38 - The Abominable Snowman of Pasadena (2 page)

I squinted and stared some more. Everything appeared bleached in the
sunlight. Even the grass looked almost white.

“I’m so bored I could scream,” I complained.

“Let’s ride our bikes,” Nicole suggested. “Maybe the breeze will cool us
off.”

“Maybe Lauren will want to go with us,” I added.

Lauren Sax lives next door to us. She’s in our class at school. I see her so
often, she might as well be my sister.

We rolled out our bikes from the garage and walked them over to Lauren’s. We
left our bikes at the side of her house. Then we went around back.

We found Lauren sitting on a towel under a palm tree in her backyard. Nicole
sat beside Lauren on the towel. I leaned against the tree.

“It’s so hot!” Lauren whined. She tugged on her yellow shorts. She’s tall and
muscular, with long brown hair and bangs.

She has a nasal voice, good for complaining. “This is supposed to be winter.
It’s winter everywhere else. A normal winter has snow and ice and sleet and
freezing rain and cold, cold air. What do we get? Nothing but sun! Why do we
have to be so
hot
?”

Suddenly I felt a pain in my back.

“Ow!” I jerked forward. Something stabbed me. Something stinging sharp—and
ice cold! My face twisted in pain.

“Jordan!” Nicole gasped. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”

I clutched the icy spot on my back. “What is it?” I cried. “It’s so cold!”

Nicole jumped to her feet and examined my back. “Jordan, you’ve been
stabbed!” she announced. “With a purple Popsicle!”

As I turned around I heard mean laughter. The Miller twins jumped out from
behind the tree.

I should’ve known. The Miller twins—Kyle and Kara. The twin pug noses, the
beady little eyes, the matching short-cropped red hair. Yuck. They carried twin
Super Soakers, red ones.

The Miller twins love practical jokes. They’re worse than I am. And much
meaner.

Everyone in the neighborhood is afraid of them. They pounce on little kids
waiting at the bus stop and rob them of their lunch money. Once they blew up the
Saxes’ mailbox with a stink bomb. Last year, Kyle sucker-punched me during a
basketball game. He thought it was funny to watch me turn purple.

The Millers like to pick on me more than anyone, for some reason.

Kara is just as scary as her brother Kyle. I hate to admit it, but Kara can
take me out with one punch. I know that for a fact. She gave me a black eye last
summer.

“‘Oh, it’s so hot. It’s so hot!’” Kara sneered, making fun of Lauren’s
whiny voice.

Kyle flipped his Super Soaker from one hand to the other behind his back. He
tried to make it look like a really complicated move.

“Arnold taught me how to do that,” he bragged.

Kyle wanted me to think he was talking about Arnold Schwarzenegger. He claims
he knows Arnold. I have my doubts.

Nicole tugged on the back of my shirt. “Dad’s going to kill you, Jordan,” she
said.

“Why?”

I craned my neck backwards. The back of my white polo shirt was stained dark
purple.

“Oh, great,” I muttered.

“Dad said not to get messed up,” Nicole reminded me. As if I needed to be
reminded.

“Don’t worry, Jordan,” Kyle said. “We’ll clean it off for you.”

“Uh—that’s okay,” I murmured, backing away. Whatever Kyle meant by “clean
it off”, I knew I wouldn’t like it.

I was right.

He and Kara raised their Super Soakers and squirted me, Nicole, and Lauren.

“Stop it!” Lauren screamed. “You’re getting us all wet!”

Kyle and Kara laughed their maniac laughs. “You
said
you were hot!”

They drenched us. My shirt was so wet I could wring a glass of water out of
it. I glared at them.

Kyle shrugged. “We were only trying to help.”

Yeah. Sure they were.

I should’ve been grateful that all they did was soak us. We got off easy.

I can’t stand the Miller twins. Neither can Nicole and Lauren. They think
they’re so hot. Just because they’re thirteen and they have a swimming pool in
their backyard.

Their father works at a movie studio. They’re always bragging about how they
go to sneak previews and hang out with movie stars.

I haven’t seen a movie star show up at their house yet. Not once.

“Aw, you’re all wet,” Kara said, sneering. “Why don’t you take a bike ride to
dry off?”

Nicole and I exchanged glances. When we’re alone, we don’t get along so well.
But when the Millers are around, we have to stick together.

We knew the Millers too well. They wouldn’t mention our bikes without a
reason. A bad reason.

“What did you do to our bikes?” Nicole demanded.

The Millers faked wide-eyed innocence. “Who—us? We didn’t do anything to
your precious bikes. Go see for yourself.”

Nicole and I glanced around the side of Lauren’s house, where we’d left our
bikes.

“They look okay from here,” Nicole whispered.

“There’s something wrong with them,” I said. “They look weird.”

We approached our bikes. They looked weird all right. The handlebars had been
unscrewed and twisted backwards.

“Hope you have reverse gear,” Kyle snickered.

Normally, I’m not the kind of guy who goes around getting into fights. But
something in me snapped. This time Kyle and Kara had gone too far.

I jumped on Kyle. We tumbled to the ground. We wrestled. I tried to pin him
with my knee, but he pushed me over onto my side.

“Stop it!” Nicole screamed. “Stop it!”

Kyle rolled me onto my back. “You thought you could jump me, Jordan? You’re
too big a wimp!”

I kicked him. He pinned my shoulder to the ground with one knee.

Nicole shouted hysterically, “Jordan! Look out!”

I glanced up. Kara stood over me, clutching a rock the size of her head. A
mean grin spread across her face.

“Drop it, Kara!” Kyle ordered.

I tried to roll out of the way, but I couldn’t move. Kyle had me pinned.

Kara heaved the rock. Then she let it drop—right onto my head.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

The rock landed on my forehead—and bounced off.

I opened my eyes. Kara laughed like a hyena. She picked up the rock and
dropped it on my face again. It bounced off, just like the first time.

Lauren grabbed it. “It’s made of sponge,” she announced. She squeezed it in
her hand. “It’s a fake.”

Kyle laughed. “It’s a movie prop, moron.”

“You should’ve seen your face,” Kara added. “What a chicken!”

I kicked Kyle off me and pounced on him again. This time I was so mad I had
the strength of two Kyles. I wrestled him to the ground. I had him pinned!

“What’s going on, guys?”

Uh-oh. Dad.

I leaped to my feet. “Hi, Dad. We were just kidding around.”

Kyle sat up, rubbing his elbow.

Dad didn’t even seem to notice that we’d been fighting. He was excited about
something.

“Listen, kids—I have great news.
Wilderness
magazine just called.
They want to fly me to Alaska!”

“Great, Dad,” I said sarcastically. “You get to go on another exciting trip
while we stay here and die of boredom.”

“And heat,” Nicole added.

Dad laughed. “I called Mrs. Hitchens to see if she could come stay with you
again—” he began.

“Not Mrs. Hitchens again!” I cried. “Dad, she’s horrible! I can’t stand her
cooking. I’ll starve to death if she stays with us!”

“You will not, Jordan,” Nicole said. “Even if you ate only bread and water,
you could survive a week easily.”

“Nicole? Jordan? Hello?” Dad said, knocking lightly on our heads. “Will you
please listen to me? I haven’t finished yet.”

“Sorry, Dad.”

“Anyway, Mrs. Hitchens can’t come. So, I guess you two will just have to come
along with me.”

“To Alaska?” I cried. I was too excited to believe it.

“Hurray!” Nicole yelled. We jumped up and down.

“You guys are so lucky!” Lauren said. Kara and Kyle stood by. Saying nothing.

“We’re going to Alaska!” I shouted. “We’ll get to see snow! Tons of snow!
Alaskan snow!”

I was thrilled. And Dad hadn’t even told us the interesting part yet.

“It’s a strange project,” Dad continued. “They want me to track down some
kind of snow creature—an Abominable Snowman.”

“Wow!” I gasped.

Kyle and Kara snorted.

Nicole shook her head. “An Abominable Snowman? Has anybody really seen him?”

Dad nodded. “Some kind of snow creature has been spotted. Who knows what it
really is. Whatever it is, the magazine wants me to shoot photos of it. I’m sure
it’s a wild-goose chase. There’s no such thing as an Abominable Snowman.”

“So why are you going?” Nicole asked.

I poked her in the ribs. “Who cares? We’re going to Alaska!”

“The magazine is paying a big fee,” Dad explained. “And even if we don’t find
a snow creature, I’ll still get some great shots of the tundra.”

Lauren asked, “What’s a tundra?”

Dad began to reply, but Nicole stepped forward. “I’ll handle this one, Dad,”
she interrupted. I felt like screaming. She does that in school all the time,
too.

“A tundra is a huge frozen plain. It exists in the Arctic, in Alaska, and in
Russia. The word
tundra
comes from the Russian, meaning—”

I clapped my hand over her big mouth. “Any other questions, Lauren?”

Lauren shook her head. “That’s all I needed to know.”

“Egghead here goes on forever if you don’t stop her.” I let go of Nicole’s
mouth. She stuck her tongue out at me.

“This trip is going to be great,” I cried happily. “We’ll see ice and snow
for real! We’re going hunting for an Abominable Snowman! Awesome!”

An hour earlier we’d been bored out of our minds. Now suddenly everything had
changed.

Dad smiled. “I’ve got to go back to the darkroom for a while. Don’t forget—we’re going out to dinner tonight.” He wandered back across the lawn and into
the house.

As soon as Dad was gone, Kara started laughing. “An Abominable Snowman! What
a joke!”

Typical Kara—she was too chicken to say a word while Dad was around.

Kyle made fun of me, jumping up and down and squealing, “Alaska! Alaska! I’ll
get to see snow!”

“You both will probably turn blue and freeze,” Kara sneered.

“
We’ll
be fine,” Nicole said. “It’s
your
turn to freeze!” She
grabbed Kara’s Super Soaker and sent a spray of water into Kara’s face.

“Stop it!” Kyle shouted. He dove at Nicole. Nicole laughed and ran away,
turning around to soak them every few feet.

“Give that back!” Kara yelled.

The Millers chased Nicole. Kyle raised his Super Soaker and let Nicole have
it in the back.

Lauren and I ran after them. Nicole raced into our backyard. She turned
around and squirted the Millers again.

“You can’t catch me!” she cried, shooting and walking backward.

She was backing right into Dad’s compost heap.

Should I warn her? I thought.

No way.

“Take that!” she shouted, blasting the Millers with water.

Then she slipped and fell backward—into the compost heap.

“Yuck,” Lauren groaned.

Nicole stood up slowly. Greenish-brown slime oozed in her hair and dripped
down her back, her arms, and her legs. “Ugh!” she screamed, frantically wiping
the glop off her hands. “Uggghhh!”

We all stood and stared. She looked like some kind of Abominable Snowman
herself. All covered in glop.

We were still staring when Dad popped his head out the back door. “You kids
ready to go to dinner?” he called.

“There it is!” Dad shouted over the roar of the small plane’s engine. “Iknek.
That’s the airstrip.”

I stared out the window at the tiny brown patch where we’d be landing. For
the last half hour I’d seen nothing but miles and miles of snow. Wow. It was so
white
!

It was cool the way the snow sparkled in the sunlight. It made me think of
Christmas carols. I couldn’t get “Winter Wonderland” out of my head—and it was
driving me crazy!

I watched for giant footprints as we flew. How big would an Abominable
Snowman’s footsteps be? Big enough to see from a low-flying plane?

“I hope there’s a restaurant down there,” Nicole said. “I’m starving.”

Dad patted her shoulder. “We’ll have a big, hot meal before we set out. But
after that, it’s camping food.”

“How are we going to build a fire in the snow?” Nicole asked.

“We’ll be staying in a little cabin,” Dad replied. “It’s a long way out in
the tundra, but it’s better than sleeping in tents. There should be a stove in
the cabin. I
hope
so, anyway.”

“Can we build an igloo and sleep in that?” I asked. “Or dig out an ice cave?”

“You can’t build an igloo just like that, Jordan,” Nicole snapped. “It’s not
like a snow fort or something. Right, Dad?”

Dad took the lens cap off his camera and started taking pictures through the
plane window. “Sure,” he said absently. “Uh-huh.”

Nicole turned to the window, too. I mimicked her behind her back.
You
can’t build an igloo just like that,
I mouthed. She acts like she’s my
teacher or something. It’s really embarrassing when she does it in front of
everybody at school.

“How are we going to find the cabin?” Nicole asked. “Everything looks the
same in all this snow.”

Dad turned and snapped a picture of her. “Did you say something, Nicole?”

“I was wondering how we’re going to find the cabin,” Nicole repeated. “Do you
know how to use a compass, Dad?”

“A compass? No, but that doesn’t matter. A man named Arthur Maxwell is supposed to meet us at the airport. He’ll be our
guide through the tundra.”

“I know Arthur,” the pilot shouted back to us. “He’s an old musher from way
back. Knows everything about dogs and sleds. He knows this part of Alaska better
than anybody, I guess.”