Susie and the Snow-it-alls

by Dark, Gregory

  Instead Bluemerang feinted – to the left. “Bet you can’t catch blueming me,” he nah-ner-ner-nahed at them.

  “Or me,” said Mimimi, for once rather quick on the uptake. She feinted to the right.

  “Left, left,” ordered Momma lunging for Mimimi. Poppa, facing away from her, pulled to his left, her right. “No, fool,” said Momma. “When I say ‘left’, you hear ‘right’. Right?” Poppa pulled to his left. “What are you doing now?” Momma wanted to know as she lunged to her right, and Bluemerang therefore slipped past.

  It is not inevitably that two heads are better than one. As Momma and Poppa struggled to decide which ‘left’ the other was talking about and which ‘right’, individually the Sufrogs slid past. The Snow-it-all was not nearly strong, or brave, enough to impede a unicorn’s progress. Particularly if that unicorn had backed (or, rather, forwarded) up away and was galloping at said Snow-it-all hell for leather.

  “It’ll be bound to raise the alarm,” Dremo puffed once they were out of immediate danger. “We’ve got to get to the border, like right now.”

  “What are we waiting for?” asked Susie.

  Dremo took off.

  The Sufrogs followed. Corniun brought up a clumping rear. He took the next left, Dremo. And then the second right. The next left after that, and then the next right. They stopped by yet another corner. Susie adjusted the cctv camera. She peered at Mr Nip in his jar. His turnip face, from all the jiggling of the flight, had turned the same green as his pea eyes. Susie was still wounded by his betrayal of her, but his discomfort was too real for her not to mouth a “sorry” to him. This merely steamed up the side of the jar.

  “Okay,” said Dremo. “We’re going to take the next right, where we’ll be in sight of the border post. We have to assume that the border pengrins are not part of the mutiny. If they are …well, life would be really easy. We also have to assume they know of our escape.”

  “That makes sense,” said Bluemerang.

  “Excuse we, Dremo,” hoity-toitied Miss Chief, “excuse …”

  “We don’t have the time, Miss Chief,” Mimimi told her. She turned to Dremo. “Shoot,” she said.

  “It’s a narrow bridge,” Dremo explained. “They could easily block it. The hardest thing is going to be to get Corniun across. We need to create a diversion.”

  “Suse and I are the fastest runners,” said Bluemerang. “What say, Suse, you take the left road? I’ll take the right. That’ll pull at least two off the pengrins off the bridge. No one pengrin is going to be able to stop blueming Corniun. The rest of them can ride her.”

  “Chief Miss and?” asked the unicorn. She remained adamant that she would not carry her. Again Miss Chief and O’Nestly swapped places. Dremo gingerly mounted the unicorn. Corniun told him to hold on hard to her mane. She also told him – and in no uncertain terms – to be careful what he did with his enormous feet! Mimimi and Nespa were entrusted with holding onto Mr Nip.

  It had been decided that Susie and Bluemerang should make their appearance ten sockends before Corniun – in order to give time for the diversion to be implemented.

  They went through the plan once again. Just to be sure. No dress rehearsal was possible. The first attempt would be the only attempt.

  Finally they were as ready as they were ever going to be. They all embraced, told each other that the next time they’d see each other would be on the far side of the Iffies-Andes-Orbutties’ border. And therefore on the right side of … FREEDOM.

  They all wished each other good luck.

  Susie darted round the corner.

  Bluemerang darted round the corner.

  “One … two …” the others started to count. “… nine … ten.”

  Corniun darted round the corner. …

  Straight into Elaide.

  Straight into as well the other two Snow-it-alls, one of which held Susie, the other Bluemerang. Behind the Snow-it-alls was a small army of I-knew-its. Behind them a largish army of pengrins – and behind them a town of Emos.

  “Neverrest,” they all started to chant. “Neverrest. Neverrest. Neverrest.”

  Chapter 47

  “Well, that mutiny lasted a long blueming time,” Bluemerang commented, not without irony.

  “Emocracy means family,” Elaide told him. “Like any family, we have our occasional, our little differences. At heart, though, we look after each other. Pengrins, Emos, I-knew-its, they all know themselves to be far better off under our aegis than they would be under their own. It is you not we – criminals like you – who are the scourge of emocracy.”

  “It’s my fault,” said Dremo. “Punish me, let the others go.”

  “You know that’s not possible.” Elaide laughed dryly and humourlessly. “Leave the dramatics for those who can pull them off!”

  Behind her the chorus was welling: “Neverrest. Neverrest. Neverrest.”

  “Even,” Elaide went on, “though I personally would like to extend mercy, constitutionally I’m not able to. And they … ” – the pengrin and the Emo chanters – “… would never allow it.”

  “I’ve done nothing wrong,” Susie protested. “Nothing.”

  “You’ve been found guilty of high and low treason, have escaped from custody, and have perverted the course of justice,” Elaide told her. “I should be interested to know, if these are ‘nothing’, of what ‘something’ consists.”

  “Neverrest. Neverrest.”

  “Advance,” Elaide told Terry, the pengrin orbuttieler. “Put your flipper on my head. It’s the blackest thing to hand. Prisoner at the bar – that’s you, child – you have been found guilty of the most serious crime in the Iffies-Andes-Orbutties register. Having been lawfully tried …”

  “I haven’t been lawfully tried,” Susie protested again.

  “Lawfully tried and awfully trying,” Elaide admonished her. “… If you were too busy being elsewhere even to attend your own trial, we can scarcely be held responsible. … Having been lawfully tried, the sentence of this court is that you be taken to Mount Neverrest, there to climb it to its summit. And may God have mercy on your soul.”

  “And when I get to the summit?” Susie asked defiantly.

  The assembled throng collapsed into a tidal wave of laughter. Never had they heard anything quite so funny. There was almost, in that laughter, a begrudging respect for the condemned girl – for, at least, the condemned girl’s pluck.

  “Oh, child, child, child,” Elaide smiled on her benignly. “It’s almost a shame you have to die. For a condemned person you do show great good humour. Great humour in such circumstances means great courage. What a shame both humour and courage will perish with you.

  “No-one, Susie – and I do mean no-one – has ever climbed to the summit of Neverrest and survived. If the climb and the cold and the rock-falls don’t kill you, the Loch Mess-monster will bury you alive or the na’ar-do-whal will drown you. And should you be the first criminal ever to survive that, the not-yeti, child, will take the greatest pleasure in devouring you.”

  “I will survive,” Susie said between teeth plaqued and gritted with determination.

  That was the second funniest thing the assembled throng had ever heard. Again they hooted their appreciation.

  “Of course you will,” Elaide sarcasticked. “And, in a spirit of good will, I’ll assure you that, on your return, Corniun and Dremo will be allowed to join you. You have the choice whether or not to take Mr Nip with you on your ascent. If he does go, he will – of course – be another encumbrance; if he stays, he will – of course – serve his full sentence of life enjarment.”

  “We’ll take the jar,” Susie said.

  “Pluck indeed,” sighed Elaide. “What a shame.”

  “Excuse we, Madam Snow-it-allest,” Miss Chief commented, “but do you think, you and we, as leaders as ’twere, could have words together, one to t’other.”

  Elaide ignored her.

  “Neverrest. Neverrest,” started the chant again.

  �
��Take them,” Elaide told the pengrins.

  Whether or not the recent mutiny had achieved its aims, it seemed to Susie to have added zest to her wardens’ brutality. Previously, theirs had been a lazy violence, one that was feigning callousness. Now it seemed much more energetic, the brutality honed. Her guards pulled together the two strands of Susie’s restraining knot almost with a conjuror’s panache.

  The pengrins pushed the culprits before them with the swagger of dog-owners in the finals of a dog show.

  Along the route, the crowd both moved with the condemned prisoners and swelled as other Emos also came to jeer and to laugh. And to join in the merciless chant. “Neverrest. Neverrest.”

  Susie held her head as high as she dared. She was frightened of the mountain – terrified of it. Still more frightened was she, however, by the baying of the crowd. This was the dried-strawness of the Australian underbush. One spark would turn it into a forest fire of conflagrational – and deadly – proportions.

  Beside her, she saw the Sufrogs seeking to walk the same tight-rope – neither uncowed nor lacking beef. Even Miss Chief, still nestling in Susie’s pocket, seemed able to find a raggedy humility.

  They arrived at the foot of the mountain. And they looked up.

  And then they looked up some more.

  And then some more again.

  Yet more.

  To have seen to the top would have meant them leaning back to an angle which would have had them falling over.

  Their bonds were released.

  “Could I, at least, say ‘good-bye’?” Susie asked.

  “I thought you were going to survive,” Elaide sarcasticked.

  “I am going to. We’re all going to,” Susie retorted defiantly.

  “No need to say ‘good-bye’, then,” Elaide sneered cruelly. “

  You’re right,” said Susie.

  “Susie, luck good,” shouted Corniun. Susie smiled wanly back. Blew the unicorn a kiss. Corniun winked back.

  “Good luck, Su- … ” Dremo started to say before he was pierced in the chest by one of the pengrin’s unsheathed beaks.

  Okay. So there they were. There was only one thing for certain: Neverrest was not about to be climbed by them standing there gazing at it.

  It was all just a matter of confidence: If she thought she could do it then she could. And of course she could do it. She could do it and she would. There was nothing more to be said.

  She took a couple of deep breaths, just to get the adrenalin revving. “Keep your mind on the job. One foot, girl, at a time.”

  Susie was still carrying Nip. She looked at the Sufrogs. They looked at her.

  They started to climb.

  Chapter 48

  To begin with, the snow of the climb was, like King Wenceslas’s, deep and crisp and even. They were going upmountain, and fairly steeply, so their lungs were puffing more than usual. But at that stage it was a trek though mountainous countryside more than climbing in the accepted ropes-and-karabiners sort of way.

  And Nespa could now sniff out snowwiches at about a thousand paces, so sustenance was also not a problem. The sun was shining, but it did not beat down on them. It stroked them rather with reassuring strobes. If it hadn’t been for the mountain’s notoriety they might even have enjoyed themselves.

  In a short space of time the jeers and taunts were no longer audible. Shortly after that the threatening crowd was just so many ants way below them.

  After a couple of hours, however, the going started to get more perpendicular, more vertiginous, more rocky … more dangerous.

  Fissures started looming up around them, ones which if slipped into would skate them straight to a plummetted death. Escarpments had to be laboriously circumnavigated. The snow was so deep that each step took the energy of three on the ground. The sun was no longer solacing but saunaing them. Sweat streamed down their faces, and steamed kettly from their backs – as frozen air shunted from their puffing noses and mouths.

  “What’s the point in going on?” panted Miss Chief. “We’re going to die anyway. We might as well die here. Save our energy.”

  “What for?” asked Bluemerang. “You don’t need any energy to blueming die.”

  “Just don’t you, O’Nestly, be cheerful,” Mimimi warned him. “Dying’s bad enough already without you being cheerful about it.”

  “We’re not going to die: I’ve got scores to settle,” said Susie. There was a judder in her chin which she was trying to convince herself was resolve. “We’re going to make it.”

  “Not a snowball’s chance in Hell,” Mimimi decided.

  “Good idée,” said Nespa. The group looked at her. “Snowball, she make me zink of ze snowball. And she make me zink of snowwiches. Snowwiches: a bonne idée.” The frogs all looked heavenwards. There was no Heaven visible, only mountain. “An army, n’est-ce pas, she march on her stomach?”

  “If they tried feet,” said Bluemerang, “they’d get there an awful lot blueming sooner.”

  Susie’s face grimmed into granite. “Let’s get going,” she said, her voice thick with determination.

  “No hurry, is there?” asked Mimimi.

  “Let’s,” glowered Susie, “get going.”

  Snowwiches were grabbed by Nespa, distributed by her, and munched en route. Limbs were told they were not tired; muscles that they did not ache.

  The sun arced from wax to wane. It could not melt the determination chiselled Mount Rushmorely not only into Susie’s jaw, but into every contour of her face. Death would have to come and find her. She was not simply handing herself over to it.

  Eventually the sun started lolloping gently into dusk. As the light dimmed into twi, they could feel a chill in the air. It was a herald – and they all seemed to sense this – of a bitter, bitter cold that would be the night to come.

  “We have to find a cave,” O’Nestly panted. “Some kind of shelter, anyway, to protect us from the cold.”

  “Let’s keep going,” Susie repeated almost mindlessly. Around her the Sufrog carping seemed to be continuous. She was finding that almost as gruelling as the climb.

  “It’s getting dark and blueming cold,” cautioned Bluemerang.

  “It’s seriously I’m an unmountaineer,” said O’Nestly. “You know that. But … well, what I’m saying is … do we want to make the Snow-it-alls’ job any easier for them?”

  “Let’s keep going,” Rushmored Susie.

  “Please listen to me, Susie,” O’Nestly told her.

  “Miss Chief’s right: We’re going to die anyway,” Mimimi announced, but to whom it was difficult to decipher. “What the hell?”

  “If we carry on through the night,” O’Nestly continued, “we’ll either fall down a ravine we can’t see or …”

  “We’ll freeze,” Bluemerang continued for him. “And to death.” Saying which, in order to reconnoitre, he scuttled away from the group.

  “You have to be practical, Susie.” O’Nestly tried to be conciliatory. “Determination alone won’t crack it. Plenty of people were determined to fly before the Wright Brothers.”

  “If I stop,” panted Susie, “I might never start again.”

  “If you don’t stop,” said O’Nestly, “you’ll be stopped. Maybe permanently.”

  The sun was still there – a thick-lipped sulk caught on the cranny of some distant peak. It was a livid, yam-like orange, fiery, splenetic.

  She knew he was right, knew that somehow or other they needed to make some sort of camp for the night. She thought the frogs’ being right meant she had to be wrong. Because pride is a great distorter of thinking.

  The yam-like sun streamed almost crimson, preparing to sink for the night behind the faraway crag.

  “I’ve got somewhere,” Bluemerang shouted over to them. “It’s not perfect. I think it’s the best, though, we’re going to blueming find.”

  “And moi, I have snowwiches,” shouted Nespa. “We will, n’est-ce pas, be as fat as a gnat in a mat?”

  The sun dappled a
raspberry pinkness over the snow, as the air lost even its vestige of warmth. They trudged over to the enclosure that Bluemerang had found.

  “It’s not blueming perfect,” Bluemerang estate agented at them, as they got closer. “It’s not, well, totally enclosed, for instance. It’s not quite a cave either. But, I’m blueming sure of it, it’s the blueming best we’re going to find.”

  “A snowtel, I feel certain, fit for a king,” O’Nestly encouraged.

  “It’s useless,” Mimimi announced as she got there. “This isn’t a cave, it’s just where the snow’s been piled up by the wind.”

  “I said it wasn’t perfect,” sheepished Bluemerang.

  The other Sufrogs were too breathless to pass comment. Their faces were cracked with the exertion of the climb, strain seared through every stretched sinew.

  “It’s fine,” said Susie, too tired to leash her depression. She took the Nip jar from her pocket and put it on the ground. She was surprised by how much it had started to weigh, how light she felt without it.

  It was, Bluemerang’s snowtel, like a privvy in a prairie. Several aeons previously a boulder had dislodged itself from somewhere above and, gravity being the ineluctable force it is, had rumbled towards a new purchase closer to the ground. For no apparent reason, however, it had decided to break its journey in this totally undistinguished spot and had remained there ever since.

  It had acted as a snow buffer, and flakes that had been swirled around by a wind who’d given the circle its famous viciousness had been hurled against it, there to find purchase. Thus had effectively a small snow cave been created.

  Bluemerang was right: It wasn’t perfect. If the wind came up the mountain at them there was no protection. And the walls being of snow an inevitable chilliness emanated from them. But within its conch-like dome, there was protection from all other winds, and there was the safety of not being lost in the dark.

  They hunched together in the snowtel, munched on their snowwiches, tried to warm each other with their mutual support and encouragement.

  But they were afraid. So very afraid. So afraid, they prayed. Not aloud. They didn’t want the others to know quite how afraid they were. Each considered it their obligation to keep their own fear to themself lest its exposure, like a virus, infected the others.