Don't Blame the Yeti E-Book

Tess Burrows

• Herausgeber: Lightning Books
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Seitenzahl: 205

Beschreibung

A HAIR-RAISING HIMALAYAN HIKEYearning for friends and family, twelve-year-old Torma impulsively makes a promise. She takes on a quest to find the heart of a country and a lost penguin. Along the way, it also becomes a vital secret mission to protect the planet from Shady Forces.She hikes across the high mountains of Nepal into the alluring land of myth and magic – Tibet – now full of dangerous Invaders. But she is being hunted. If caught, she will be put in prison and 'disappeared'. And she is all alone.Help is at hand from her best friend, who is a voice in her head. But can he be trusted?

Leseprobe

Published in 2020

by Lightning Books Ltd

Imprint of EyeStorm Media

312 Uxbridge Road

Rickmansworth

Hertfordshire

WD3 8YL

www.lightning-books.com

Copyright © Tess Burrows 2020

Cover by Prem Shashi

Illustrations by Paul, Elsie, Bessie, Bodhi and Scott Burrows and Daisy Freeman

The moral right of the author has been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Printed by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY

ISBN: 9781785632075

With love for my grand-daughter Lyra and the children of the world,that they may see the magic…

Contents

Invitation from Honey Angel

1. The New Apprentice

2. Torma’s Promise

3. Moonbeam Music

4. Forbidden

5. School

6. The Aunts

7. The Vibe-catcher

8. Peace Penguins

9. Watch Out!

10. The Himalayas

11. Jellyfish

12. The Chonkas

13. Eggs for Homework

14. Vomit

15. Pride

16. Careful What You Wish For

17. Doubts

18. Out of the Frying-pan

19. Life or Death

20. Running Out of Time

21. Abandoned

22. Run!

23. How Did I Die?

24. Nothing is as it Seems

25. In Trouble

26. Alone

27. Letting Go

28. The Cave

29. Lost

30. The Precious Present

31. Everything Works With Love

32. Storm up High

33. Celebration

34. Where is Safe?

35. Too Many Rules

36. Penguin Search

37. Definitely Unusual

38. Behind Bars

39. What Next?

40. What We Are…

Other books by the author

About the Author

Invitation from Honey Angel

Dear Reader,

Would you be excited to go on an adventure knowing you might meet the yeti — the mythical beast of the high Tibetan plateau?

Then, this story is for you.

Yup, you might think the yeti scary, but he is like the amazing monster in your mind, an inner yeti perhaps, who sees all things as you would love to see them — flawless…enchanting…awe-inspiring…

And, like all magic, it’s not whether he exists that’s important but the believing in him…!! This holds your dreams. Makes life fun and intriguing. Helps you create things. And pushes you further than you thought you could go…

So, I invite you to pause with wonder along the way of this story, and also along the way of your life… To feel the magic. To know the love. To see further…

But, whatever happens, don’t blame the yeti!

See you along the way…

HONEY ANGEL

Something was astir in the angelic realm. A new arrival. Unusual rowdiness…

“Jumpin’ jellyfish!! What on Earth’s going on?”

“Nope, not ‘on Earth’, but you’re safe now,” Honey Angel smiled comfortingly, her silky gown and long raven hair shimmering like candles on a cake.

Her new apprentice had arrived.

She soothed his shock, talking with her honeyed voice until he grew calm and focused enough to notice that behind her he could see large golden wings.

“Are you an angel?”

“Yup.”

“Coolish!” He glanced behind him hopefully to see if by some miracle he’d acquired wings too, but was disappointed. “Am I an angel?”

A honeyed giggle was all that came back to him.

The new apprentice didn’t remember much before that: long black claws dragging him along the ground. And fear – a whole load of fear. Then his mind yawning as though someone had just pressed the TV remote on all the channels at once. An explosion of colour. A very bright light. Then blackness. Nothing else. Till a gentle voice was saying “he’s awake”. And many pairs of shining eyes were looking down at him in a kindly, loving way.

“Uh-oh!… So if this is where angels live…where am I?”

“You’re in Angelic Realm School.”

“School? That’s for kids and fishes. Not my sort of thing.”

“School for guides.”

“But I’m only…”

“We know what you are. You’ve done well and worked hard on your character. You deserve this opportunity to help humans.”

“Uh-oh!…”

“Yup. And as my apprentice you’ll learn new skills. I’ll teach you to be a guide – an invisible guide. We have an important mission for you.”

“Jumpin’ jellyfish!”

The training started the next day. Well, soon after anyway, as everything seemed to be without any sense of time. He found he could speed things up or slow them down just by thinking them so. It was confusing, but fun.

“You need to try to keep a sense of the time that humans use,” Honey Angel said, her face shining with loveliness. “That way you’ll find them easier to work with. Why don’t you concentrate on what’s happening and not worry about past or future? It makes things happier.”

The new apprentice was puzzled. It wasn’t easy to forget how he felt – the fear of something really scary, even though the memory of what it actually was seemed to have disappeared. Come to think of it he couldn’t even remember who he was…

“Don’t worry,” Honey Angel comforted. “Who you were isn’t important. It’s now that matters. You’ll soon get the hang of it. I’ll be here to help you.” She wrapped a wing softly around his shoulders. (If you’ve ever been hugged by an angel you’ll know it makes you feel utterly loved…)

So the new apprentice relaxed. Here he was with his own enchanting angel on tap. What more could anyone ask for?

“Firstly, I want you to practise thinking thoughts to create things,” she said, her golden eyes sparkling. “This is much easier here than on the Earth Realm. Most humans take a very long time to get it. So…take a deep breath and let go of any worries. Then see yourself as calm and peaceful, and imagine something lovely, like…floating on a serene sea at sunset.”

That was easy. Also, it was fun. Before long he was ducking between waves and spotting darting silver fish, watching little bubbles of sparkling air. It was very real. He felt supremely happy.

“Well done. Good try. Though more control would be good,” said Honey Angel. “And remember, helping humans has to come from being steady; otherwise it won’t work.”

“Right, I’m ready. I can do this!” He had no idea what ‘this’ was but felt so full of joy it didn’t matter.

“Okay. Now…we need to practise what’s called shifting. You need to move your awareness down into the solid Earth Realm. It has to be done through an egg-of-light.”

“A what?”

“An egg-of-light! It’s the most useful thing you’ll learn. It can help any situation… In this case helping you shift. How you do it is by surrounding yourself with love, and then seeing it as light. Start off imagining it and just let it happen.”

“Uh-oh!…”

“Go on…make yourself an egg-of-light.”

The new apprentice tried imagining the love he felt when being hugged by Honey Angel. Then painting it with sunshine colour, and finally moulding it into an egg-shape around him.

“Easy! Well done. Then set the trigger word, ‘tumble-rumble’, and simply imagine exactly where you want to be. Hold my hand. We’ll do it together this time. There’s a human I want you to meet. You’ll be her invisible guide. She’ll be the only one able to hear you. All in her mind.”

There was a sensation a bit like jumping out of a plane – sort of somersaulting. And barely had he said “tumble-rumble” than he felt Honey Angel drag him along to a city marketplace.

The air seemed heavy on the Earth Realm. It was raining.

They watched…

A beautiful, dark-haired girl sat wide-eyed on a stool, listening to a story. It was about escaping across the mountains and it was told by a young man at the back of his market stall in London, grey, busy and traffic-ridden as usual. The girl loved living here because it was her home city. And now it was his too.

“The scary thing,” the young man, Tenzin, was saying, “is that being hunted freezes your heart.”

The rain was pouring down in buckets, making a deafening noise on the awning above them. He’d added heavy plastic to cover most of the enticing things for sale. Normally the girl liked looking at them, with their colours of chocolate, muted gold and rust reminding her of treasure. But few people were venturing out to buy today. It was a perfect time to listen. He wrapped her in a soft shawl, patterned like his wool jacket, and talked. It was as though the time had come for his heartbreaking story to be set free.

“The dark was so…so…bitter, Squirt,” he said. “I couldn’t see the mountains rising steeply up, but felt the cold as it rolled down, engulfing me like an avalanche. My choice was either the dangerous slope or bullets from the Invader soldiers chasing me. Then I came across a narrow crack deep in the snow and I managed to hide. If found I’d have been trapped. Even then I couldn’t lie down and shut my eyes, for the cold would’ve brought certain death to a sleeping body…”

The girl was enthralled with the terror of this real-life adventure, not least because he’d been twelve years old. The age she was now – able to do nearly everything for herself, though admittedly still scared of being alone.

She loved Tenzin like the big brother she’d never had, partly because he insisted on fondly calling her Squirt. She preferred it to her real name, Torma. Kids at school would always tease her and say “Here comes Storma Cry-baby. Watch out for the angry rain!” She knew she cried a lot. She couldn’t help it, but wished she’d been called something cool like Elsie or Bess… She just wanted to be accepted by the other kids.

As he talked it was as if she was there with him. She could feel the snow on her boots kicking each step…and sense the icy wind on her cheeks, trying to keep an exhausted, starving body alive. And then there was the hiding and the listening to something dreadful that he couldn’t talk about.

She didn’t want to know about that bit anyway.

What bothered her was the way Tenzin now kept looking around at the dark shadows behind the canvas of the market stall. It was impossible to tell if perhaps there was someone there listening too. Why would he be worried about that? It made her jumpy.

Yet there was something about his moon-like face and the surprising calm smile in his eyes that seemed to connect them and hug her deep inside with the feeling that all was well.

She’d hung out with him many times after school when her Granny, who she lived with, went to buy food, and she always begged to be allowed to stay with him, but this was the only time he poured his heart out. It made her feel important. And she loved him even more for it.

She moved the stool closer to the comfort of his body and strained to hear above the noise of the rain. She didn’t want to miss a thing he said.

“After the escape I badly wanted to go back, Squirt, but dared not because I’d promised my mother I never would. She told me, ‘You’ll find freedom and education… If you come back to our country, now occupied by Invader soldiers, you’ll be put in prison and tortured…and your family as well. Those that have escaped are always severely dealt with.’”

Torma didn’t understand why Invaders would treat local people so badly, or what it would be like being told never to come home. She just knew she’d never want to leave Granny, her only family, like that.

“So why would you ever want to go back?” she asked.

“I need to know now, after ten years, that the heart of my country still beats. My country is my land, my family… It’s part of me.” He tapped his hand fiercely on his chest. “I need to feel it, Squirt.”

She nodded. She felt his pain. Somehow she recognised it.

“And another reason…” he said intensely.

She looked up. Surely there couldn’t be anything else as important.

He went on, “I also made a promise to my tiny sister that I haven’t kept.”

“But you were only twelve at the time,” she said, knowing full well that age was no excuse for breaking a promise.

“Not too young to know the way of my people –”

She raised her eyebrows questingly.

“– That if there is opportunity to help someone, without hurting others, then it must be done.”

“Tell me…”

“Well, you might think it’s foolish.”

“It’s okay. Tell me,” she insisted.

“I’ve never told anyone…”

“Go on…” It not only made her feel special; it made her want to help.

“All right,” he glanced furtively over his shoulder. “Well, I loved my sister dearly. When she was tiny she was frail and I was always looking for gifts to make her smile… I’m not sure I want to tell you this…”

She kept quiet, sensing there was something he needed to get off his chest. So she tried to be accepting, like a pet hamster, so he would feel safe enough to bring up what he needed to say.

“Okay, well… One day when my family were visiting some foreigner’s camp I found a soft-toy penguin…and…I stole it!”

“You stole a penguin?” She laughed.

“Well, the old people of my land don’t believe that ‘stuff’ is important like in the Western world. And things sort of belong to everyone. So I took this penguin I’d been allowed to play with, put him on our nomad cart and brought him home to our tent for my tiny sister.

“Oh, I see.”

“But I never felt right about it.”

“You did it because you wanted to help your tiny sister.”

“Yes, the intent was good. But others may have got hurt in the process. It seemed a very special penguin. As though it had heart.”

“And your sister loved it?”

“Yes, she was inseparable from it. Till the fateful day of the raid.”

“What raid?”

“Invader soldiers came to take our livestock – our yaks, sheep and horses. They said they had instructions to move us into a nice new home in a town. My father was very angry. There was a fight. He was hit hard on the head with the butt of a gun. I never saw him after that. The soldiers took him away.”

She stared at Tenzin, still not understanding but feeling his heartache. She tucked the shawl tighter around her shoulders as if it would help.

“During the fight my mother hid with my tiny sister in a dry river-bed and something happened in there that spooked them. My mother wouldn’t say what. But during the chaos my sister lost the penguin.”

“How?”

“I dunno. She said it was some sort of an animal that took it.”

“Oh!”

“She was distraught… I promised I’d find it for her. But after that my mother could think of nothing else but getting me away before the Invader soldiers came back. She sent me to my uncle’s camp with a message that I was to join a group crossing the mountains. That was when she made me promise not to come back. And never to get in touch…”

She could see Tenzin’s eyes glistening with tears. How must it’ve been? Could she go through pain and fear like that?

She felt that was all he was going to say. He looked drained. His story had been wrought from deep within himself.

Could there be a reason she had to hear this? Could she help him? Without hurting others, of course.

A voice came into her head.

There’s always some way to help.

He needed to search for the heart of his country, and for a lost penguin. He couldn’t go back across the mountains. But…but…perhaps someone else could do it for him… Maybe she could be that someone…? The thought made her feel both excited and scared. Certainly there was longing…

They carried the same blood, she and Tenzin. He was Tibetan – from the magical land of Tibet, across the great Himalayan mountains. Her Granny was Tibetan. Did that make them family? Certainly that made her a quarter Tibetan. Were her roots calling her?

While her mind was thinking, her mouth just blurted out, “Tenzin, I’ll go back for you, across the mountains. I’ll search. Find the answers. I promise.”

“It’d be dangerous, Squirt…”

“I’m not afraid,” her mouth lied.

His smile sealed her promise, though she had no idea how such an impossible thing could ever happen.

“See how easy it is to be a voice in her head,” Honey Angel said.

“Jumpin’ jellyfish!” said the new apprentice doubtfully. “She didn’t even know we were standing right next to her.”

“Well, that’s a good thing,” said Honey Angel. “Think how scared she’d have been if she knew. Once she’s used to you things’ll be different.”

“She didn’t reply.”

“Nope, but she heard your words, There’s always some way to help, and it affected her promise.”

“Uh-oh!…”

“I must admit I did give her a little angelic sparkle as well.”

“Coolish! How did you do that?”

“That’s an advanced technique…known as moonbeam music…but let’s just get the basics sorted first shall we? Next time I want you to implant the words by yourself.”

“But what if I get them wrong and mess up?”

“So long as you always do your work with love, seeing an egg-of-light…then you can’t go wrong. And anyway, human kids are very good at hearing voices in their heads – unlike their adults. They think of them as imaginary playmates.”

Honey Angel put a shiny wing lovingly around his shoulder.

“C’mon, let’s shift and listen carefully to our girl’s thoughts. We’ll learn what’s going on and where we can help.”

Oh poo…! Torma was thinking.

She had to speak to Granny about her promise to go to Tibet, but had no idea how to do it. Even though Granny was Tibetan, she knew it would be difficult.

She usually didn’t listen when Granny explained about the family and why she was part-Tibetan. It made her feel she didn’t belong anywhere. Like being lost. Yet Granny would always tell her anyway in her kind and gentle way – except when Torma made her cross, and then she’d go red in the face and swear bringing up her grand-daughter tested her self-control to the limit. But she’d soon recover.

Torma knew Granny was loving, or compassionate as the Tibetans call it – the sort of person who, on finding a slug in the lettuce on her plate of food, rather than screaming and throwing it down the toilet, would pick it up carefully, saying, ‘Oh you poor sweet thing, have you lost your way?’ and carry it outside to place in a window-box full of flowers – usually the neighbour’s one, as Granny didn’t have a window-box.

Hmmm, agreeing to a trip to Tibet might need more than compassion for slugs.

Torma’s thoughts rambled uncertainly through the family history, wondering how it might help her promise:

My great-grandparents came out of Tibet over the mountains with thousands escaping after the invasion. Hmmm, maybe crossing the mountains is in our blood. Came to England…their daughter was Granny…who grew up to marry an Englishman called Grandpa…settled in London. That’s why I live here.

Then the story gets really sad, she thought. They only had one child, my mother…death of Grandpa from heart-attack broke Granny’s heart…so she retreated into not going out much…worse when my mother became pregnant and died soon after my birth…never knew why… So Granny brought me up…typical English upbringing, fish and chips, that sort of thing…though Granny’s so fiercely proud of being Tibetan she often speaks to me in the Tibetan language…and tells me yeti tales… I love her dearly… But, annoyingly, my family history makes me feel different from other kids at school.

For one thing, other kids know who their father is – even those who don’t actually live with him. Nobody tells me about my dad, and I can’t keep asking Granny ’cos, on this bit of the family, she always goes into a silent sulk. He must have done something really bad for her not to tell me. I don’t know if he’s alive. I don’t know if he’s Tibetan – can’t tell from my looks. Granny always says I take after my English grandpa, but with high Tibetan cheekbones, though kids at school tease me about my narrow eyes and mountain skin.

Torma sniffled. Tears were welling up.

I always feel different from them, she thought, like something important is missing… Maybe it’s ’cos I don’t have a parent to take me to exciting activities I want to do, like gymnastics or hamster classes – just a granny, who doesn’t even drive… I stay in my room for hours every day and read adventure books…love reading… But I feel I’ve missed out on having fun. Too shy to make friends anyway. Luckily I’m always able to talk to playmates in my head. They’re always on my side. They don’t mind if I’m not brave…

It didn’t all add up to much chance of Granny taking her to Tibet.

She thought she heard then:

You’re fery frave. It’d fe foolish fo fo across the fountains.

Maybe it was another mind playmate in her head being an idiot. More likely it was the wind.

But the voice went on.

Imagine the end fesult fith all your fight…

“Go away,” said Torma. If it was a new playmate, it sounded too stupid. If it wasn’t, it was just annoying.

But it persisted.

Fon’t forry ‘fout fow it’s foing to fappen. The fetails fill fort femselves out. Frust the froccess.

Save me! she thought. That’s all I need: a brainless playmate with a lisp…

She talked about it during break-time at school with the one friend she did have, another misfit, a girl with goofy teeth and glasses named Violet. She was the only one who knew about the playmates in Torma’s head.

“Why don’t you ask the new one what his name is?” she said.

“’Cos I’ve always called each one LangLang, the only name I could say as a baby, which stuck,” Torma said. “So with an f letter lisp this one would have to be FangFang. Not sure I can live with a playmate called FangFang!” They both collapsed in giggles.

“Maybe he’s speaking in code,” Violet said. “Fee, Fi, Foe, Fum – like a giant!… Maybe he’s really coolish.”

“Coolish? Coolish, not foolish… Yay, Vi!!. You could be right… It’s an f letter code. Listen… ‘It’d be coolish to go across the mountains. Imagine the end result with all your might.’ We’ve got it!!! And so I have to imagine the journey in my mind travelling over big mountains. And feel it inside.” She danced up and down with excitement. “How clever is that!!”

“Don’t see how that’s going to work,” Violet said.

“Me neither, but FangFang said ‘trust the process’…”

Violet giggled. Then looked concerned. “How d’you know you even should listen to him?”

“I don’t.” Torma shrugged. “But I like what he says… I’m imagining the journey, over and over, with all my might. And it’d definitely be coolish to go across the mountains…”

“Anyway, how’re you going to do that? You’re far too young.”

“Well, Tenzin did it at age twelve. I just know that’s what I want to do… I feel it inside me.”

Violet giggled again and they played attacking aliens on the swinging bars until the end of break-time.

Granny always met Torma after school to walk back home to their flat, a cosy little two-bedroomed place overlooking tiny gardens at the back. She loved it, as it was their hideaway from the world – just her and Granny – though sometimes she’d see Granny looking wistful saying, “One day we’ll have open spaces and freedom,” and she wouldn’t understand, but it would set up a yearning in her for something she couldn’t grasp.

Today Granny met her at the gate with her usual enveloping hug. She wore the same long dress she’d worn for as long as Torma could remember, with her grey-streaked black hair braided and tied up with what looked like a bone, and a simple necklace of bright-coloured stones. She looked exceptionally happy.