Hunger of the Yeti Page 5

  “I guess Eefa hasn’t got around to organizing things yet,” said Cleo.

  “I doubt it will be Eefa who runs the place,” Resus said. “Even without her enchantment charm, she can’t be old enough to have run this place in nineteen sixty-one.”

  “Then who do you think—”

  Grrll! Grrll! Grrll!

  “Shh!” whispered Luke. “It’s still in here somewhere…”

  Resus scanned the chaotic mountains of merchandise. “There could be fifteen of them in here,” he pointed out. “It doesn’t mean we’d ever find any of them.”

  “I think we should split up this time,” Luke said. “Cleo, you search behind the counter. Resus – the shelves near the window. I’ll take the storeroom. And be careful. The yeti is scared – who knows how it might react.”

  Cleo climbed over a pile of boxes and crept behind the shop counter. Cautiously, she bent down to see what she could find.

  Resus grabbed the edge of a rug that lay draped over a mound of overflowing black bags near the window and began to pull it off them.

  Luke side-stepped around a table loaded with inkwells and headed for the dim light of the storeroom.

  And that’s when the shop erupted into a ball of fire.

  Chapter Nine

  The Wizard

  The ball of flame spun around like a fiery tornado, almost reaching the ceiling. The trio pulled back, shielding their faces. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the fireball died down – leaving an elderly wizard standing in its place. He wore crumpled green robes and a pointed, moth-eaten hat.

  “Customers!” he croaked, then immediately launched into a coughing fit. “Sorry about the dramatic entrance there. I was having a bit of a snooze upstairs when I heard the bat. I meant to appear down here in a puff of smoke, but it got a little out of hand…”

  Cleo emerged cautiously from behind the counter. “Are you OK?” she asked.

  The wizard held up his hand as the last few coughs racked his chest, then turned to smile at her. “Never better, my dear.”

  “I think you might have been better,” said Resus. “Your beard’s on fire.”

  The wizard grabbed his beard and peered at the burning hair. Then he snatched a bottle of orange liquid from a nearby shelf and doused the flames with it. He gave a grin as his beard hissed, then he thought to study the label on the bottle and frowned. “Oh dear,” he muttered.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Cleo.

  The wizard gazed at her over the top of his spectacles. “I appear to have coated my beard in jazz juice.”

  “Jazz juice?”

  The wizard nodded. “A concoction – of my own invention – that gives everything it touches the ability to perform free-form jazz. Last week I accidentally washed the dishes with it and my cutlery kept me awake all night singing the entire back catalogue of Courtney Spine. Still, it should be a while before it kicks in…”

  Luke decided to step in before the conversation got completely out of hand. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said politely, “but we have a bit of a problem.”

  “A problem?” repeated the wizard.

  “There’s a baby yeti somewhere in the emporium,” Luke explained.

  “That’s not good,” declared the wizard. “We should inform the owner straight away.”

  “That’s the first sensible thing he’s said,” Resus muttered under his breath.

  “Yes, we must contact the owner without delay. He would want to know that.” The wizard paused, then peered at his reflection in a dusty old mirror. “Wait a minute… I’m the owner.”

  “You are?” said Cleo.

  “I think so,” replied the strange old man. “Yes, I’m almost certain I am.” He held out his hand. “The name’s Cuffy,” he beamed. “Welcome to Higginbotham’s Emporium!”

  Cleo took the wizard’s hand and shook it. “Thank you. It’s very, er … nice.”

  “Is it?” asked Cuffy, gazing around as though seeing the place for the first time. “Yes, yes… I suppose it is.” He turned to smile at Luke. “Now, you said something about wanting to buy a yeti for your baby. Not a particularly wise choice, if you ask me. They can be quite aggressive creatures – not really suitable as pets. And they eat an awful lot.”

  “No,” said Luke, struggling to contain his irritation. “A baby yeti has escaped, and it’s hiding somewhere here in your shop.”

  “Gosh!” exclaimed Cuffy. “Well, I hope it hasn’t come in hoping to pick up some jazz juice – I think I’ve just thrown the last of it over my beard.”

  As if on cue, the burnt hair at the end of the wizard’s beard began to warble in a tiny voice: “Skit skat shoo-be-doo!”

  Cuffy jumped, then tucked his beard into the top of his robes to muffle the sound. The bat above the door let out a screech. “Don’t you join in,” the wizard warned.

  Resus shook his head in disbelief. “This can’t really be happening…”

  “It is,” Luke confirmed with a glance at Chillchase’s watch. “And we’ve only got thirty minutes to go.”

  Cleo stepped up to the wizard and took his hands in her own. “Cuffy,” she said slowly, “we need you to listen to us…”

  “Now, listening is something I can do!” grinned the wizard. “Along with roller skating – or is it ironing? One of the two.”

  Cleo continued unperturbed. “We have to find the baby yeti and take it home to its mother.”

  “Jolly good idea, if you ask me,” said Cuffy. “I’d be happy to help – although first I’ll need to know who you three are. Can’t say I remember seeing you in here before.”

  “We’re, er … visiting our grandma,” fibbed Resus, recalling the words of the young banshee earlier that day. “She sent us over to get a sleeping potion for her, and then we noticed the poor baby yeti.”

  “A sleeping potion, eh?” smirked Cuffy. “Got just the thing right here…” He plucked the now-empty jazz juice bottle from the shelf and peered into it. “Funny, I’m sure this was full a few minutes ago.”

  “Doo wop de doo!” sang his beard.

  Luke sighed and turned to the others. “This is getting us nowhere,” he hissed. “Let’s just search the shop and see if we can—”

  Grrll! Grrll! Grrll!

  Cuffy dropped the empty bottle. “What was that?” he demanded. “Something’s in here with us!”

  “That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you!” cried Luke.

  “You have?” said the wizard. “Well, you obviously haven’t been trying hard enough. Now, what do you think it might be?”

  Luke took a deep breath. “It’s a baby yeti,” he replied.

  “A vicious little grey-haired thing,” added Resus. “It’s got red eyes, sharp teeth—”

  Suddenly, from a nearby pile of boxes, the yeti jumped out and onto Resus’s back. “Pretty much like the thing clinging on to me right now…” the vampire gulped.

  The yeti growled angrily in Resus’s ear. Grrll! Grrll! Grrll!

  “Don’t move!” hissed Luke.

  “Thanks for the tip,” grunted Resus, then he gave a yelp as the yeti dug its claws into his shoulders.

  “Does this remind anyone of anything?” asked Cleo.

  Cuffy shrugged. “I’ve been to a few wild parties in my time, but I think I’d remember if we’d ever held a yeti piggyback race…”

  “No,” said Cleo, “this is exactly like the situation earlier with the mother yeti.”

  “You’re right!” exclaimed Luke. He turned to the wizard. “Cuffy, do you have a levitation spell?”

  “I think so,” Cuffy replied, and he began to rummage through a carrier bag filled with assorted wands.

  “Oh, wonderful,” sighed Resus. “I’m about to get slam-dunked again!”

  “You might if anyone could find anything in here,” Cleo pointed out.

  Cuffy looked up from the bag apologetically. “I’m sorry about the mess,” he said. “I don’t get many customers now the market is on three days a w
eek. There’s just that nice young man who comes in for his sweets each day. Blotto? Motto?”

  “Otto!” corrected Resus. “Now, can you please find that levitation spell?”

  “Got it!” announced the wizard, pulling a wand from the bag. “Now, what would you like me to use it on?”

  “The yeti!” cried Luke. “Make the yeti float up to the ceiling and maybe it’ll drop Resus.”

  “Good idea,” beamed the wizard.

  “Rama-lama-ding-dong!” crooned his beard.

  Cuffy pointed the wand at the baby yeti. “OK,” he announced. “On three… Three!” He activated the spell and a burst of pink power leapt from the star at the tip of the wand and struck the yeti on its back. Immediately, the creature began to grow, its fangs and claws extending and becoming sharper.

  “I thought you said that was a levitation spell!” cried Cleo.

  Cuffy squinted at the words inscribed along the handle of the wand. “Nope,” he said. “Sorry. This one makes its target double in size. I ordered them in so I could try one on a lasagne I’d made. Waste of time, really – I couldn’t finish it.”

  GRRRRAAAAWWWLLL!

  With a roar, the enlarged baby yeti finished growing and hurled Resus aside. The vampire crashed into a pile of old copies of The Terror Times.

  “Ow!” he cried. “That hurt, you overstuffed teddy bear!” As if it could understand the insult, the yeti began to advance on Resus once more.

  “Quick!” yelled Cleo. “Someone do something!” Cuffy reached for the bag of wands again, but the mummy slapped his hand away. “Not you,” she growled.

  Luke spun round, searching for something to distract the yeti long enough to allow Resus to escape. His eyes fell on a bunch of over-ripe bananas sitting on the counter. He grabbed one and hurled it at the yeti’s feet.

  The creature stopped in its tracks and scooped up the banana, stuffing it into its mouth. Then, with a final furious cry – GRRRRAAAAWWWLLL! – it smashed through the shop window and disappeared out into the square.

  Luke and Cleo ran over to where Resus lay. “Are you OK?” asked the mummy.

  “I’ll be fine once I learn how to bounce,” groaned Resus.

  “What do we do now?” said Cleo.

  “I don’t quite believe I’m going to say this,” admitted Luke, “but Vein might actually have been right. We’re going to have to go for a knockout.”

  Chapter Ten

  The Trap

  Try as he might, Cuffy just couldn’t find the sleeping potion. “It’s my own recipe,” he said, pulling bottle after bottle from a shelf at the back of the crowded, disorderly store. “Made from an actual dragon’s egg.”

  The trio were helping him search. “Are you sure we can’t just knock out the yeti with these?” asked Resus, unearthing a pair of boxing gloves.

  “Only if you want me to use them on you afterwards,” warned Cleo. “It’s just a baby, remember?”

  Resus snorted. “Well, don’t ask me to sing it a lullaby!” He found a large net stuffed behind a pile of boxes and pulled it out. “Hey – this could come in handy.”

  Luke could feel the weight of Zeal Chillchase’s watch in his pocket. Time was running out, and Cuffy seemed to be in no hurry at all.

  “Anti-bumble liquid… Spider’s milk… Essence of wallpaper… Ooh – half a bottle of red wine! I’ll keep that for later.”

  “Are you sure this sleeping potion will work?” asked Resus. “You won’t get confused again and hand us something to give the yeti a serrated tongue, or the power to shoot lightning bolts out of its eyes?”

  Cuffy paused for a second, then hastily pulled a quill and a scrap of paper out of his pocket. “Lightning vision! I like the sound of that one, young man. I reckon I could make it by mixing a drop of Lee-Alliston’s flouncing gel with half a cup of Drew’s combustion powder. The resulting amalgam could then be pushed squarely up the volunteer’s—”

  “Please!” snapped Luke, pulling out the watch. “We’ve only got twenty-three minutes to catch this yeti. Do you actually have any sleeping potion, or not?”

  Cuffy put his notes away. “Oh, I’ve got sleeping potion,” he assured Luke. “I inadvertently used it as mouthwash a few weeks ago and spent three days dribbling because my tongue had fallen asleep.” He continued to sift through the assorted bottles and vials. “Now… Thinking-aloud cream… Concentrated meerkat fluid…” He sighed. “I was certain it was right here, next to the door.”

  As the wizard continued to search fruitlessly, Luke grabbed the bunch of bananas from the counter and whispered to his friends, “Come on – we’re going to have to do this the hard way…”

  The market was closing down for the day as the trio crept among the stalls, leaving a trail of banana behind them. Now the stallholders’ lamps had been extinguished, Scream Street was darker than ever.

  “Hang on a minute,” said Resus after a while. “Let me get this straight. The plan is to do exactly what we did before – wait for the yeti to stop and eat something, then jump out at it?”

  “It’s not exactly the same,” Luke replied. “We didn’t have the net last time.”

  “And the yeti wasn’t taller than us last time!”

  Luke sighed. “Do you have a better idea?”

  Resus shrugged. “Dig a pit and lure the yeti into it?”

  “We’ve only got twenty minutes!” Luke continued laying out the trail of banana. “No, this is the only way.”

  “Where are we heading?” asked Cleo.

  “How about the front garden of number thirty-one?” suggested Resus, pointing to a house with darkened windows up ahead. “No one will live there until my cousin Kian shows up in fifty years’ time.”

  “And his grandad’s still working as the bat above the door in the emporium,” Cleo added.

  “Perfect,” said Luke. “Now, let’s just hope the net is strong enough.”

  “Let’s just hope my nerves are strong enough!” quipped Resus.

  Cleo opened the gate to 31 Scream Street and Luke lay more chunks of banana along the path. Then he placed the final piece in the middle of the lawn.

  “What now?” asked Resus.

  Luke crept into the shadows at the far end of the garden. “We sit here and wait,” he replied. “Now that the market’s closed, this should be the only food the yeti can smell.”

  “Let’s hope so,” said Cleo, checking the watch Luke had given her to look after while he set out the trail. “We’ve only got seventeen minutes until Zeal Chillchase has to close the Hex Hatch.”

  Luke sighed. “Talk about cutting it fine,” he breathed. “I never thought we’d—”

  “Shh!” said Resus suddenly. “Something’s coming…”

  The trio strained their ears and soon they could all hear the shuffling of feet. The steps came in short bursts, punctuated by the sound of satisfied munching.

  “It’s working,” hissed Cleo. “The yeti’s following the trail!”

  The sounds grew louder and louder as the creature drew nearer, and a few seconds later the garden gate opened with a soft creak. Silhouetted against the moonlight, the figure padded along the path, stopping every now and again to collect up the pieces of banana and stuff them into its hungry mouth.

  Luke tapped Resus on the shoulder. “Get the net ready,” he mouthed. The vampire nodded.

  Slowly, steadily, they could see the shadow following the line of fruit until it stopped and raised its nose to the air with a sniff. Luke crossed his fingers and hoped that the creature had picked up the scent of the final banana and not that of the three children waiting to pounce.

  Resus went to stand up, still clutching the net, as the figure made its way clumsily across the lawn and peered down at its prize.

  Then it spoke.

  “Wow, talk about lucky – a whole one!”

  The trio looked at one another in alarm. That wasn’t the yeti!

  Cleo pulled a magic wand from her pocket and prayed that Cuffy had given her one tha
t would cast a beam of light and nothing more. She muttered a few words under her breath and the star at the end began to glow. A moment later, the garden was bathed in golden light and she, Luke and Resus were able to see who – or what – had been about to devour the bait in their trap.

  It was Otto Sneer.

  “Hi guys!” cried the boy, the makeshift white silk scarf still dangling around his neck. “It’s me!”

  Resus shook his head despairingly. “It’s official,” he groaned. “Sneer was even more annoying as a kid.”

  “What are you doing here?” demanded Luke, crossing the lawn towards him.

  “I’ve come to help you catch the yeti,” beamed the boy. “But I didn’t realize there’d be something to eat while we worked!” He bent to pick up the last banana.

  “They weren’t for you,” snapped Cleo. “They were supposed to be a trap.”

  “It’s OK,” grinned Otto, pulling a large paper bag from his jacket pocket. “I’ve got loads of sweets for that – and these ones are special. They’ve been soaked in a bottle of sleeping potion that I pinched from the emporium for you.”

  “So Cuffy did have some sleeping potion after all,” sighed Resus.

  “He’s got all sorts of stuff!” smirked Otto. “And because the shop’s such a mess, it’s really easy to nip in and just take—”

  GRRRRAAAAWWWLLL!

  The baby yeti – still twice its usual size – suddenly leapt out of a tree above them.

  Otto screamed and fell over, sweets exploding from his paper bag as the creature landed right on top of him. Luke, Resus and Cleo could only watch as it began to lash at the terrified boy with its razor-sharp claws.

  “Get it off me!” screamed Otto, batting uselessly at the yeti with his fists.

  The scent of sugar had driven the oversized baby into a feeding frenzy and it snapped its jaws together again and again, tearing at whatever it could find.