Eva Ibbotson - The Abominables

“Shut up about Mrs. Prink. What’s happened to the yetis?”

“They’re on a plane, on the way to the ice floes. There’s going to be a great hunt down there in the Antarctic.”

Con steadied himself. It was no good giving in to panic now.

“Why there? Why ice floes?”

“So they can run better. They want some sport, you know. This is the famous Hunter’s Club. It’s no fun shooting animals that just stand still. And everyone in England’s so namby-pamby. You can’t shoot this, you can’t kill that.”

“When is this hunt going to start?”

“On Thursday. It’s for the centenary of the Hunter’s Club. They’re all going to fly out and chase them in snowmobiles. The only yetis in the world, and all for the club. Yeti skins,” raved Mr. Prink, “yeti antlers, yeti tusks!”

Con kicked him. “Shut up, you murdering brute. Where exactly are they being dropped?”

“I can’t tell you — Ow! Ow! You’re hurting me!”

“If you don’t tell me, I won’t hurt you, I’ll kill you,” said Con, and he meant it.

“A place called Coldwater Straits, near Smithson Island. It’s really good hunting country because there’s nowhere for them to hide. And I wanted to go, too. But I’ve never shot anything that talked. If I’d been able to shoot anything that talked, I’d have shot my wife. Mrs. Prink is not a nice woman. She makes me take castor oil even when I’m regular and—”

Con wanted to put his thumbs against Mr. Prink’s jugular vein and press hard, but there was one more thing he needed to know.

“How did they make the yetis go with them? What lies did they tell?”

Mr. Prink giggled. “They didn’t. They put drugs in their tea. And I wanted to go with them, I did really, but I’ve never shot anything that talked. I’ve shot a very big rhinoceros from an armor-plated Land Rover, but it didn’t talk. If I’d been able to shoot anything that talked, I’d have shot Mrs. — Help! Help! Where are you going? You’ve got to untie me!”

“Not a chance,” said Con.

It was only when they got out into the fresh air that the real horror of what they’d heard hit the children, and then they just clung together in shock, unable to speak.

“It’s Monday today, isn’t it?” said Con when he could manage words again.

Ellen nodded. On Thursday a planeload of crazy men would set off for Coldwater Straits to murder the yetis.

They had three days to stop them. To achieve the impossible. Just three short days.

HEN THE YETIS WOKE, THEY WERE IN THEbleakest, most terrible place you could imagine. All around them, stretching to the horizon, was a flat plain of snow and ice, broken only by low ridges like ragged teeth, and here and there a huge frozen block. There was no trace of color, no blade of grass, no living thing as far as the eye could see — only the shrill screaming of the wind across the sunless waste.

“Oh, where are we? What has happened to us?” cried Ambrose, who was the first to come round after the drugs.

One by one the yetis came to and stared with wretchedness at the place to which they had been brought.

“I can’t remember anything after we drank those cups of tea with the Farlingham uncles,” said Lucy.

“Why have they sent us here?” said Grandma. “This place isn’t fit for a worm.”

“They can’t have meant to,” said Ambrose wretchedly. “Unless we’ve been bad. Was it our table manners?”

“Pack ice,” mused Uncle Otto. “The North Pole? The South Pole? Alaska …?”

“I don’t want to be in a pole,” wailed Ambrose. “I want Con and Ellen. I want—”

But Lucy had discovered something even more serious. “There’s nothing to eat here,” she said. “Absolutely nothing.”

It was true. Nothing grew on that frozen desert — no moss, no lichen, no grass.

“Wait a minute,” said Grandma. “What are those black-and-white chickens over there?”

“The penguins, do you mean?” said Uncle Otto.

“We can’t eat them ,” said Ambrose, shocked. “They’re our brothers.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Grandma. “Of course we can’t eat flesh . But maybe they’ve laid some eggs.”

So they made their way slowly and painfully across the ice, doubled up against the wind. It was dreadfully hard going. The surface looked smooth from a distance, but in fact it was rough and sharp where floes had been cast on edge by the wind before freezing into a solid mass. The yetis’ poor backward-pointing feet were soon bruised and torn.

And it was unbelievably cold. Yetis can stand almost any amount of cold, but this was beyond anything they had ever experienced. The wind whipped the heat out of their faces and hands, and even their almost impenetrable yeti hair was not enough to keep them warm. Soon they were freezing as they had never frozen in their mountain home.

And when they got up to the silent huddle of penguins, it was all no good. It’s true each of the birds had an egg balanced between its webbed red toes. But one egg only. The egg.

“Sorry, penguin’s egg,” said Lucy, who was really unbearably hungry.

Then she looked at the father bird standing there quietly, not squawking, not protesting, just suffering , and she choked and turned away.

“I can’t do it,” said Lucy. “It’s his Little One. It’s the only one he’s got.”

In the lovely fertile valley of Nanvi Dar, which now seemed just like a distant dream to the yetis, Lady Agatha had taught them always to say sorry to only one egg in a nest, so as to leave plenty for the mother bird. But of course in Nanvi Dar there had been no penguins.

Though it had never been properly light, it now became darker and the yetis clung to one another for warmth and comfort. Grandma and Uncle Otto, who were old and experienced, were beginning to give up hope, but for the sake of the children they pretended to believe in rescue. “We must keep moving,” said Uncle Otto. “This is polar pack ice. There must be land we can walk to and find some kind of shelter, a cave perhaps. And we will be easier to spot if we are on the move.”

“That’s right,” said Grandma, “and when an airplane comes, we must shout and wave our arms so they’ll see us.”

“An airplane will come, won’t it?” said Ambrose. “With Con and Ellen in it?”

“Of course it will,” said Uncle Otto. “There has just been some silly mistake.”

“What sort of mistake?” asked Ambrose.

“Oh, I expect they wanted to give us a treat so they …” But even Uncle Otto couldn’t think of a convincing explanation of how they had come by accident to this ghastly place.

So they started to walk, forcing themselves forward through the gathering darkness, while the wind tore at them, their breath froze and formed icicles in their eyebrows and nostrils, and a deathly cold crept slowly but surely through their thick coats and into their very bones.

After what seemed like many hours of struggling over the treacherous surface, Clarence stopped.