by Tracey West
“No, of course not!” he replied. “I’ll be on camera, and you’ll put on the suit and deceive my fans.”
“What? No way!”
“Brenda, please,” Percy pleaded.
“Wow, what has happened to you? Where’s the Percy Patterson who loved animals? Who inspired me to love them? Who had integrity!”
“I have integrity!” Percy insisted, and Brenda frowned at him.
“Okay, yes, this isn’t about integrity,” he admitted. “I have to do this one thing without integrity, and then I’ll just be all about integrity, all the time. I will ooze integrity. I will bathe in it. I will endorse an energy drink called Integrity—not for free—but I’ll donate the money to charity. That’s how much integrity I’ll have!”
Brenda was not going to support Percy in this. She stood up and walked away. Percy leaped in front of her.
“Brenda, no one is watching my show!” he said. “You want to save a species on the verge of extinction? Save me!”
Brenda stopped and folded her arms, waiting to be convinced.
“I used to be successful,” Percy said. “We used to be successful. But tracking down animals in the wild just isn’t enough anymore. I can’t compete with water-skiing squirrels, or monkeys riding on the backs of dogs.”
Brenda nodded; he did have a point. Percy got down on his knees and closed his eyes, overcome with emotion.
“I’m desperate, Brenda,” he said. “This idea is the only thing that can save us. I’m begging you to help me. I can’t do this without you. Please help me!”
He opened his eyes—to see Brenda walking out the door.
“Brenda? Brenda!” Percy cried. He turned back to their table. The suitcase containing the Yeti suit was gone. “The suit! No!”
He reached for his phone and frantically dialed Brenda. If he didn’t make this Yeti plan work, his career was over!
Chapter Eight
Migo Meets Percy
Migo followed the tiny footprints across the snow. Soon he heard strange music. Instinctively he kept low by rolling across the snow and hiding behind boulders so that he wouldn’t be seen.
Finally he arrived at a strange wooden dwelling with a peaked roof. The music was coming from inside, and light glowed from within.
“Wow,” Migo said. He crept closer to the building, and spotted the goat lurking behind the back wall, chewing on something. It looked up at Migo and kept chewing.
“Whatcha got there?” Migo asked, approaching the animal. Startled, the goat dropped what it had been chewing and bolted away. Migo picked up the object—a sneaker. He held it up to his own foot.
“A small . . . foot,” he said.
Then a creature walked out of the building. A creature with wavy brown hair and stressed-out blue eyes.
“There it is!” Migo cried. “Look at it. So majestic. So amazing. I should introduce myself. Oh, but why am I so scared?”
The Smallfoot was talking into a box, but to Migo it sounded like squeaks and chirps.
“Hmm, no language skills,” Migo mused. “Didn’t see that one coming.”
He cautiously made his way toward the Smallfoot—Percy, who was leaving a phone message for Brenda.
“Brenda, please come back,” he pleaded. “It’s just this one time. I promise. Then we’ll do the integrity thing. Please call me when you get this!”
Percy ended the call and glanced down to see an enormous, furry foot with blue toes. He looked up to see Migo grinning down at him.
“Thank you, Brenda!” Percy said, mistakenly thinking it was Brenda inside the Yeti suit. “You even put on the stilts! And the suit doesn’t even look fake. It’s quite convincing. So here’s the shot. I’ll film over here.”
Migo heard: Squeak, squeak! Chirp, squeak!
“It’s doing all the talking,” Migo muttered. “Just say something, you idiot! Here we go.”
He walked closer to Percy. “Hi. I’m Migo, and I have fallen very far—”
Percy heard: Grrrrrr, grroooowwl!
“Blimey, good growl!” Percy said. “Did you put an amplifier in there or something? This is why I work with you, Brenda. When you’re in, you’re all in!”
He produced a small camera from his backpack and hit a button on it. A telescoping arm shot out, and he flipped the camera toward him so that he could film himself.
“Hair looks good, nice bit of backlight. Okay. Here we go. Yeti discovery shot, take one!” he cried.
Then his voice changed so that he sounded breathless, as though he’d been hiking for a very long time.
“Percy Patterson here, high in the Himalayas,” he began. “I was looking for the rare—”
Migo’s head poked into the frame as he tried to introduce himself to Percy.
“Not yet,” Percy said, pushing Migo out of the way. “Okay. Cut that bit, and in three, two, one . . .”
He began the narration again. “I was looking for the rare Himalayan jumping spider, but I just heard a low growling coming from this direction.”
He spun the camera around to face Migo.
“Ahhh. Is that . . . a Yeti?” Percy cried, sounding like a bad actor. Then he whispered to Migo, “Do the growl.”
At that moment Percy heard the sound of an engine behind him. He whipped the camera in that direction to see Brenda, riding a snowmobile.
“Do you mind?” he asked. “Will you turn that off, Brenda? I am trying to shoot Brenda in this . . .”
His voice trailed off as the realization hit him.
“Wait a minute . . . Brenda?”
He moved the camera to Migo. Then back to Brenda. Then back to Migo.
“Hi,” Migo said, but what Percy heard was, Groooowwwwwllll! Brenda drove off, but Percy was too terrified to notice.
“Y-y-y-y-yehht-t-t-ti.” Percy could barely get the word out.
“You know, you’ll laugh, because in my world everyone thinks you’re a terrifying monster,” Migo said. He mimed being a scary monster and growled for real this time. Grrroooowwwwlllll!
Shaking with fear, Percy stumbled backward and fell.
“You don’t look terrifying to me,” Migo was saying. “You’re adorable!”
Percy screamed and ran away.
“Oh, the Smallfoot song,” Migo said, remembering the frightened screams of the crashed pilot. “I know this one. I know it, I know it.” Growwwllll! “Is that not right?”
Percy ran for the door of the Yak Shack, but Migo jumped and landed in front of him. Percy turned and ran the other way, but he tripped and fell. His animal tranquilizer pistol slid out of his backpack and skidded to a stop in front of the curious goat.
“I just need to take you home and prove to everyone that you exist, so I can get un-banished,” Migo tried to explain. “Okay?”
By now he had cornered Percy against the wall of the Yak Shack.
“You want to bring anything?” Migo asked.
Percy saw the goat walking away with the tranquilizer gun in his mouth. He had to get to it, somehow! He picked up a ski pole lying on the ground and hurled it at Migo.
Thunk! It stuck into the Yeti’s forehead, but he didn’t flinch. Percy dove through Migo’s legs, slid across the snow, and grabbed the tranquilizer pistol. His hands shaking, he turned and aimed it at Migo.
“You want to bring that too?” Migo asked. “That looks cool.”
Before Percy could shoot it, Migo reached out and tapped the gun. The dart fired straight up into the air! Realizing it was a good distraction, Percy broke into a run.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait! Where are you going?” Migo called out. “Look how excited you are!”
Migo grabbed at Percy, but he slipped through Migo’s fingers like a bar of soap. He shot up into the air, and then landed on top of Migo’s head. Percy grabbed onto Migo’s horns and fur, trying to find a way to bring the Yeti down.
Migo thought the little guy was playing. He flopped down onto the ground, laughing.
“Ha-ha-ha!” Migo laughed. “Tha
t tickles!”
But Percy didn’t hear playful laughter. He heard only growls and grunts, and thought Migo was fighting him. He struggled desperately, trying to get away, but fate had other plans for Percy.
The tranquilizer dart sailed back down from the sky. Percy saw it coming but couldn’t get out of the way.
Thump! The dart landed, piercing Percy’s butt and tranquilizing him. His eyes rolled back in his head as the sleepy effect took hold. “That’s ironic,” he said, and then he fell over, unconscious.
“Um, Smallfoot? Hello?” Migo asked, but the Smallfoot had suddenly fallen asleep.
It wasn’t a bad turn of events, actually, because now Migo could simply carry the Smallfoot back to his Yeti village. He looked at Percy’s scattered belongings and picked up a sleeping bag and a length of rope. He strapped the sleeping bag to the front of his chest and then stuffed Percy inside.
“Hope you don’t mind, but I’m taking you home,” he told the sleeping Percy. “I’m gonna be like, ‘Yo, what’s up?’ And they’re gonna be like, ‘Is that a what?’ And I’m gonna be like, ‘Yeah!’ And their faces are gonna be like . . . ‘Smallfoot exists!’ ”
He smiled and made his way back home.
Chapter Nine
Momma Bear
Migo happily climbed up the mountain, thinking how awesome it was going to be when everyone realized that he had been telling the truth all along.
He turned around a curve and . . . whoosh! A strong wind and a curtain of snow hit him. Blizzards often sprang up out of nowhere in the mountains, and now he was caught right in the middle of one.
He tried to push against the winds, but they only pushed him farther and farther back. He slid across the ice and right into a big, dry cave.
“Home would be nice, but this is good for now,” Migo said. He unstrapped the sleeping bag from his chest. “Don’t worry, little guy. You’re safe here. Nice and war—”
Percy tumbled out of the sleeping bag and landed on the floor of the cave with a loud clink. Migo picked him up. Covered with ice, the Smallfoot was frozen like an ice pop!
Desperately Migo rubbed Percy against his fur to warm him up. He tapped him on the ground, trying to shatter the ice around his body.
Sticks were scattered across the floor of the cave, so he put Percy down and quickly gathered the sticks into a pile. Then he found two rocks and banged them together, creating sparks.
“Don’t worry, Smallfoot. I’m going to save you. Just hang on. Hang on!” Migo urged. He banged the rocks together again, and the sparks landed on the sticks. A fire began to burn.
A few minutes later Percy’s eyes fluttered open. The tranquilizer was wearing off. “Oh, fire. So warm, so nice,” he mumbled.
Then he realized that his whole body was spinning. First he was facing the fire from above, and then he was lying faceup above the fire.. Then he was over the fire again. . . .
“Oh no. . . .”
Migo had created a spit over the fire and was turning Percy on top of it like a barbecue master cooking a piece of meat. Migo just wanted Percy to warm up.
“There you go. Nice and toasty all the way around,” Migo said.
“No, no, nooooooooo!” Percy screamed. He thought the Yeti was cooking him up for dinner!
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Migo asked. “You hungry?”
He leaned down and grabbed an apple from Percy’s backpack. Then he stuffed it into Percy’s mouth.
“I’m being roasted alive!” Percy cried with his mouth full. It sounded like he was saying “I’mp pheing roaphted aliveph!” Not that it made a difference to Migo!
“Still cold? I can see why,” Migo said. “You have, like, no fur.” He picked up a branch and began to sweep away a layer of snow that had blown into the cave. “I’ll clear off a space where you can lie until the storm passes.”
He unrolled Percy’s sleeping bag. “Your cocoon is almost ready,” he said.
Percy struggled to free himself—and had some help from the flames, which burned through one of the ropes binding him to the spit. He jumped off.
He’d have to make a run for it, but it wouldn’t be easy getting past the huge beast. Before he tried, though, there was one thing he needed to do.
While the beast was busy, Percy turned on his phone and aimed the camera at himself, with Migo in the background.
“Percy Patterson here in what might be my last broadcast ever,” he whispered. “I might get eaten. Or roasted. Or frozen solid. Or some horrible combination of the three.”
He paused dramatically. “But . . . know this. I risked my life in pursuit of something extraordinary. Something bigger than us. Literally, so much bigger.”
He focused the camera on Migo. The Yeti turned to look at him.
“Oh, great. You’re moving,” Migo said. “I’ve almost finished your—”
“I think he’s saying he wants to have me for dinner,” Percy guessed.
Migo turned back and continued preparing Percy’s sleeping area. Percy saw his chance, and tiptoed toward the cave entrance without Migo seeing him. After blowing on his fingers to warm them up, he frantically tried to type a text.
Brenda, give me my glory, he wrote. Upload this video—and then send help!
He hit send, and the phone chimed. The words “message sending” scrolled across the screen.
Then another message appeared: “Upload time . . . 38 hours.”
“Noooooooo!” Percy wailed.
A low, rumbling growl answered him. It didn’t sound like the Yeti.
Percy continued to record his adventure. “Something else is here,” he whispered into his phone. “Judging by the echo, I’d estimate distance is approximately two hundred meters.”
He hit the flashlight app on his phone, illuminating a giant bear only six inches from his face!
“Estimations wrong!” Percy yelled, temporarily frozen in terror.
The bear roared again, loudly, her breath blowing through Percy’s hair. His survival instinct kicked in, and he turned and ran—right into Migo! Terrified, Percy dropped to his knees, cowering. There was no escape!
Luckily, Migo knew what the bear was saying, even if Percy did not.
“My husband is back there sound asleep!” she growled.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know this cave was taken,” Migo apologized.
“Do you know what kind of mood he’s going to be in if he wakes up?” the bear asked. “I promise, it will not be pretty! Not to mention our children. It took me weeks to get them to sleep.”
“I don’t even have kids, but I can imagine that is just a really hard thing to do,” Migo replied.
They’re fighting over who gets to eat me! Percy thought.
Then Migo’s big foot moved and hovered over Percy.
He’s going to crush me!
Instead Migo motioned for Percy to look behind him. The bright moon shone outside. The storm had passed.
Seeing his chance, Percy made a run for it while Migo kept the bear busy talking.
“Well, gotta go,” Migo said finally. “Again, very, very sorry.”
Percy made it to the cave entrance, with Migo running at his heels. Percy had gotten a few feet outside the cave when he heard a loud snap behind him, followed by a pitiful roar.
Percy turned. The Yeti was caught in a bear trap! The creature was sitting on the ground, howling in pain. Percy paused.
“Don’t be stupid, Percy,” he scolded himself. “Do not go back to help the ferocious Yeti. Don’t do it!”
“Owwwwwwwww!” Migo wailed.
“Although, he did just save you from a bear,” Percy said. He sighed. “This is the wrong time to grow a conscience.”
He hurried back to Migo, who held up his foot. The big bear trap had caught on his big toe. The Yeti tried to remove the trap, but it made him cry out in pain.
Percy’s heart melted, and he patted the Yeti gently. “It’s okay, big fella. Let’s get this thing off.”
Migo smiled grate
fully. He understood that the Smallfoot wanted to help him.
“Does this hurt?” Percy asked. He pried open the trap.
“Ouch!” Migo cried. Then he looked down at his toe, where a teeny drop of blood was forming. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he passed out.
• • •
When his eyes opened again, he saw Percy wrapping his toe in a bandage. He smiled at the Smallfoot, and Percy smiled back.
“The storm has lifted,” Migo said. “What do you say we get up that mountain and prove you exist, huh?”
Percy stared at Migo blankly, and finally Migo realized something.
“You don’t understand a word I’m saying, do you?” he asked.
Percy’s blank stare didn’t change. Migo sighed and strapped the sleeping bag back to his chest and pointed at it. Percy flipped on his phone. “Okay, this is unbelievable, but I think the Yeti is actually trying to communicate with me. I think he wants me to go with him.”
Migo growled and pointed to the sleeping bag again. Percy, an adventurer at heart, jumped inside.
“This is either the bravest thing I’ve ever done, or the stupidest,” he reasoned. “Here’s hoping it’s the former.”
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Migo said.
Migo had grabbed some smoldering rocks from the fire. He dropped them into the sleeping bag.
“These should keep you warm,” Migo said.
Percy flinched at the idea of the hot rocks, but he quickly realized that they were warm and toasty.
“That’s actually quite nice,” he remarked.
Then Migo began to bound up the mountainside.
“Almost there,” Migo promised. “Meechee is gonna be so happy!”
Chapter Ten
Reunion
The members of the S.E.S. had not given up on their friend. Meechee was dangling over the ice cliffs on the rope, anchored by Gwangi, Kolka, and Fleem.
“Drop me!” Meechee cried. Then she mumbled to herself, “Quick, before I change my mind.”
She looked down. “This is terrifying. I can’t believe Migo did this.”
“Which is why maybe, you know, you shouldn’t,” Kolka said. “This doesn’t feel right, Meech!”
