandpa Ray’s name.
But Ella reckoned Grandpa Ray wouldn’t have wanted his name cleared like this. He didn’t want an animal circus – he’d said as much in his journal.
Ella needed to talk to Uncle Jack. She had to stop the yeti secrets from getting out.
“Ella!” Jack called from downstairs, startling her. “Meeting in the studio now, please!”
She went down to the basement to find Dr Milligan, Ana and Walker already there. Jack was telling them about the alarm in the night.
“I’m not taking any chances. While your program works out the language of the slabs, I’m hiding them – putting them on lockdown,” muttered Jack.
“Lockdown?” asked Ella.
“Yes, away from here, in the Rocky Hill Gun Tunnels.”
“Those bunkers left over from World War Two? But they’ve been abandoned for years,” said Ana. “Are they even still standing?”
“They were built to take a direct hit from a shell so I think they are. What’s more, I managed to get the key.”
“The conditions in there might damage the carvings,” Dr Milligan grumbled.
“A concrete military bunker, empty and abandoned, just down the road and I have the key,” said Jack. “Case closed. Now we shift them.”
Ella watched as they trolleyed the carvings one by one up to Jack’s gleaming SUV, with Dr Milligan fussing and tutting round them like a mother hen.
“Can we talk, Uncle Jack?” she asked.
Jack headed up the stairs. “Not now, Ella.”
Outside, Ana and Walker rested the last of the slabs in the back of the truck and Uncle Jack slammed the door.
“Take care, Mr Stern, take care!” moaned the doctor.
“Room for one more?” asked Ella.
“Sure,” said Jack.
He drove them all out of town down a winding stretch of unsealed road. It didn’t take long to find the bunkers, hulki
ng and grey, perched on a hilltop facing the sea.
Jack swerved the car off the road and pulled to a stop on a square of gravel. They were outside a concrete block jutting out of the earth, sealed with a rusted iron door. He got out and strode up to the door, swinging the key on a piece of twine. Jack worked at the rusty padlock and the hinges wailed as he heaved the door open.
Just before they entered the tunnels, Ella bent down and grabbed some gravel, stuffing the stones into her pocket. They followed Jack into the dark, the torch beaming down the long shaft, the wheels of the trolley squeaking as Dr Milligan pushed. The gun tunnels were like a maze, Ella thought. Several times the group passed an intersection, where new tunnels branched left and right. Every few steps – and each time the path branched off – Ella reached into her pocket and dropped a pebble to the floor, marking a trail of their route.
They went on until Ella figured they must be deep in the heart of the hill. They passed open rooms, empty but for the bent remains of forgotten machinery.
At last, they reached a large room with AMMUNITION stencilled on the open door and Jack called them to a halt.
“This will do,” he said. “Leave them in here.”
The yeti lay low in the bush near the human dwelling, shaded by branches that spread over them like birds’ wings. They had spent the night in the bush, taking turns to sleep and keep watch, but Tick felt his eyes had barely closed at all. When morning arrived, they kept their vigil, unsure what to do next. Tick gazed up at the treetops, watching a black bird with a tuft of white below its beak as it called sweetly across the forest.
There was a rustle in the bushes and Songg appeared with a handful of long, juicy worms. “Lunch!”
Jiffi scooped up a wriggling worm and popped it in her mouth. “Delicious.”
The yeti ate silently, until there were no more left.
It was Plumm who spoke first. “Anyone have an idea how we’re going to find the slabs now that they’ve moved them?”
Flittermouse chirruped.
“It’s not your fault you couldn’t fly as fast as the human contraption,” said Tick. “I saw the way it sped down that road and got away. You tried your best.”
“We need to be patient and keep our eyes on these humans. Something will come up,” said Jiffi.
Tick sighed. “They must be so close to working out the secrets of the carvings by now.”
*
Back in her room at Uncle Jack’s, Ella lay on the bed and played with the phone in her hands, spinning it round and round. She just couldn’t keep still.
Ana and the others had gone. Mum and Dad were wrapped up in their own world. Ella thought of messaging April about the yeti – but Jack had made them all promise not to tell anyone.
Ella dropped her phone on to the bedspread. She could smell the yeti staff from under the bed. She thought back to the night of the break-in. If the yeti had tried to raid the house, it meant they were desperate to get the slabs back. So just what was written on them? Ella decided to sneak down to the basement to take a look at Dr Milligan’s translation program. Maybe there were some answers there. There hadn’t been any further news since the skincare glitch.
Ella tiptoed downstairs and found the basement was deserted, no sign of Uncle Jack. She wiggled the mouse on Dr Milligan’s computer and, when she saw the screen, she stopped cold.
And as the leaves and twigs and bark and branches and roots come together to make a tree, so it is with Earth. Everything united. And it is the solemn duty of every yeti to see that it remains so for ever more…
Ella read on, racing through the document, barely remembering to breathe.
Yeti were all over the world. They called themselves the Collective, all joined together by underground waterways. Ella kept scrolling. The writing talked about how yeti took care of pollination, fungus spreading, looking after animals and plants, fresh water, the ocean and so on and so on. There was barely a part of nature they didn’t help. They were everywhere.
Ella remembered learning about how nature was like a delicate spider’s web, everything connected. And how if you touched one thread you sent shudders through the whole thing. From what she was reading, yeti were the ones trying to keep the web intact!
Ella didn’t dare think about what would happen if humans found the yeti. It would ruin everything. There was more than these creatures at stake here and there was no more time to waste. She had to help them. But how?
The alarm had scared the yeti away but Ella doubted that they would just give up. The slabs meant too much to them. What would she do if she was in the same position?
“I’d hide close by and keep an eye on them,” Ella said aloud.
The yeti might still be in the bush near the house! What if she took the bunker key and tried to make contact? If she turned up, carrying the staff, would they realize she meant no harm? Then she could guide the yeti to the Rocky Hill Gun Tunnels and lead them to the slabs, following her pebble trail. Ella smiled. That pebble trail was pretty clever.
But did she have the guts to do all that? Go behind Uncle Jack’s back and ruin his lifelong dream? She fought the jumble in her head for a moment longer, then went back upstairs.
She found Uncle Jack in the living room, sipping coffee. She noticed the key to the tunnels sitting on the low table. “Uncle Jack, can we chat?”
Jack looked at his watch. “Not right this minute. I’ve got a conference call with the studio.” He drained his coffee. “We’ll talk later.”
“But there’s something I need to say.”
“It’ll have to wait, Ella. This is one of the biggest calls I’ve ever had to make – please understand. We’re talking a potential three-series show here! We’ll chat later, I promise,” he said, disappearing into his office.
Ella sighed. “Well, at least I tried,” she said to herself. She hesitated for a moment before grabbing the bunker key from the table where Jack had left it, and then went to get the staff from her room. Ella tiptoed past Uncle Jack’s office and could hear he was already deep in conversation. She slipped out into the garden and up the slope towards the bush.
Once she reached a spot in full view of the hills, she laid the staff down on the grass. Then she took a few steps back and sat down. If they were here, they would come.
*
“You can’t be serious,” Songg hissed, his nostrils flaring. He glared at Pebble Nose sitting in the field below them. “To consort with a human? Do you know what the penalty is?”
“Banishment,” said Tick and Jiffi together.
“Been there already,” explained Jiffi.
“Me too,” added Tick.
Dahl shifted in the undergrowth. “Look, I don’t like it any more than you, but we have to get the slabs back. What other choice do we have?”
“It’s better for some of us to be discovered than for the location of every yeti sett on Earth to be revealed to the humans,” said Tick. He gestured at Pebble Nose, who was still just sitting there. “Besides, Pebble Nose is different from the others. I think she means to help us.”
“It could be a trick.”
“It’s a risk,” acknowledged Tick.
Dahl handed Songg his Rumble Stick. “I want you to take this back to the sett. If anything should happen to us, see that it is returned to Greatrex.”
“Back to the sett? But I’m coming with you,” Songg replied.
Dahl shook his head. “This is a task for the Mountain Yeti. You need to keep the others on alert. If we should fail, you Makimaki may need to abandon sett. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
Tick pushed himself up to his feet. “I’ll go down first and meet her. Stay hidden and wait for my signal.”
“Be careful,” said Plumm.
Tick pushed through the thicket, and stepped out into the open. Keeping his eyes on Pebble Nose, he strode down through the bush. When he reached the edge of the long grass, he crouched down. Tick stared the girl in the face, praying this wasn’t a trap.
*
Ella got to her feet, her movements slow. She swallowed hard, her heart drumming in her chest. “Gentle, reclusive herbivore. Gentle, reclusive herbivore,” she whispered to herself.
The yeti’s head was large, like an orangutan. Dense brown fur covered his face, with a thick ridge running across the forehead. He had giant flared nostrils and dark, staring eyes. The eyes. Ella gulped. She had stared into them before. Up in the Himalayan forest. The yeti sitting in front of her right now was the same yeti she’d first seen! How had he got here? This was all too much.
Ella broke into a smile. The yeti tilted his head, then lifted his top lip to reveal a yellowing set of large teeth.
Please let that be a smile, thought Ella. Then she bent down to pick up the staff. “Stick… This is yours… Yours, stick,” she managed to say, her voice quivering. As she was probably the first human to speak to a yeti, Ella wondered if she should have thought of something more impressive to say. She inched forward and held out the staff.
The yeti seemed to understand. He turned his head, looking towards the house, before getting up and reaching out for the stick. Ella shrank back. Now that he was standing close to her, she realized how huge the yeti was. How strong the stink.
The yeti chortled something in a low voice.
“You’re welcome,” said Ella. She drew a square shape in the air, then turned to gesture over the hills in the distance. She mimicked carrying something heavy. She repeated the movements again.
The yeti nodded vigorously. With a thick finger, he pointed at his furry chest, and then at Ella.
Ella smiled back. “Yes,” she said. “You need to come with me, and I’ll take you to your slabs.”
“Yerrsss.”
The yeti scanned the field and the house again. When he seemed satisfied they were still alone, he turned and raised his staff high in the air.
