Fleem:
Having a damp coat was very irritating, Fleem decided.
It didn't freeze him straight to the bone the same way it had when it was wet, but it was frustrating how close it was to being dry without actually being dry.
He grunted as Kolka landed hard from a jump and then stumbled over a huge log hidden in the snow. Dr. Laker moaned and put a hand to his head once she'd regained her balance. "Please, not so rough." He signed to Kolka the best he could. Kolka looked down at him, and her expression became apologetic.
Meechee growled as she passed, and leaped across the rocks and snow like only a yeti could. Fleem couldn't suppress some mild resentment as Dallin's form followed, with agility that wasn't his. But he kept it to himself.
At last, the smallfoot village came into view, still shining as bright and colorfully as ever over the snow and darkness.
Meechee and Kolka immediately started roaring, probably calling for Migo. Dr. Laker winced and covered his ears. "Wow! You guys can be loud when you want to be!" Fleem turned to face him. "So can you, though you wouldn't think so with your puny squeaking!" With my puny squeaking.
As they approached the village, everyone looked around eagerly, but there was no sign of the other yetis.
"Where did they go?" asked Percy, sounding anxious.
Fleem squinted through the leftover snow floating through the air. "They're not here!"
Meechee and Kolka called out a few more times, but no answering roars came.
Fleem shuddered as the cold touched his damp coat, and pushed himself back into Kolka's fur as much as he could.
Then he saw something in a spot of light. A giant footprint.
"Look!" He pointed urgently at it, as the snow was already making it disappear before his eyes.
All the other smallfeet were instantly alert, making Meechee, Kolka and Dallin alert too. "They were here! But that print is pointed away from the city!" Brenda noted. "They left!"
"Where could they go?" Percy stared wide eyed at the new smooth patch where the footprint used to be. "Another cave somewhere else?"
"Where else?" Fleem muttered sarcastically.
Kolka growled questioningly at the smallfeet, wanting in on the discussion. Fleem groaned in exasperation at the language barrier. "Someone explain to them what we just said?"
But Meechee didn't wait. She gestured for Kolka and Dallin to follow, and immediately set off in the direction the footprint had led.
The light began to fade as the group moved away from the smallfoot village and back into the uneven wilderness.
"I can't see a thing!" Fleem complained. He was ignored.
The yetis began to call out again, their voices echoing through the rocks and snow. Percy joined in, "MIGO!"
Brenda glanced at him, and added her own voice to the blend.
"Fleem's mom!" Dr. Laker called, earning a glare from Fleem. "Her name is Tania!" He snapped.
But before Dr. Laker could respond, another voice made everyone snap to attention. The dark figure of a yeti appeared from behind a hill. "Thorp!" Fleem straightened up.
Thorp stopped in front of the group, out of breath. Fleem didn't need to understand what he was saying to know that something had gone wrong.
In a moment, all of them were over the hill, and running towards a small group of yetis gathered around a snowdrift right next to the base of the mountain.
Fleem shot Thorp an unimpressed look. "If this is a joke, I don't get it."
Suddenly, Kolka dumped him and Dr. Laker onto a patch of snow and ran off to join the others at the snowdrift. "Hey! What gives!?" He stood up and brushed off his coat. "Why does everyone keep ditching me to go run around in the snow tonight?"
Meechee put Percy and Brenda down and followed Kolka, her movements dismayed. Dallin glanced back at them once and joined her.
Fleem frowned. "What's going on?" He asked as Percy and Brenda jogged over to join him.
The four smallfeet turned and watched as the yetis began to dig frantically at the snowdrift, even as more slid down from the rocks above.
Fleem closed his eyes as it hit him. "It's not a snowdrift. It's a cave! They've been snowed in, like we almost were."
The other smallfeet were silent for a moment. Percy slowly shook his head in dismay.
Dr. Laker still sat on the ground, for once at a loss for energy. "You think any of them got buried in the snow?"
Fleem carefully began to make his way across the deep snow. "I don't know. I'm gonna get a closer look."
As he got closer, the yetis stopped digging and exchanged growls and bewildered gestures in the darkness. There was too much snow sliding down the mountain.
Fleem stopped close enough to hear muffled yeti growls behind the snow but far enough not to be caught in any of it. Percy appeared next to him, and a beam of light shot from his phone, revealing Brenda not far off.
The cave was unrecognizable as a cave with all that snow piled in front of it. Fleem looked it up and down, fighting feelings of both awe and dread.
"Migo?" Percy called again, earning anxious glances from the group of yetis. A muffled growl answered from somewhere in or behind the giant pile of snow. Likely the latter.
Percy rushed to stand right next to the snow and talk to Migo. "Hold on, buddy! We're gonna find a way to get you out. Alright?"
Fleem looked up in time to see another large clump of snow dislodge itself from the mountain and slide down towards the oblivious smallfoot.
"Percy!" Brenda cried in warning. Meechee yelped and rushed towards Percy. But he had already scrambled clear, just in time. "Whoa!"
Brenda grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the snowdrift. "Don't do that again!"
Meechee agreed, signaling with a hand for all three of them to stay put.
Fleem could do little more than stand frozen and stare, wondering how so much snow could possibly have collected in so little time. It seemed endless, coating the mountain as far as he could see in any direction, only a few dark splotches revealing the rock underneath.
The yeti group kept trying to dig, but they never made any progress. Every handful they scooped away was immediately replaced.
"Good thing Dallin made us get out when we did." Brenda remarked. "This could easily have been us."
Percy nodded wordlessly, and continued to worry.
Fleem glanced around and spotted the dark lump of a nearby rock. He headed for it and brushed off the snow. He was tired of sitting on rocks without a cushioning layer of fur, but his legs had gotten a little sore.
He sighed and resigned himself to watching helplessly from the sidelines.
It felt like hours passed as the yetis tried to figure out what to do. By now it had almost stopped snowing completely, but there was still plenty to block the cave.
Everything exciting as well as everything boring began to catch up with Fleem. He jerked awake yet again, only to start drifting off seconds later. It became a pattern he couldn't escape, no matter how wide he kept his eyes open.
Digging obviously wasn't working, but no one stopped to think of anything different. Not even Meechee, who was usually on top of thinking up new ideas. What was she doing?
Fleem rubbed his eyes, trying to focus.
He looked up as Dr. Laker finally wandered over, one hand on his makeshift bandage as if to remind himself it was there. "This isn't working." He said, echoing Fleem's thoughts.
Fleem folded his arms across his chest. "You're the genius around here. Why don't you think of a better idea?" He said, realizing too late that the words came out sounding wrong.
Dr. Laker visibly cringed. "I'm an inventor, not a mastermind."
Fleem huffed. "You can switch the bodies of a smallfoot and a yeti, but you can't figure out how to move a snowdrift?"
Dr. Laker shrugged helplessly, making Fleem sigh. "Well, we're all stuck here until someone stops to think of something, or all that snow melts, whichever comes first."
Percy, who had been pacing, stooped to grab a handful of snow and squeezed it in a gloved fist. "If only we could just melt it all at once." He said, sounding frustrated. "I don't suppose you yetis happen to have a big enough blow dryer lying around in your village?"
Fleem didn't bother to ask what that was.
Percy dropped the newly formed snowball, disturbing the smooth cover on the ground. Fleem's eyes distractedly went to it, and suddenly, he was wide awake. "That's it!"
Percy turned to him, looking confused. "What? No, I was being sarcastic, Fleem."
Fleem rolled his eyes. "No, the snow. Look at how well it packs." He pointed at the snowball.
Percy glanced from it to him and back again. "Yeah?"
Fleem grinned. "And in case you haven't guessed, packed snow can be really strong. Trust me, I've made lots of things with snow."
"True. Where are you going with this?" chimed in Dr. Laker, looking intrigued.
Fleem gestured to the snowdrift. "Think! If we could pack the snow over there, and do it in just the right way, we might be able to shape a tunnel, and everyone could just crawl out!"
He surprised himself with how quickly this idea was forming in his mind. Usually he just stepped back and let the others do the brainstorming since he was hardly a mastermind himself.
The other smallfeet looked thoughtful and hopeful. "I think you're getting somewhere." said Dr. Laker. "But how could we get the snow to stay in place long enough to make a tunnel? Look, it fills itself back in before it can even make a hole."
Fleem looked away. "Right."
Dr. Laker's face brightened and he held up a hand as if to say, "don't give up quite yet'. "But if we had something to push through it to keep it from filling in, something we could pack the snow around...it's certainly worth a try!"
Fleem nodded in satisfaction. "I'm not explaining it to them though." He jerked his head in the direction of the yetis.
Percy gave him a playful nudge. "Tired of being a 'smallfoot'?"
Fleem wrinkled his nose and sniffed indignantly in response. Dr. Laker chuckled softly and headed towards the yetis. "I'll tell them."
Fleem watched him get their attention and begin making signs he couldn't understand. But Meechee straightened, and she came alive with new energy as everything came together. Fleem scowled. It wasn't fair. How did Dr. Laker get them to understand so quickly?
Meechee signed something back to Dr. Laker. He paused and turned his head to yell, "She wants to know what we were planning to use to keep the snow filling in!"
Fleem raised his hands in an exasperated gesture. "Ehh, a rock? I don't know!"
His eyes went to Kolka's form. "The log Kolka tripped over?"
"Yes, that's perfect!" Dr. Laker turned back to communicate it to Meechee.
Meechee in turn explained the plan, which she understood perfectly, to the rest of the group. By Percy's light, some of them looked skeptical, but the alternative was to keep trying and failing to dig. So one by one, they all nodded.
At Meechee's direction, a bunch of yetis led by Kolka headed back the way they'd come, likely to find the log. Meechee began to call to those inside the cave again.
Fleem laid back on the rock, facing the dark cloudy sky. This would likely take a while.
And it did.
Fleem couldn't imagine how it could take so long to find one big log and bring it here. To a bunch of yetis, it couldn't have been that hard.
But it was, and he was about to die from boredom.
He eventually got up and started pacing just so that he was doing something, and he didn't stop until they returned.
"Finally." He muttered as they stumbled past, dragging the giant log.
He stood by as they shoved it through the snow, and quickly began to slap more handfuls around it. Fleem followed Percy's light as it exposed the mountain. It was going to take a lot of packing to keep that from falling, even for a minute.
He flinched as Dr. Laker grabbed his shoulder. Stop doing that!
"That's not going to be big enough for a bunch of yetis to crawl through." Dr. Laker pointed. "It's a big log, but it's hardly a redwood."
Fleem raised an eyebrow. "Why would we need red wood? It's just a color!" He shook his head and pushed past to the working group. He would never understand how smallfeet thought.
But he could see that Dr. Laker was right, at the same moment Meechee and Kolka did. The log might have been big for a log, but not for the yetis inside the cave. He turned dejectedly back to face Dr. Laker. "Do you have any better ideas?"
Dr. Laker raised a hand, revealing his wacky silver device. Fleem instantly took a step back. "What are you doing with that?"
"The log might not be big enough for a yeti to crawl through. But you might be able to fit." Dr. Laker held the device towards Fleem.
Fleem stiffened. "What? Are you crazy?" Dr. Laker ignored the jab. "Maybe you can crawl in, and use this to get everyone out. It worked the other day…."
"Yeah, I remember I ended up on your roof!" Fleem interrupted. "And if I'm not mistaken, you had a little trouble controlling that thing."
Dr. Laker opened his mouth to say something, but Fleem cut him off. "Besides, he's as you say, 'in the system' now too." He jabbed a finger at Dallin standing close by. "Something else could go wrong!"
Movement caught his eye, and he stepped back as Meechee knelt down next to him. He searched her face for any sign that she was frustrated with him per usual, but if she was, she didn't show it. Her brow was furrowed in anxiety, and her eyes were wide and pleading. Fleem found he couldn't speak as she signed and gestured towards the log and the snowdrift.
She was telling him, you have friends trapped in there. He didn't need to understand her to know that. And she was right.
He remembered the day the others in the S.E.S had gone after Meechee down the mountain. He hadn't gone with them. He'd created every excuse he could, telling himself he was right to stay behind, that he wouldn't have made a difference even if he had jumped.
But deep down, he knew it was because he'd been scared. The bravery needed to run into danger was way different than the bravery needed to question the Stonekeeper.
He'd been all too willing to leave the risks and heroics to Migo, Gwangi and Kolka. But he couldn't do that now, could he?
Fleem stood frozen as Dr. Laker put a hand on his shoulder and said something he couldn't focus on enough to make out. Numb, he looked past Meechee to the unstable snowdrift with new eyes, imagining the snow collapsing onto him, suffocating him, surrounding him with cold and darkness, leaving him helpless to struggle free….
He faintly felt a weight pressed into his hand, and looked down at the silver device. This plan was crazy. "I can't." he gasped. Percy appeared from nowhere and grabbed his shoulders. "Fleem, you have to help them! You're the only one who can!"
Fleem shook him off. "Brenda could fit through it!"
Brenda shook her head. "Not quite as well as you. You're the thinnest out of all of us."
Fleem huffed. As if he hadn't had enough of that as a yeti. "Not by much!"
"It'll be a tight crawl, Fleem. Every little bit of difference matters, because that tunnel isn't going to be perfectly stable. You're the least likely to bump into the sides enough to knock it down."
Fleem snorted. "Thanks, I feel much better now." In the same moment, another spark of dread lit in his stomach.
He hated the way everyone was staring at him, both the yetis and the smallfeet.
But before anyone could push him again, a roar came from inside the cave, taking everyone's attention off of Fleem. Meechee's expression became more worried, if that was even possible. She turned back to the smallfeet and held a hand to her throat, giving a few short gasps.
Percy glanced at Brenda, then at Dr. Laker, then at Fleem with wide eyes. "The air's starting to run out in there. She says it's getting harder for them to breathe."
Fleem closed his eyes. His friends were depending on him, and this time, there was no excuse he could make. No one else to fall back behind to be the hero.
Somehow this certainty lessened his anxiety.
He opened his eyes and looked again at the device in his hand. In fact, he noted with surprise, he felt braver without his indecision.
So he looked back up into Meechee's face and gave a single nod before he could start weighing the pros and cons.
Immediately the yetis set back to packing snow around the log with renewed resolve. Fleem clutched the device to his chest as he watched them build his death trap. What was he doing? This was crazy. But for his and his friends' sakes, it had to work. He couldn't give himself the chance to overthink it like last time.
His mind seemed to zone out, like he was in a trance as he slowly made his way towards the tunnel quickly being built. The yetis looked and felt over their new creation with tapping and critical eyes, searching for any weaknesses before beginning to carefully slide the log out.
Everyone watched in tense silence as it lightly scraped through the packed snow, sending little loose patches flowing down the sides. Would the tunnel collapse the moment it's support was gone?
The other end of the log came free and moved away. Everyone let out the collective breath they'd all been holding. The tunnel held, though a first glance at it and the huge gathering of snow on top of it made it obvious that it was far from stable.
Meechee beckoned Fleem over, looking grim and nervous. Fleem crouched to look through the tunnel. Only darkness was visible ahead. Great.
"Fleem?" Fleem looked back at Dr. Laker. "Don't let that device touch the snow. This one isn't waterproof." Fleem silently nodded and unzipped his coat just enough to shove his hand with the device in, wincing as some cold filtered in.
"Be careful." said Brenda.
Fleem forced himself not to look back as he crawled into the tunnel. Brenda was right about it being a tight squeeze. The curved walls closed in on him, caging him.
He moved forward, and felt his shoulder brush the side, sending a little powdery stream of snow to the ground. Immediately, his anxiety peaked, and he froze, breathing hard. There was currently at least one if not two mammoths' weight of snow right above him, ready to crush him if he made any wrong moves! He needed to back out and think about this a little more….
But his body wouldn't move, no matter how much he willed it to!
He was trapped!