Pugs of the Frozen North Read online

  Shen started unhitching the pugs from Sika’s sled and tying their leashes to Snowdrop’s and Slushpuppy’s harnesses. The polar bears sniffed curiously at their new teammates. If they had been hungry, they could have eaten the sixty-six little dogs in sixty-six big bites and then had Shen and Sika for dessert. But they were unusually well-trained polar bears, and they seemed to understand that Shen and Sika and those small yipping creatures were there to help.

  It took a while, but eventually all the pugs were attached. “Mush!” shouted Sika. The pugs strained forward, pulling the polar bears. The polar bears strained forward, pulling the dangling sled. Inch by inch it rose, until it was jammed against the crumbling end of the broken snow bridge. Then Helga untied her beard and scrambled up the sled as if it were a ladder. Gasping and panting, she heaved herself up onto the bridge.

  The exhausted pugs relaxed, and then the sled dropped again, dragging the polar bears and pugs back with it. Just time, Helga pulled a big knife from under her furs and slashed through Snowdrop’s and Slushpuppy’s harnesses. The sled dropped silently for a long time, and then, from far below, they heard the deep, echoey crash as it smashed to pieces in the bottom of the chasm. “Boo!” and “Spoilsports!” bellowed the trolls, annoyed that nobody had been on it when it fell.

  It seemed wrong to leave Helga behind, even though she had left them behind back at the Lost Hope. So they made her sit with Shen on the sled, and Sika went ahead and tested the snow bridges with a stick while Snowdrop and Slushpuppy walked behind. And they had not gone far when they heard another voice calling, “Help!”

  Shackleton Jones had had the opposite trouble. He had chosen to cross the maze by the fastest route, across the thinnest and most fragile bridges. He was sure that his super-lightweight sled would not collapse them. But he had forgotten that the pink huskies that were pulling it weighed more than the robot dogs he had left behind. The frailest of the bridges had crumbled beneath the pink dogs’ paws, and now they hung from their harnesses, with only the weight of the sled, Shackleton, and SNOBOT to stop them from falling into the chasm. Below them, more hungry trolls were piling up a tower of snow to try to reach the dangling dogs.

  “Can you help us, please?” the scientist shouted when he saw Shen and Sika’s sled passing. “I can’t cut these poor doggies loose!”

  The trolls’ tower was almost tall enough by the time the racers reached him. A troll climbed to the top of it and, standing on tiptoe, managed to grab the pink pom-pom on one of the dogs’ tails. Then it was snatched out of his hand as Shen, Sika, and Helga all helped Shackleton and SNOBOT heave the dogs back onto the bridge.

  “Spoilsports!” shouted the trolls.

  Shen and Sika went on their way, with Shackleton Jones following. Once or twice he eyed the maze ahead as if he were thinking of ways to get past the children and beat them to the Snowfather’s palace, but Helga said, “Don’t even think about it! That’s twice those kids have saved us.”

  Soon they were nearing the far side of the chasm. And there ahead of them, going carefully across one final bridge, was the sled of Sir Basil Sprout-Dumpling.

  Sir Basil looked back and saw the procession that was following him—Sika with her testing stick, the pugs, the pink huskies, the two sleds and two polar bears, Shen, Helga, Shackle ton Jones, and SNOBOT.

  “Look, Sideplate! They’ve almost caught up to us!”

  “Indeed, Sir Basil. The crossing of the snow bridges has lost us a great deal of time, sir.”

  Sir Basil looked ahead. He saw the wide plain of ice that still separated him from the palace of the Snowfather. Plenty of room on a plain like that for those kids to slip ahead of him! Those pugs of theirs were better sled dogs than he’d thought, and he knew that Shackleton’s high-tech sled was speedier than his.

  “I think it’s time for some more dirty tricks, Sideplate!”

  “Oh, dear, sir,” said Sideplate. “Are you sure that’s necessary, sir?”

  “Well, of course it is!”

  Sir Basil laughed a wicked laugh and twirled his mustache, but it had frozen solid and he snapped the end off. Sideplate, sighing sadly, opened Sir Basil’s expensive antique gun case and lifted out Sir Basil’s expensive antique rocket launcher.

  “I really must protest, Sir Basil,” he said as he handed it over. “Your behavior is most unsporting. When we return to London, I shall give you my resignation, sir.”

  “Do whatever you like, Sideplate,” sneered Sir Basil, getting the rocket launcher ready and pointing it at the snow bridge that the others were just about to cross. “I will have had my wish granted by then. I’ll be the richest man in the world, and I’ll be able to hire billions of better butlers than you, you fool.”

  “Very good, sir,” said Sideplate. He winced as Sir Basil pulled the trigger and a rocket went shooting toward the snow bridge.

  Shen winced, too, ducking as the rocket swerved over his head in a rush of sparks and smoke. Sir Basil had terrible aim. He had missed the bridge completely! But the rocket hit one of the other bridges, way off at the far side of the chasm. The bridge burst apart and fell into the depths, and the bridge next to it began to crumble, too, and then two more bridges joined in. The whole beautiful maze of bridges began to quiver, and sag, and crumble, and collapse.

  “Quick!” shouted Sika, running down the last bridge.

  “Quick—I mean, MUSH!” shouted Shen, urging the pugs after her.

  The others followed, as quickly as they dared—Shackleton Jones and his pink team, SNOBOT, and Helga and her two bears. Behind them, the final bridge was disintegrating with a rush and a roar of falling snow.

  For a moment Shen was sure that they were all going to fall into the chasm and be eaten by the snowtrolls, whom he could hear jeering and cheering down there. Then he saw that the end of the bridge was only a few yards away and that they were going to make it after all. And then he noticed that Sir Basil was taking aim with another rocket, and this time the travelers were so close that Shen was pretty sure he couldn’t miss.

  “Take this, you scum!” sneered Sir Basil.

  But just as he pulled the trigger, Side-plate’s snow boot kicked the rocket launcher upward. The rocket whizzed harmlessly off into the sky, to burst somewhere among the northern lights.

  “Sideplate, you spoilsport!” spluttered Sir Basil.

  The bridges were still crumbling, filling the air above the chasm with a haze of powdered snow. Sideplate ran to meet Sika and the others as they came spilling onto the ice. The bridge they’d just crossed disintegrated behind them, almost taking Shackleton Jones with it, but he and SNOBOT managed to leap to safety as their sled dropped into the chasm. Helga quickly cut the pink dogs’ harnesses to stop them from going with it.

  “I must apologize for Sir Basil’s behavior, ladies and gentlemen,” said Sideplate, helping Shackleton Jones climb over the edge of the chasm. “He has always been most unsporting.”

  “So long, Sideplate!” called Sir Basil, leaping aboard his sled. “I’ll go even faster without you!” His long whip cracked above his huskies’ ears, and they started to run toward the far-off igloo palace. But just then, with a massive thump, a big, jagged, glowing thing came slamming down, smashing the sled to pieces and catapulting Sir Basil high into the air. That last rocket had done a lot of damage when it exploded up there among the northern lights; now broken shards of light were dropping all around, freezing as they plummeted through the chilly sky.

  Shen and his friends waited until the rain of broken lights was over, then picked their way between the shards to where Sir Basil’s sled lay splintered. Sideplate disentangled the dogs, who ran off in all directions woofing happily.

  Sir Basil had landed in a deep drift of snow. He scrambled out, shouting more threats and shaking his fist. But his fist seemed smaller than before. All of him did. He was dwindling before their eyes, shrinking down and down until he was no bigger than a toy soldier, while his voice grew higher and higher. “You menacing morons! Look w
hat you’ve made me do! I’ve fallen into a patch of shrinksnow!”

  “Careful!” said Helga, lassoing the tiny cheat with a pug leash. “We mustn’t touch that patch of snow ourselves.”

  “If those little dogs got any smaller, we might not be able to see them at all!” said Shackleton Jones.

  Helga reeled Sir Basil in, until he was close enough for her to reach out and pick him up. He kept being terribly rude at first, until he realized just how tiny he’d become. Then he said, “Oh…ah…no hard feelings, right?”

  “Is there a cure for shrinksnow?” asked Shen.

  “I don’t know,” said Shackleton Jones. “The effects may wear off eventually.”

  “But I can’t stay this size forever!” wailed Sir Basil. Helga handed him to Sideplate, who put him in a lunch box for safekeeping (making sure to punch some airholes in the lid first). They could hear his tiny, angry voice buzzing in there as they set off again toward the icicle palace.

  It wasn’t really a race anymore; they all just felt that, having come so far, they should at least say hello to the Snowfather. There was not enough room on the sled for all of them, so they took turns walking. It was hard work, crossing that ice, for it was very slippery, and although it had looked flat from the snow bridges, it actually sloped very steeply upward.

  And as they trudged up that slope, so it grew colder. Shen didn’t think it could get any colder, but it did. He had grown used to seeing his breath come out as steam, but at the top of the world each steamy breath froze solid as soon as he breathed it and fell on the ice in front of him with a little tinkly sound like a dropped ornament. It was so cold that the pugs, who had run so far and so bravely in their little sweaters, began to shiver, and their tiny feet grew numb, and soon they could barely walk at all. Then Sideplate and Helga gathered them up, and Helga wrapped them all in her beard, which was still extravagantly long and white and warm after her meal of yeti noodles back at the Lost Hope. Their little faces peeked out as she plodded onward, and Sika, Shen, and Shackleton harnessed the two polar bears and the pink huskies and Sir Basil’s dogs to the sled instead.

  “Soon it will be too cold to talk,” Shen started to say. But already it was too cold to talk; he decided to keep his mouth shut, in case his tongue froze solid like a pink Popsicle.

  And then it was too cold to think. It was as if the ice had gotten inside his head, and all his thoughts slowed down and stopped, like fish frozen in the sea.

  But he kept trudging on, putting one cold foot in front of the other, and suddenly he felt the cold ease a little, and then a little more. And he raised his eyes—which had been watching only the ice in front of him—and there was the igloo palace of the Snowfather towering up into the sky in front of him, a huge dome of snow, with spires and towers and turrets sprouting all around it, and snow chimneys sending up little curls of smoke to tangle in the northern lights. And sitting in front of the high white wall that ran around the icicle palace was a huge old man, bigger even than Sika’s grandpa.

  “I’m so glad you made it!” he said, and his voice was warm and rich like a wintertime dessert. “Now, which of you is the winner? Whose wish shall I grant?”

  For a moment, nobody spoke except for Sir Basil, who said, “Me! I’m the winner, of course!” But he was so muffled inside the box that the Snowfather didn’t hear him.

  In the end, it was Shen who said, “None of us is the winner.”

  “That’s true,” said Sika. “We all got here together, and none of us could have made it without the others. I’d still be washing up for the yetis if SNOBOT hadn’t gone and roused Shen….”

  “We’d all be yetis if Shen hadn’t rescued us,” said Shackleton.

  “And I’d have fallen into the chasm if Shen and Sika hadn’t helped me,” Helga said. “They were very brave.”

  “And the pugs would have frozen if Helga hadn’t nestled them in her beard.”

  “And then we would all have been blown up by Sir Basil’s rocket if Sideplate hadn’t so kindly saved us.”

  “So none of us is the winner,” said Shen sadly. “Not really.”

  The Snowfather’s wide white grin grew wider still. “Or maybe ALL of you are the winners,” he said. “For the first time ever, I declare the race a tie. So come inside, and let us discuss the matter of prizes….”

  They followed him through the gate in the high white wall into a garden. Green was the last color they had expected to see here at the top of the world, but green was all around them—the glowing greens of grass and trees, speckled with red and golden flowers.

  How did you grow all these plants?” asked Shackleton Jones.

  “I didn’t grow them,” said the Snowfather. “I made them! Out of snow!”

  “Snow?” said Sideplate, reaching out to run his hands over a tree trunk.

  “Everything you see here is made of snow,” said the Snowfather. “The special anythingsnow that falls only here, at the top of the world. Shape it into whatever you want, and it will become real.”

  He strode over to a drift of snow that had gathered against the wall of his igloo. Kneeling, he scooped some up and made it into a little snow bird. “There!” he said. And as they watched, the white bird blushed and darkened, opened its black-bead eyes, and flittered away to perch singing on the branch of a tree. “Whatever you like!” he said.

  For a moment everyone was too amazed to speak.

  Then, with whoops and cheers, the travelers all threw themselves at that mound of snow and started to help themselves to clumps of it and shape those clumps into—well, whatever they could imagine. Shen made a little snow ship, which turned into the most perfect little real ship he had ever seen, complete with rigging and anchor chains and all sorts of things he hadn’t been able to sculpt in snow, but that the snow knew he had wanted anyway. He put it in his pocket and set to work making a snow treasure chest and filling it with snowy diamonds.

  “Ah, that’s what Sir Basil’s father did, when he came here all those years ago,” said Sideplate. He was busy making a snow bowler hat to replace his own, which was looking a bit battered after all his adventures.

  Meanwhile, Shackleton Jones was making snow cogs and snow wheels, the snowy parts for some snow machine.

  And Helga was sculpting a big heap of snow into the shape of a polar bear—which shook itself, roared, and went running off across the lawn to play with Snowdrop and Slushpuppy and the sixty-six pugs. “You can never have too many friendly polar bears,” said Helga.

  And Sika? She just sat and watched, and the Snowfather sat beside her, chuckling at the delight of the others as they busied themselves making snow things. “Always the same,” he said. “Ever since Ooka first came here and discovered the anythingsnow.”

  “What did she make?” asked Sika.

  ‘Ah,” said the Snowfather, “she was feeling rather lonely, having come so far all by herself, so she made a snowman. She didn’t even know it was anythingsnow she was making him from, but she lay down to sleep beside him, and when she woke up…”

  “He had come alive?” asked Sika.

  The Snowfather smiled and nodded, remembering.

  “And what about you, young Sika?” he asked. “What will you make?”

  “I don’t know,” said Sika. “The thing I want isn’t a thing. I came here to ask if you could make my grandpa better.”

  “Oh, my dear,” said the Snowfather gently, “I’m afraid that is a bit beyond me.”

  “But you grant wishes, don’t you? That’s what all the stories say. They say you’ll give the winner their heart’s desire.”

  “I think there’s been a bit of a mix-up, then,” said the Snowfather. “I am the guardian of the anythingsnow, but I cannot grant wishes. If people have gotten their heart’s desire by coming here, then either their heart’s desire was something they could make out of snow, or it was something that they found along the way, like your grandpa did.”

  “Do you remember my grandpa?”

  “
Of course I do! Such a brave boy he was. I hoped he’d win, but Sir Basil’s father beat him in the end. (I suspect Sir Basil’s father was a cheat, like his son.) But it did not matter! Your grandpa didn’t need to fill his pockets with snow jewels. Just the journeying here was prize enough for him; just to see all the wonders of True Winter and go home with stories to tell.”

  “Such stories!” said Sika. “And when he dies, there will be no more.”

  “No, no,” said the Snowfather. “All old things die in the end, but not stories. Stories go on and on, and new ones are always being born. Now, join the others, before the snow is all used up.”

  So Sika ran to join the fun. Shen had finished his chest of snow diamonds and squeezed the lid shut, and he was busy making sixty-six snow bones for the sixty-six pugs. Sika helped, and while she was at it she thought of a few things that she had always wanted, too, and together they made those out of snow.

  And then everyone remembered how hungry they were, and they started making snow food that they carried inside and ate in a huge feast beside the Snowfather’s roaring snow-log fire. And while they ate, they all talked about what they were going to do next.

  “I’ve got my wish,” said Shackleton Jones. “SNOBOT has collected enough data and samples of these strange types of snow that I’ll be kept busy for years. I’ll be famous! I’ll probably get a snowflake named after me. And I’m going to call in at the Lost Hope on my way home. It seems to me that what those yetis really need is an electric dishwasher, and I’m just the man to make it for them.”