The Yeti Uprising: An IPMA Adventure for Christmas 2013 Read online



  The Yeti Uprising

  An IPMA Adventure for Christmas 2013

  By P. Edward Auman

  Copyright 2013 P. Edward Auman

  Cover Art Image by Albert Ziganshin - Fotolia.com

  Internal Art Image by Melanie Auman - 2014

  ISBN: 9781310926273

  Discover other titles by P. Edward Auman at online e-book retailers, in print, and www.PEdwardAuman.com.

  Learn more about stories featuring the IPMA (The Institute for the Preservation of Magical Artifacts) at www.TrollBrother.com.

  Follow the creative media company founded upon Eddie’s works: www.IPMACreative.com in 2014

  Dedicated to those would-be authors who braved the 2013 National Novel Writing Month event with me, and for kids of all ages that remember the magic in Christmas. See NaNoWriMo.org or more information.

  MEMORANDUM

  December, 27th

  To: Board of Directors, Institution for the Preservation of Magical Artifacts

  CC: Dr. Wilhelmina Rheinhart, President

  From: P. Edward Auman, Historian

  IPMA, Eastern U.S. Regional Offices

  Subject: Yeti Infestation of Known North Pole Facilities, December 21, 2013, Event # 2013-W-768

  Dear Madam President and Members of the Board:

  As you were initially alerted by internal Command Center alerts, we experienced an event at the North pole at one, Belschnickel, aka: Saint Nicholaas’ facilities involving an uprising and attempted coup de’tat by the Yeti clan thought to normally occupy northern Manitoba, Canada. Many agents, too many to be identified in this memorandum, were involved in the dispatching of this infestation and gratitude will be expressed to each via our normal IPMA channels for employee recognition. Please anticipate full details, including the names of all participating agents in our full briefing scheduled for the regular quarter review the first week in January.

  For now, per your request, I am providing a detailed narrative of the event according to the witnesses at the North Pole and those agents who have so far been debriefed. Please note Agent Peter Samuel’s significant commitment and attentiveness to resolving this issue in time for said Belshnickel delivery of holiday artifacts.

  Thank you.

  Chapter 1

  December 17

  Wentworth Tree House Club, Rouge River, Troy, MI

  Joshua knew his friends wouldn’t be by the tree house on this day. Much too cold for them. The last week and a half had seen temperatures in the twenties overnight so much of the shoreline of the little portion of the Rouge River that flowed by his neighborhood had frozen along the edges. It had climbed to about forty degrees for high temps but still snow had fallen at times and it lay in a thin mat, crusted on the top by the melting days and re-freezing nights. The day before he’d even charged up his little RC kit car and ran it across the top of the ice just to see what would happen. It slid around and presented an altogether new sport to conduct with it, trying to avoid sliding right off the patch of lawn in front of his house and onto the dry driveway, only breaking through the crust here and there on occasion, usually along the edges near the brush and trees.

  Nope. This particular Tuesday afternoon after one of the last few days of school before holiday break was going to be left to him. So he enjoyed it. He whipped out the parody magazine his mother bought and started in the middle with the bit about spies hunting each other down in silly ways. Then he started one of the comics stories.

  With the sun settling at right around 5:00PM Josh enjoyed the last few minutes and then used his cell phone to light the page he was finishing. Then it was time to get home for supper. His mom wouldn’t mind him out by the river on his own. She’d always told Dad, boys will be boys after all. But Dad really didn’t want him there, and had a way of teasing him a bit about disappointing him that dug at his emotions with a little guilt. He’d once tried complaining to his mother that his father was bullying him, but he didn’t seem to get much sympathy there. Apparently her feeling was if he didn’t want to get in trouble with Dad then he should obey Dad’s rules.

  So, it was on that late December Tuesday before Christmas that Josh happened to be sitting in a grove of trees along the upper, smaller portion of the Rouge River, nestled between grassy fields just beginning to bend with the weight of snowfalls for the winter that were about to be claimed by housing sub-divisions, when a suspicious faerie folk moved by his position. The little Yeti was humming and chirruping to himself. Not that Josh recognized the fuzzy little ball of white hair that stood only ten or twelve inches tall as an actual Yeti. He’d always heard that a Yeti was basically a snow-bound version of Sasquatch and should likely be six, eight or even twelve feet tall. So of course calling out to the creature, or possibly trying to capture it much like he had several dozens of turtles along the riverside during summer, was an entirely natural reaction.

  “Hey!” Josh said, swinging his legs and watching the thing move quickly past thorny, bare shrubs. “What are you doing little fuzzball?”

  The hairy little thing halted immediately mid-stride and haunched up its shoulders. Hands were seemingly frozen in position as well. Josh wondered if the thing thought it was hiding like a baby might simply by closing its eyes. Finally its hairy head craned slowly around. Large, glossy blue eyes blinked at the human boy a couple times and took in the scene. Clearly, the little Yeti hadn’t counted on a human being suspended from a rickety collection of wood twenty-five feet above him.

  Before Josh could jump down the combination of branches and nailed-in ladder steps he and his friends had used as their entrance and exit to the tree house and chase down the latest prized animal find, the fuzzball hopped around to face the human, raising its arms and arranging its stubby pink fingers like clawed hooks and growled. Before Joshua’s eyes the beast seemed to grow in stature until he was almost big enough to place his hands upon Josh’s feet and pull him down. A tremendous howl emanated from the monster and it bared large pointed teeth.

  “Oh, crap!” the human boy screamed. He clattered back onto the tree house platform and towards the back as far as he could yet leave the monster in view.

  And then it was gone. The huge monster had disappeared and in the distance along the river, up by the next grove of tall slender trees Josh could just make out a tiny fuzzy, white fur ball with pink hands and nose rushing through the brush to its destination.

  It was several minutes before Josh’s breath seemed to rejoin his body. His head ached from the rapid flow of blood and he was nervous about trying to climb down while he was feeling light-headed. What was that thing? he pondered.

  But it wasn’t long before he had a plan for finding out. It wasn’t worth doing a search on his smart phone, he needed multiple screens up and figured it would take a while to get the right answer, as he’d never even heard of such a creature as the one he’d seen…either small or ginormous sized.

  Quickly he packed his bags, climbed down the tree and made a bee-line for home.