The bolt of lightning passed through the girl and shot down the metal chain. The anchor had been pushed against the lifeless creature’s chest, and now it delivered a thump of electricity to Woolly’s heart.
DUMF!
Elsie slumped to her knees at the highest point of the ship, and the mammoth’s legs twitched.
One eye opened.
Then another.
“SHE’S ALIVE!” shouted Dotty. “Do you hear me, Elsie? Elsie?”
As thunder and lightning boomed around them, Dotty and Titch looked up to the crow’s nest.
“NOOOO!” screamed Dotty when she saw the girl slumped over the side, lifeless.
“You look after Woolly!” cried Titch as he began climbing up the rigging.
The boat was now swinging wildly from side to side, and the higher he scrabbled, the more he felt he was going to be tossed into a watery grave.
Eventually, he reached the crow’s nest. Elsie was now lying motionless on the floor.
“ELSIE? ELSIE?” he cried, but there was no response. Titch scooped her up in his arms, and put her over his shoulder.
Then he made the hazardous climb down the rigging, and laid her out on the deck of the ship.
Elsie’s face was blackened and, despite the rain, her hair and clothes were smoking.
It seemed that the electric bolt, which had given the mammoth life, had taken life away from the girl.
On seeing her friend laid out like this, Woolly scrambled over to her.
First, the mammoth tried to rock her friend awake with her foot.
“HOO!”
Elsie just flopped from side to side.
Next, she licked the girl’s face with her tongue.
“HOO!”
A white streak appeared on her skin.
Dotty burst into floods of tears and held Elsie’s lifeless body close to hers. “No! No! Please!”
Titch put his arms round her. “I think she’s left us.”
The pensioners stood around the body with their heads bowed and their hats held close to their chests.
All was quiet and still on the deck of the Victory.
However, the mammoth was not giving up on her friend.
“HOO!”
To everyone’s surprise, Woolly placed her trunk over the girl’s nose and mouth, and blew air into her.
“What’s the beast doing?” said the admiral, as he tried to keep steering the Victory through the storm.
“I think she’s trying to recessuss… resasstate… restitiute… blow air into Elsie!” replied Dotty.
“Her chest is moving up and down!” exclaimed Titch.
“Thank the good Lord for his mercy!” cried out Dotty. “She’s alive!”
Elsie’s eyes opened. A huge wet furry trunk was staring back at her. At first, she didn’t know where she was, or even who she was.
“What the…?”
But, as soon as she realised who was looming over her, she took the trunk in her hands and kissed it.
“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, Woolly! I love you!”
The mammoth wrapped her trunk round the girl, and pulled her close for a cuddle.
“HURRAH!” cried the old soldiers.
“This is all very well and good, gentlemen, and, er, lady, and, girl, and, of course, mammoth, and so on and so forth,” began the admiral, “but can I politely remind you that we are still sailing through the heart of a storm? It’s going to take every last man, every last person and prehistoric animal for us to survive this! Back to work at once!”
Battered and bruised, HMS Victory eventually sailed into calmer waters.
An blew across the ship. They were moving closer and closer to the North Pole. A shout came down from the crow’s nest.
“ICEBERG AHOY!”
Elsie whispered into the mammoth’s ear. “We’re getting close, Woolly.”
The mammoth nodded her head up and down, and called out, “HOO!”
“Very close.”
The admiral expertly navigated HMS Victory through the maze of ice.
“LAND AHOY!” came another shout from above.
“HOOO!” hooted Woolly. Somehow, she knew she was going home.
The ship stopped alongside the edge of the ice, causing a huddle of walruses to scatter into the water.
PLOP! PLOP! PLOP!
After weeks at sea, the mammoth was eager to step out on to solid ice. Her entire body was swaying with excitement.
“Not long now, Woolly!” said Elsie.
As soon as it was safe, she led her friend down the gangplank and on to the ice. Immediately, the mammoth rolled on to her back, rubbing herself on the snow.
AElsie thought it looked like fun, so joined in too. She even fashioned a snowball, which she lobbed at Woolly.
BIFF!
In return, the mammoth hoovered up some snow with her trunk, and sprayed it at the girl.
PFFF!
Dotty and Titch looked on from the deck of the Victory, like proud grandparents.
When Elsie and Woolly both began to tire, the girl decided it was time to say goodbye. She gave her friend the biggest cuddle she could.
“I’m going to miss you so much,” she whispered into the mammoth’s ear.
Woolly shook her head.
Whatever did the animal mean?
She reached out her trunk, and took the girl by the hand, and began tugging her along.
“Woolly wants me to go with her,” Elsie called out to those on the ship. “But where?”
“We’re coming too!” exclaimed Dotty, dragging Titch by the hand.
“Do we have to? I am f-f-f-freezing!” he moaned.
“Come on!”
The lady dragged her beloved off the ship, and on to the ice.
“Wait there, please!” Dotty called back to the admiral.
“We were going to go straight back to London,” replied the admiral sarcastically, “but, now you ask, we’ll wait.”
“Thank you kindly!” said the lady.
Woolly led her three friends across the ice. Soon they had lost sight of the Victory.
“We’ll have to try and remember which way we came,” remarked Titch.
“Yes. Turn left at the mound of snow,” replied Dotty unhelpfully.
Underneath the ice, there was the sound of something whirring.
RURRR!
It stopped Woolly in her tracks.
“HOOO!” she cried softly, clearly spooked.
“What’s that?” said Elsie.
“What’s what?” asked Dotty.
“That sound,” replied the girl. She put her ear down to the ice.
“Maybe it’s a killer whale,” suggested Titch.
Woolly shook her head.
“No,” replied the girl. “This is some kind of machine.”
All four stood still and silent.
Suddenly, there was the deafening noise of something grinding through the ice.
DRERRRRR!
Ahead of them a metal nose burst out.
SMASH!
“HOOOO!” screamed Woolly.
“What’s that?” gasped Elsie.
“It’s one of them submarines,” replied Titch.
“What’s it doing here?” asked Elsie.
“And who’s going to sweep up all the ice?” remarked Dotty.
The underwater craft forced its way up to the surface, and bobbed on the sea for a moment.
“Shall we make a run for it?” suggested Elsie.
“No. Let’s stand our ground,” replied Titch.
“My hero,” said Dotty.
A hatch opened on top of the submarine, and a pith helmet emerged, followed by a gnarled face, which seemed to have been burned in an explosion.
“Well, well, well. Fancy meeting you here,” snarled the lady.
It was Lady Buckshot. She was chomping on a cigar and wielding a shotgun.
“HOO!” cried Woolly.
“Yes, how peculiar!” replied Dotty.
“Maybe we should have made a run for it,” said Titch.
“Thought you could kill me off, did you?” called out the big-game hunter, as she stepped down from her submarine on to the ice. “Thought your little stunt with Tower Bridge was clever, did you?”
“Mmm,” mused Dotty. “Probably not saying the right thing here, but yes, I did, actually.”
“SILENCE!”
“You asked the question!”
“It was a rhetorical question!”
“What’s that?”
“You don’t know what a rhetorical question is?”
“No.”
“SILENCE! That was also a rhetorical question!”
“We’re going round in circles now.”
“Right, I’ll shoot you first!”
Elsie stepped in front of Dotty.
“Never,” said the girl.
Titch stepped in front of Elsie.
“NEVER!” he said.
Then Woolly swept them both aside with her trunk.
“HOOO!” she hooted at the hunter.
“I’ll just stay here at the back if that’s all right with everyone,” announced Dotty.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” thundered Buckshot, spitting out her cigar and pointing her shotgun at each of them in turn. “I WILL KILL YOU ALL!”
Buckshot cocked her shotgun.
CLICK!
“Don’t you fools see how good all your heads would look on my wall?” she called out.
“I rather like my head attached to my body,” Elsie called back. “And so does Woolly!”
“HOO!” The mammoth nodded in agreement.
“Woolly?” mocked Buckshot. “The monster has a name!”
“She’s not a monster; she’s a manmoth,” said Dotty.
“A what?” asked Buckshot.
“A MANMOTH! ARE YOU DEAF?”
“It’ll take too long to explain,” said Elsie.
“Fine. I don’t have the time anyway. Prepare to die…”
Titch put his hand up in the air. “Excuse me, lady?”
“What now?”
“There’s a polar bear behind you,” he lied.
“No, there isn’t,” said Dotty.
“Shut up!” he hissed.
“Yes, there is!” Elsie continued the lie. “A really big one.”
“I’m not falling for that old chestnut!” thundered Buckshot.
“HOO!” hooted Woolly, pointing with her trunk at the spot where this imaginary bear might be.
“Oh, I get it,” said Dotty. “There’s a really big brown bear…”
“White bear!” hissed Titch.
“…white bear behind you!”
“It would look great on your wall,” added Elsie. Behind her, she could sense the mammoth was straining.
“What are you doing, Woolly?” whispered Elsie.
The mammoth had shut her eyes tight in concentration.
Finally, it came.
A bottom burp.
GGGGGGRRRRRUUUUURRRRR!
A bottom burp that sounded exactly like the growl of a bear.
The noise made Buckshot turn round and look.
It gave the gang of four just enough time to rush at her. Titch rugby-tackled her, and she fell to the ice.
THUMP!
“ARGH!”
Dotty sat on her, so she was trapped.
“GET ORFF ME, YOU PEASANT!”
Next, Elsie snatched the shotgun from her, and threw it as far away as she could, so that it landed in deep snow.
“GIVE ME THAT BACK!”
Last, Woolly lolloped forward, and with her trunk grabbed the lady by her ankle.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOU BEAST?”
Guessing what was to come, Elsie helped Dotty off Buckshot.
Then Woolly dangled her would-be killer in the air.
“HELP!” she cried.
“Not on your nelly!” said Dotty.
The mammoth lifted the hunter high in the air and began swinging her in circles.
yelled Buckshot.
The circles became faster and faster.
Soon Buckshot became nothing more than a blur.
“AAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!”
“Now let go!” said Elsie.
The mammoth did what she was told.
cried Buckshot as she spun through the air like a boomerang.
Unlike a boomerang, she didn’t come back.
Buckshot flew across the Arctic, before landing far out of sight with a THUD!
“Thank you, manmoth,” said Dotty. “That woman was beginning to get on my nerves.”
Woolly led the three humans for many more miles across the ice. North. North. North. As night fell, the entire sky lit up red and green and purple.
“Wow! This is beautiful!” said Elsie as she stopped still and looked up in wonder.
“The Northern Lights, they’re called,” replied Titch. “You can only see them if you travel really far north.”
“Well, I went to Yorkshire to visit my aunt Maud and I never saw ’em,” said Dotty.
Titch shook his head. “I mean really far north.”
“As far as I’m concerned, Yorkshire is really far north. It took me hours on the train. Now, where’s the manmoth taking us?”
“North!” replied Elsie. “North, north, north!”
“Are there going to be any shops?” asked Dotty.
“I don’t think so,” said Titch.
“I don’t need nothing fancy, just a cup of tea, some sandwiches or cakes.”
“No. Just more ice.”
“Shame!” Dotty said. “I’m getting rather peckish.”
They climbed to the top of a tall snowdrift and looked down into a valley.
“How much longer?” moaned Dotty.
“HOOO!” hooted Woolly. She pointed ahead with her trunk, before galloping down the drift.
“Something tells me we’re nearly there!” replied the girl as she chased after her friend.
“HOOO!”
“Hoooo!” joined in Elsie.
“Nearly where?” asked Dotty.
“I don’t know,” replied Titch. He took her hand and led her down the drift.
Ahead, Elsie could see something was sticking out of the snow. On closer inspection, she realised it was a flag. A British flag. Next to it were a series of pegs, marking out a large rectangular shape in the ice. It looked almost like a grave.
“This must be where they found Woolly!” exclaimed Elsie.
“HOOO!” hooted the mammoth, miming digging with her foot.
“Why the blazes has the manmoth brought us all the way here?” grumbled Dotty.
“There must be a reason, Dotty. Trust me,” replied the girl.
As if on cue, the coloured lights that were shooting across the sky descended to the ground. The wind whipped up the snow, and soon it swirled all around them. The four were in the centre of a spiralling snowstorm. It soon became impossible for Elsie, Dotty and Titch to keep their eyes open, and they could hardly breathe. All they could do was huddle close to the mammoth in fear.
“This is the end, Dotty!” spluttered Titch as snow swirled into his mouth. “I need to tell you that I…”
“Tell me what?” asked the lady.
“If you would just let me finish!”
“Woolly wouldn’t have brought us all out here to die!” shouted Elsie. “There must be a good reason.”
The mammoth wrapped her trunk round the girl.
“HOO!” she cried.
“Hold me close,” said Elsie. “Please.”
This felt like the end.
The storm moved in. The blizzard was smothering them. They could no longer see, or feel, or hear.
Elsie just managed to prise her eyes open for a moment.
Huge shapes were appearing out of the snowstorm.
“LOOK!” cried Elsie.
They were not alone.
A dozen figures were emerging from the storm, as tall and wide as ships.
<
br /> Dotty and Titch struggled to open their eyes. When they did, the most magical sight greeted them.
A herd of mammoths.
“I wouldn’t want to have to clean up after all that lot,” mused Dotty.
“Is this real?” asked Titch.
“I don’t know,” replied Elsie. “But it’s beautiful!”
“HOO!” cried Woolly.
As if by magic, the snowstorm moved outwards from where the gang of four were huddled. They found themselves standing in a perfect circle of calm as a wall of swirling snow surrounded them.
Slowly, Woolly broke away from the humans, and approached the herd. One of the mammoths stepped forward and reached out its trunk. Woolly did the same, and the two trunks curled round each other in the most loving way.
All the other mammoths lifted up their trunks and let out a chorus of HOOs.
Teardrops ran down Elsie’s face. They were happy tears. They were sad tears. Happy because she knew her friend was finally home. Sad because she knew this was goodbye.
Woolly turned round, and with her trunk beckoned Elsie over.
“HOO!”
The girl took a deep breath, and paced through the deep snow. Woolly wrapped her trunk round her friend, and pushed her close to the much bigger mammoth in front of them. Elsie was scared at first, but the giant mammoth wrapped her trunk lovingly round the girl. The three of them embraced. Immediately, the girl knew exactly who this was.
“Woolly. It’s so great to finally meet your ma,” said Elsie, choking back tears.
Both animals nodded their heads, and let out tender sighs.
“HOO!” sounded the largest animal behind them. It was time to go. The herd turned to leave.
The mother mammoth gently pushed her offspring towards the girl. There was just time for one last embrace. Elsie buried her head in her friend’s fur, and wrapped her arms round her. In return, Woolly licked the girl’s face with her rough tongue. It was a sweet, if slobbery, kiss.
Elsie whispered into the mammoth’s ear, “I love you, Woolly. I’m never going to forget you. You won’t ever forget me, will you?”
“HOO!” Woolly sighed.
“Hoo!” replied Elsie.
The girl reached out her hand and stroked Woolly’s fur as the animal started to move away. This was the very last touch. Elsie watched as one by one the herd faded into the wall of snow. Woolly looked back one last time, and waved with her trunk, and then she too disappeared.
The Ice Monster Page 14
