Eva Ibbotson - The Abominables

“Come, come, just one more cup, I insist. Prink — er, Uncle Leslie, another cup for our visitors. For our relations , I should say.”

So Uncle Leslie poured out another five cups of tea, keeping his back to the yetis, and then Uncle George leaned over and dropped a small white pill into each of them.

“Let us drink to your happy stay with us,” he said.

The yetis were far too polite to refuse a toast. They hadn’t wanted any more tea but now, one by one, they tilted their cups into their mouths and drank.

“That … poor elephant’s … all … swelled up,” said Ambrose groggily.

“I feel funny,” whispered Lucy. “Not nice funny: nasty funny.”

For a moment longer, the poor drugged yetis struggled against unconsciousness. Then there was a crash as Uncle Otto fell forward across the tea things. Grandma slid off the sofa and came to rest in a gray and crumpled heap on the Persian carpet. Poor bewildered Clarence keeled over sideways, taking a case of stuffed pike with him as he fell. Then Lucy and Ambrose collapsed into each other’s arms — and it was over.

It is easy to trick innocent creatures who trust you. The yetis would not wake for a long time now. And when they did, the fate in store for them was too dreadful for anyone to imagine.

An hour later, Con and Ellen walked up the long avenue of linden trees toward the iron-studded door of Farley Towers.

The grounds were surprisingly deserted. No gardeners bent over the flowerbeds, no one strolled in the golden afternoon light.

“Look, an airplane! A big one!” exclaimed Con.

Con tilted his head back to watch the plane, which had appeared suddenly, rising steeply from the fields behind the house. The Farlinghams must have their own airstrip! The thought that they were going to visit people rich and grand enough to run their own airplanes made the children rather nervous. They had done their best, pulling the last of their clean clothes out of the battered suitcase, but they still weren’t exactly smart.

“I’m glad we didn’t bring Hubert,” said Ellen.

Perry, who wanted to get to the pub for opening time, had lifted Hubert over a low fence into a field of cows. They were the very best cows, pedigree Jerseys with soft doe eyes, but Hubert had just turned his back on them and started grazing. After finding a famous father like El Magnifico, he didn’t seem to be interested in mothers anymore.

The children had reached the graveled space in front of the house. For a moment they hesitated. The Farlinghams would probably ask them to stay the night, but after that, it was good-bye to the yetis, and both the children had lumps in their throats at the thought of it.

“Come on,” said Con, “let’s get it over with,” and he ran up the wide flight of steps and rang the bell.

For a long time nobody came. Then there were footsteps: slow, heavy ones, and the door was creakingly pulled back.

The first thing the children saw, almost at eye level, was a pair of bony knees with black tufts of hair on them. Then, traveling upward, they came to a bloodred kilt, a sporran with dangling badgers’ claws, and — much, much higher — a black beard and glittering black eyes …

“Yes?” snapped the bearded Scotsman.

“I’m Con Bellamy. This is my sister, Ellen. We’ve come to see that the yetis are all right and to say good-bye to them. Lady Agatha asked us to—”

“Yetis,” snarled the man. “What are you talking about?”

“The yetis who came just now. Ambrose and the others.”

“Look, if you’re having a joke with me, you’ve chosen the wrong person,” said the man. “Yetis, my foot. Now get along both of you. This is a respectable stately home and we don’t want any guttersnipes cluttering it up.”

“But they must be here,” said Con desperately. “Perhaps—” And then he jumped back as the great oak door was slammed in his face.

Feeling suddenly sick with fear, the children turned and went slowly down the steps.

“What can have happened?” said Ellen. “Can they have got lost?”

“Hardly, down a dead-straight avenue. Maybe Ambrose found a friend?”

But what sort of a friend? Not only were there no people about in the grounds, there were no animals either. No dogs sniffed the moist earth, no cats climbed the rooftops. Even the rooks in the elm trees seemed to have fled.

“Perhaps they’ve gone to explore the lake or something.”

“We’d better have a look, anyway.”

So, fighting down their panic, they searched the woods around the lake, and the Greek temple, and the kitchen gardens behind their sheltering walls. They searched the banks of the stream and the orchard and the stables, but there was no sign of the yetis anywhere.

They were searching the topiary, with its yew trees cut into all sorts of shapes, when they saw a second plane come up from behind the house and fly off toward the south.

“There’s something very wrong with this …” began Con. Then he broke off. “What is it, Ellen?”

His sister was standing stock-still with her hands over her face. He went over to her. Lying at her feet was a cat — an ordinary tortoiseshell cat.

It had been shot clean through the heart.

For a moment neither of them could speak. Then: “I’m going to break in,” said Con. “I’m going to get into the house somehow . Come on, let’s try the back.”

At first it seemed to be hopeless. The hundred or so windows were tightly shut; the green-painted doors were bolted. And then Con saw one narrow window on the ground floor where the catch had not been pushed completely across the frame. Carefully, levering with his penknife, Con started to work the wood away from the sill. It came slowly, but it came. And then they climbed through and dropped down safely inside Farley Towers.

They were in the butler’s pantry. There was silver waiting to be polished, striped aprons lying on the chair, a big sink … Silently, pushing open the green baize door, they crept along the stone corridor that connected the servants’ quarters with the main part of the house.

There were no footsteps to be heard, no sound of voices. Farley Towers seemed to be totally deserted.

And then, as they reached the hallway that led to the main back door, they stopped with a gasp.

Lying like a blue stain across the flagstones — was Ambrose’s bedsock.

“So the man was telling lies. The yetis have been here,” said Con.

But Ellen had noticed something else. “Look, there’s Grandma’s shawl, all crumpled up behind that chest. And Queen Victoria …”

“They’ve been stripped ,” said Con, his teeth beginning to chatter. “Someone has—”

He was stopped by a cry. A weird, strangled, spluttering cry from somewhere below them. “Hublopp!” it sounded like. “Blumph. Haroo!”

“It’s coming from the cellar,” said Ellen.

They opened one door to a cupboard, another to a lumber room. Then they found it — a dusty wooden door from which a flight of dank stone steps led downward. And there, between cobwebby barrels, the thing that had been making the noises writhed and wriggled.

Con wrenched the gag from its mouth. It was Mr. Prink, whom the other hunters had gagged and bound and thrown into the cellar.

“What’s happened?” said Con. “Who did this? Where are the yetis? ”

Mr. Prink became hysterical. “It was just because they talked that I didn’t want to join in the shoot. I’ve never shot anything that talked,” he gabbled. “If I’d been able to shoot anything that talked, I’d have shot Mrs. Prink. Mrs. Prink is my wife and she makes me eat mashed potatoes with lumps in them—”