You Ain't Seen Nothing Yeti!

by Steven Butler

  ‘Quick!’ Zingri yelled from the base of the staircase. ‘GET HIM!’

  That was it! In an instant, we were all clattering up the stairs, trying to catch up with Maudlin’s caravan and the floating block of stone high above.

  ‘Don’t let him reach the sky door!’ Nancy huffed as she raced ahead of us. She’d given up using the stairs and was now clambering from banister to banister, jumping whole floors at a time.

  I ran so fast, my lungs felt like they were burning.

  Up and round the corner…

  Up and round the corner…

  Up and round the corner…

  As Zingri and I passed the open corridors that led away from each landing, I could see frightened faces peering out from bedroom doors.

  ‘Wath goin’ on?’ the Molar Sisters called to us as I raced past. ‘Ith it time for breakfatht?’

  ‘It’s no use!’ I heard Oculus laugh high above. I glanced up and saw that he and the ghosts had nearly reached the ceiling. ‘GIVE UP, YOU WORMS!’

  ‘Not so fast, you wee jobby!’ Nancy was gaining on the insane man-boy and I watched as she vanished over the lip of the tenth-floor balcony. She’d made it!

  Come on, Nancy! I thought to myself as I struggled up another flight of steps. I was only on the sixth floor.

  ‘Abandon hope!’ I heard Oculus bellow. His voice sounded high-pitched and hysterical.

  ‘Stop!’ Nancy’s voice replied.

  I kept running, but I still had a long way to go. I wished I could see what was happening up there.

  That was the moment Nancy screamed.

  There was the sound of a commotion, followed by a fast-paced thumping as something started tumbling down the stairs.

  ‘Oh, no, you don’t!’ I heard Nancy grunt.

  Glancing up again, I gasped as our spider-chef clattered round the bend of the stairs, rolling and banging and yelping towards me. She swung her arms this way and that, punching and kicking as great sheets of wallpaper yanked themselves off the walls and tangled round her legs.

  Oculus may not have been able to stop the vine patterns from gossiping, but he could certainly control their movements.

  ‘Watch out!’ Nancy shouted. I pressed myself against the wall and narrowly missed being squashed as she thundered past.

  I watched with my heart in my throat as Nancy rounded the next bend of the staircase on the floor below.

  Mum and Dad, who were way behind me and Zingri, squealed in fright when they saw her crashing towards them.

  ‘Aaaaarrrgh!’ Mum grabbed Dad by the collar of his shirt and yanked him into one of the side corridors just in time.

  ‘Don’t stop now!’ Zingri huffed, pulling me by the arm. ‘There’s still a chance!’

  The pair of us continued to sprint up the stairs. With Nancy now battling more and more rolls of wallpaper as they whipped through the air, our next hope was Maudlin. She was below us now, but her chickens were flapping so frantically, they were catching up fast.

  ‘Almost there,’ Zingri said, dragging me up the last flight of stairs.

  As I looked up over the tenth-floor landing, I saw that my great-great-uncle had hopped off the stone block and was now enjoying the whole spectacle from the safety of the balcony.

  ‘You can almost smell it,’ he said, sensing us standing behind him. He had his hands folded behind his back and seemed strangely calm as he watched the ghosts reach the ceiling.

  ‘Smell what?’ Zingri hissed at his back.

  Oculus twisted his head and fixed us with his stare. He’d removed his eye patch and the brilliant green glow from his right socket shone on us like a searchlight.

  ‘The end,’ he said with a crooked leer.

  WAKE THE WITCH

  ‘AAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEE!’ Maudlin’s lepre-caravan and her cloud of chickens suddenly burst into view over the edge of the tenth-floor balcony. She was wild-eyed, standing in the gap where her front door used to be, and in her hands she was holding some sort of wooden chest.

  ‘Take that!’ She reached inside the box, plucked out a bad-luck charm and threw it at Oculus, but it hit the banister instead. All at once the wooden railing erupted with sore-looking boils and pimples.

  ‘How about this, then?’ The leprechaun lobbed another, and another, and another. ‘No human messes with magicals and gets away with it!’

  ‘Her aim’s not very good!’ Zingri moaned as more and more unlucky trinkets missed their target.

  In no time, the carpet had turned to mould, there was a chandelier that had broken out in a fit of sobbing, and a sofa at the end of the landing had developed a runny nose.

  Oculus didn’t even flinch as the bad-luck charms rained down around him. He stood, unmoving, staring up at the ghosts and the stone block. Whatever that graveghast had done to him all those years ago, it had made him fantastically powerful.

  ‘SO!’ he suddenly shouted. ‘After a century of waiting, I will have revenge on my pathetic father’s disgusting new family and all magicals everywhere!’

  He lifted a hand to the ghosts, and was just about to give the signal for them to drop their heavy cargo, when…

  ‘ ’Ere, what’s all this hollerin’ and ruckslushing?’

  I glanced over the balcony to see Orfis and Unga wandering through the broken archway, ten floors below, rubbing sleep from their eyes.

  ‘OH, DOOKIE DROPS!’ Unga blurted when she took in the crazy scene unfolding before her.

  Nancy was now charging up and down the walls, caught in a whirlwind of paper. ‘Hello, dears!’ she called to the yetis as she tore great strips of the stuff from around her ankles. ‘A spot of help would be honkhumptious just about now!’

  ‘Blimeybumps!’ Orfis gasped as the Arctic ulk clattered past, bucking this way and that to avoid Jindabim’s swooping pecks.

  ‘MOOMA! DOODA! WE’RE UP HERE!’ Zingri shouted.

  Her parents ran to the centre of the reception hall and looked up.

  ‘Oh! Giddy my gizzards!’ Unga yelled when she saw us. ‘What’s all this, then?’

  ‘I can’t explain now!’ Zingri answered. ‘Help!’

  ‘FRANKIE!’ Mum’s voice shouted from somewhere much lower on the staircase. ‘Don’t let him drop the stone!’

  I looked at Zingri and could tell she was having the same thought I was. By the time Orfis and Unga made it up all the stairs, the stone counter would be in pieces on the reception floor and the hotel’s invisibility spell would be broken. It was down to us now.

  We both lunged towards Oculus, but we were out of time.

  ‘DROP IT!’ he screamed as we lurched forward. He clapped his hands together in front of his face and green sparks flew out from between his fingers. Suddenly, and without warning, the three ghosts vanished in a great burst of ectoplasm and…

  THE STONE FELL!

  The next few moments all happened in such a crazy jumble, it feels like a strange dream remembering them.

  ‘WAIT!’ Zingri screamed as the stone plunged downwards. She raced over to where Oculus was standing in the centre of the landing and, before she even realised what she was doing, Zingri booted him straight over the railing. ‘YOU SKRONKER!’

  The boy was flung into the air, spinning and thrashing in fear and alarm.

  ‘NOOOOO!’ In a fraction of a second, he was plummeting down through the spiral staircase right next to the carved stone he was so intent on smashing.

  ‘Hold it!’ Maudlin shrieked above all the noise. She had ducked inside her home, but reappeared at the missing door, this time clutching a tatty old mop. ‘I DON’T THINK SO!’

  The ancient leprechaun jabbed the mop in the direction of the falling boy and lump of stone. A gust of sulphur-stinking orange smoke billowed from the disgustingly stained mop-head and … and … suddenly they weren’t falling any more.

  ‘Haha!’ Maudlin cackled. ‘I knew this time-tinkerin’ charm would come in useful one day.’

  Zingri and I peered over the banister and both gawked at the b
izarre view.

  Oculus hadn’t frozen in time completely. Both he and the counter were still falling, but it was like they were sinking through treacle at such a slow pace, it was barely possible to notice them moving.

  ‘What now?’ Zingri wheezed.

  ‘Now you think of somethin’ quick sharp!’ Maudlin replied. ‘Hurry! The charm doesn’t last too long! It’s a very old mop! You’ll have a broken invisibility spell and a very splattered little boy in a minute or two.’

  I glanced at Orfis and Unga, hoping to suddenly come up with a brilliant plan, but it was no use. Even with their great yeti size, Zingri’s parents couldn’t catch a block of stone as big as the reception counter. It would squash them flat for sure.

  That’s when Zingri did something I wasn’t expecting.

  ‘The fountain!’ she gasped at me.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The fountain, Frankie! And the diamond denture!’

  ‘I don’t understand’ I said. My head felt like someone had reached inside it and set off a bunch of fireworks.

  ‘Wake the water witch!’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘If she can soak that little blighter, we can freeze him with our storm jar! The desk too! That’ll stop it from smashing.’

  My hand touched the glittering tooth that hung around my neck.

  Zingri was right! We stared at each other for a split-second, but it was all we needed. I knew I trusted her and she trusted me.

  Without saying a word, Zingri picked me up.

  ‘Orfis! Unga!’ I shouted as my yeti friend lifted me over her head. ‘CATCH!’

  FROZEN

  Zingri launched me over the edge of the balcony like a human dart.

  ‘HAHA!’ I heard Maudlin Maloney squeal as I whizzed past her caravan. ‘GO GET ’EM, BOY!’

  ‘OH, BLUNKERS!’ Mum and Dad howled from the stairs.

  I nosedived towards the ground, narrowly missing my time-tinkered great-great-uncle in mid-air and praying that our yeti guests would catch me.

  My eyes streamed with tears from the icy air slicing across my face and I could hardly see as the floor and two very furry shapes rushed up to meet me.

  ‘GO ON, ORFIS!’ Unga barked at her husband. ‘GRAB THE LITTLE LUMPLING!’

  Just as I was preparing to be smashed to smitheroons, a pair of enormous, hairy arms wrapped round me and I came to an abrupt and very winded stop.

  ‘GOT ’IM!’ Orfis beamed, putting me down gently and ruffling my hair with one of his spade-sized hands.

  ‘Oooh, thank my lucky stumps!’ Unga said with an enormous grin. ‘For a second there, Frankie, I thought you were about to be pulped into porridge!’

  I opened my eyes and the ground floor came swimming into focus.

  ‘I … I…’ I stammered.

  ‘What’s he saying?’ Orfis asked.

  ‘I need…’

  ‘Need what, my dunklet?’ Unga said, leaning forward like she was about to examine me. ‘Are you hungry? Thirsty? Do you need to visit the loo-loo-room?’

  ‘GET ON WITH IT, BOY!’ Maudlin’s voice yelled from above, jarring me back to my senses.

  ‘I need to see the water witch!’

  Orfis and Unga looked confused. Then they slowly pointed to the fountain in the centre of reception.

  ‘She’s just there,’ Orfis said. ‘You can see her any time.’

  ‘Right where she’s always been,’ added Unga.

  ‘No, you don’t understand!’ I shouted a little too loudly, making the yetis jump with surprise. ‘You have to lift me up high. I’ve got to see her face.’

  ‘Oh, why didn’t you say so, my cuteyconk?’

  Unga was much taller than Orfis, so she picked me up and carried me over to Aunt Zennifer’s statue.

  It was just then that Mum and Dad made it to the bottom of the staircase and raced across the black and white tiles towards us. It seemed that Oculus’s wallpaper enchantment had faded now he was time-tinkered and Nancy joined us too, picking scraps of paper from out of her blueish/purplish perm.

  ‘Francis!’ Mum barked as she reached the base of the fountain. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘There’s no time to explain,’ I said as I neared the water witch’s head. I’d never seen her face this close up before.

  ‘It’s now or never, Frankie!’ Zingri shouted as she bounded down the stairs, not wanting to miss out on the action.

  Carefully I lifted the loop of string over my head and tried to put the diamond denture into the statue’s slightly open mouth … but … IT DIDN’T FIT!

  Okay, I have something to admit to you, my reader friend. I know we’re right at the end of the story and this part should be super-dramatic and amazing. I was about to wake up my long-dead great-great-aunt to battle against my not-so-dead great-great-uncle, but what was I supposed to do when the magic tooth wouldn’t go in her gob?

  Well, I’ll tell you. I shoved the tooth up her left nostril and hoped for the best! Not quite so cool, but I had no choice!

  ‘Frankie Banister!’ Mum huffed. ‘What on earth do you think you are doing!?!’

  ‘Well, I never,’ Orfis mumbled, staring at me like I was weirder than a bison in a ballgown. ‘Are you feeling all right, lump?’

  ‘The boy’s been clonkered!’ said Unga.

  I tried my best to block out the chattering of my parents and our yeti friends. It had to work … it just HAD to!

  Glaring at my Aunt Zennifer’s cold, hard face, I searched for a shudder, or a twitch, or any sign of movement.

  Nothing…

  Nothing…

  Nothing…

  Then…

  SHE BLINKED!

  The power of only one tooth from Captain Plank’s magical set of diamond dentures wasn’t enough to turn her back to her normal fleshy self, but it certainly worked in giving her a little dose of life.

  Everybody on the ground gasped as Aunt Zennifer, still the colour of stone and making loud cracking sounds, twisted her head and looked down at her distant relatives.

  Unga put me on the rim of the fountain and I reached up, taking the statue’s hand.

  ‘Aunty!’ I said, suddenly fighting back the feeling that I might burst into tears. ‘You don’t know me, but I’m your great-great-nephew, Frankie.’

  My aunt didn’t utter a word, but her black eyes fixed me with her stare and I thought I detected a glimmer of a smile at the corner of her cracking lips.

  Zennifer flexed her arms and the glittering loops of frozen water left by the blizzard smashed and fell to pieces on the floor. She lifted her hands slowly, examining them with an expression of wonder as fresh trickles of water started to pour from both her palms.

  ‘Your half-brother Oculus has returned and we need your help to save the hotel and all the family.’

  Zennifer jerked and looked at me, her face crunching into a frown.

  ‘The time charm is fadin’!’ Maudlin yelled above us. ‘QUICK, FRANKIE!’

  ‘Has the world been scrumbled?’ Unga blurted, scratching her head and looking more puzzled than ever. ‘What in blasty-blazers is happenin’ here?’

  ‘Mooma, there’s no time to explain!’ Zingri snapped. She looked so serious and in charge that Unga just shut her mouth and nodded. ‘Get the storm jar ready and, when I say NOW, open it!’

  Unga fished inside her shawl and pulled out the small glass container.

  ‘I’m very confuserated, but I trust you, Zingri, my lump.’

  ‘I can’t hold it much longer!’ Maudlin’s cracked voice echoed off the walls.

  I turned just in time to see the orange smoke that had been lazily drifting about the time-tinkered boy evaporate into nothing. There was a popping sound and all at once time caught up with Oculus and the stone reception counter and they both plummeted towards us.

  ‘Please!’ I begged my aunt, pointing upwards. ‘THERE! DRENCH THEM!’

  Zennifer needed no further encouragement. She raised her arms with a loud crackling crunch and a great
geyser erupted from her hands.

  I jumped back towards my family and the Kwinzis as the torrent of water burst into the air.

  ‘Cor! Lummy!’ Orfis cooed as we all huddled together and watched the remarkable scene unfold.

  Zennifer’s rumbling column of water rose higher and higher through the space between the spiral staircase as Oculus and the counter finally crashed down to meet it.

  There was an almighty splash, and fountain water foamed and frothed and rained down in all directions.

  ‘NOW!’ Zingri screamed.

  Instantly the entire reception hall vanished from view as Unga whipped off the storm-jar lid and everything became a booming, rushing whirlwind of ice and water and snow.

  It was so loud, it felt like we were standing at the centre of some gargantuan white volcano, and then …

  Silence.

  I slowly opened one eye and gasped.

  There in the centre of the enormous room, rising from the statue of my aunt, was the most beautiful ice formation I’d ever laid my eyes on. It reached up between the spiral staircase in vast loops and curves. Icicles hung in hundreds upon hundreds of delicate rows.

  My eyes darted about the great frosty sculpture with shock and awe and I spotted the stone counter securely cradled on a jagged shelf of ice about halfway up.

  ‘IT’S SAFE!’ I grinned as a huge wave of relief washed over me.

  I glanced higher still, taking in all the intricate detail of the ice tower, and then I saw him.

  Right at the top of the swirling column, suspended inside its crystal-clear centre, my Great-Great-Uncle Oculus was frozen, arms and legs flailing as if he was still falling. The green glow from his right eye shimmered through the ice tower like stars, and there was a look of pure anger and hatred on his face.

  A shiver ran up my spine and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and it definitely wasn’t because of the cold.

  ANOTHER TROGMANAY OVER

  TA-DAH!

  Well, there you have it.