Sammy Feral's Diaries of Weird: Yeti Rescue - Couverture souple

The Feral Scale of Weirdness shot right through the roof today. In fact, it shot through the roof, blasted up through the Earth’s atmosphere, orbited the sun and then whizzed into hyper-space. My world is weird, weird, weird …

Just when I thought life was getting back to normal, well, as normal as life can be when these are the people I see every day:

MY FAMILY
Mum and Dad
My sisters, Grace and Natty
Caliban, our ex-werewolf dog

All ex-werewolves (thanks to Caliban).
Still have excessive ear hair and an annoyingly good sense of smell.
Whatever you do, don’t get in their way during the full moon. They still get seriously tetchy!

DONNY
A world-famous cryptozoologist – that’s someone who studies animals which supposedly don’t exist.
Has grey hair and crazy clothes.
Pets include a fire-breathing turtle, a phoenix and a three-headed gut worm.

RED
Moody emo-teen supreme.
Has the power of telekinesis (she can move things with her mind. How cool is that!)
Serious sense of humour bypass.

Since they helped me cure my family of the werewolf virus, Donny and Red have lived at Feral Zoo. Weird is right up their street, and they know just what to do when things turn a little crazy. So it’s always good to have them around on days like today.

As well as being ex-werewolves, my family also owns Feral Zoo. Feral Zoo is the only interesting thing about the town of Tyler’s Rest, and I help out there most evenings and weekends. Spending all my free time in the zoo is pretty sweet. Take last week, for example – I’ve been perfecting a recipe for the best Komodo dragon-feed known to man. A mixture of newt legs, pigs’ ears and prune juice works a treat with those grouchy bad-breath mega-lizards.

Earlier, I was on my way to the reptile house to hang out with my pet python Beelzebub when I heard a strange noise. It was a cross between a hissing snake, a man speaking Russian and my younger sister Natty when she hasn’t had her daily feed of raw sausages. The sound was coming from Backstage – the part of the zoo that’s shut off to visitors – the part of the zoo where Donny and Red live.

I decided to check it out. As I got closer to Backstage – passing the elephants and Darwin the gorilla on the way – the noise got louder. Not only louder but clearer. Suddenly it was less like a noise and more like a voice. The voice sounded scared, terrified, like it was fighting for its life. I started to run … and panic … This wouldn’t be the first time I’d found myself in a life-or-death situation!

I arrived at the Backstage gates. Suddenly the voice was crystal clear.

"Please – I need help!" it screamed in terror. "I’m not here to hurt anyone! Please! Please!"

I barged through the gate and slammed it behind me. No way did I want the regular zoo visitors witnessing wacko-time Backstage. That’s when I saw them – Donny and Red fighting what can only be described as a giant worm.

Worm the size of a Labrador = level 1 on the Feral Scale of Weirdness!

"Get back, Sammy!" Donny screamed at me as he whipped a lasso above his head before tossing it at the giant worm. As the rope caught around the worm’s thick body, it hissed in anger and spat bright yellow venom at Donny. The worm’s spit missed my friend and sizzled where it hit the ground.

"It spits acid!" Red yelled. My jaw dropped open like a lion devouring a wildebeest! I watched as Red tore off a piece of metal from the fence with nothing but the power of her mind. She forced the metal down on to the ground and used it as a shield to bat away the acidic spit that flew from the giant worm’s fangs.

"Whatever you do," Donny shouted at me, "don’t stare it in the eye. One look from his eyes means instant death!"

Err, rewind!

What kind of animal spits acid and can kill you with a look?

"What is it?" I screamed back, panicking and covering my eyes with my hands. I’ve lived though way too much weirdness to be killed by just a look – from a worm! I stumbled backwards, desperate to get away from the acid-spitting freak-worm.

"It’s a Mongolian death worm!" Donny and Red shouted in unison.

Mongolian death worms = extremely bad news!

I’ve read about the Mongolian death worm before in one of Donny’s cryptozoology books.

The Mongolian Death Worm
Looks like: Giant worm the size of a large dog. Pink body. Small eyes. Fangs as sharp as daggers.
Natural habitat: The deserts of Outer Mongolia.
Deadly features: Spits acid. Can kill you with a stare.
Best methods of defence: NEVER look it in the eye. Wear acid-proof clothing. Avoid the deserts of Outer Mongolia.

"Here!" Donny screamed to Red, throwing her the rope end and tightening it around the worm’s writhing body. That’s when I noticed something – the worm was wearing a back-pack!
What’s weirder than a Mongolian death worm? A Mongolian death worm wearing a backpack! Was it planning to stay?

Red took the rope from Donny and held it firm as Donny pulled out his tranquillizing blowpipe from his pocket. He put the pipe to his lips and prepared to strike.

"Please, no!" came the strange voice I’d heard outside the gates only moments earlier. "I mean you no harm!"

"WAIT!" I screamed. "Don’t shoot!"

Donny stared at me as though I’d just told him I fancied a cuddle with the death worm.

"Don’t shoot!" I repeated. Stumbling forward, careful not to look the worm in the eye, I raised my hands in surrender. "Don’t spit at me!" I warned the worm.

"Tell your friend not to shoot and you have my word,’the death worm replied.

I should probably mention at this point that I have powers of CSC. That means I’m a Cross-Species Communicator. I can speak the languages of animals – not regular animals like dogs and cats, only rare animals. I can understand animals like werewolves, phoenixes and Mongolian death worms, when no one else can. It’s pretty cool.

"It’s not here to hurt you," I told Donny and Red.

"Funny way of showing it," grunted Red angrily. Red loves any excuse to grunt. In fact, I’ve known warthogs who are better company than Red. "Tell the worm to quit with the acid if he wants to talk."

The worm let out a horrible hiss. "Who is this freak?" I heard it say.

"This is Red," I answered back. "She lives here. So does Donny. Is it Donny you’re here to see?" As Donny is a world-famous cryptozoologist, if there’s a Mongolian death worm hanging around Feral Zoo, it kind of figures that it’s here because of him.

"Who’s Donny?" the worm asked.

"What’s it saying?" Donny asked.

"It doesn’t know who you are," I told him, "but it says it’s here because it needs help."
Donny frowned. "Ask its name."

"My name is Genghis," the death worm replied, without waiting for me to translate.

"Like Genghis Khan?" I gasped. We learned about the famous Mongolian warrior at school. He was mega-fierce, just like the death worm now standing in front of me.

"Yes," Genghis answered. "My best friend has gone missing," he continued slowly, as if he was weighing up whether to trust me or not. "Coming to Feral Zoo was my last hope of finding him."

"Who’s your friend?" I asked quickly.

"Bert, the Chief of the Yetis," he hissed. "He and I go way back. The Tibetan plains, the deserts of Mongolia, the mountains of Nepal – we’ve seen it all. Man, he and I have had some wild times. I could tell you some stories … ever seen a yak fire a rocket from its nostril?"

"What’s it saying?" Donny asked.

I shook my head. "Something about a Yeti Chief and watching yaks fire rockets from their nostrils."

"You know Bert?" Donny asked the worm, careful not to look it in the eye.

"You know Bert?" I asked Donny in amazement. Although why I should be surprised that Donny knows the Yeti Chief and rocket-firing yaks, I don’t know. Stuff like that is as normal as brushing your teeth to Donny.

Genghis growled. I could sense he didn’t like being interrupted mid-story. Who would have thought that Mongolian death worms are such dreadful attention seekers, huh?

"Bert and I were heading over here on holiday," Genghis explained. "We just wanted to get away from the mountains for a while. See some of the world. We stowed away on a ship to cross the ocean …

"We were meant to reconvene up on deck at sunset. Kick back and watch the waves roll across the horizon. But Bert never came. I searched that ship high and low, but he was nowhere to be found. Back on dry land I continued to search for him. Bert has spent his lifehelping others, including me, I can’t just give up on him. I’ve looked everywhere, spoken to everyone – no sign. He’s literally vanished into thin air."

"How does a yeti vanish into thin air?" I wondered aloud. "Aren’t those things as large as a house?"

"Bert’s not the kind of yeti to just do a vanishing act," Donny said, scratching his head of grey hair in thought. "If he’s gone missing, then something is definitely up."

"How do we go about finding a missing yeti?" Red asked. "And if the death worm doesn’t want our help, then why is it here at Feral Zoo?"

Genghis tutted in frustration. "There’s something else: a letter arrived at my wormhole a couple of days ago. A ransom note."

"A ransom note?!" I said in horror. "Bert’s been kidnapped?"

"The note’s in there." Genghis nodded towards his backpack.

"The very latest in Mongolian-death-worm fashion," Red teased, as she nervously edged towards the bag, flipped it open and pulled out a scrunched-up piece of paper.

Red tossed me the note. "You read it, kid. I need to keep my eye on Mr Poison-Spit."