“Well I won’t. And SHE can’t make me,” said Fish, coming to a standstill and turning to face Drift. They were stood by the roadside a few miles out from the town where Fish lived with her mum. She looked Drift up and down as though, now she had finally stopped moaning, she had noticed him for the first time. “Why are we walking so slowly all of a sudden,” she asked. “And what on earth has happened to your feet?”
Drift, her shapeshifting snowman friend had turned his legs into two giant toes. “I’m being careful. I’m on my tippy-toes,” he said.
“What? Why? Oh never mind. Fish poked him in the chest. “Let’s get back to talking about me. I said she can’t make me. Don’t you agree?“
The snowman hesitated. He wanted very much to be a friend to Fish and so he thought very carefully, trying to remember every word she had said during their journey away from the town.
There was a lot to remember. Fish liked to talk.
“A dress?” he asked after a while.
“Exactly,” said Fish, hands resting on her hips. “A dress.”
“But… you dress every day.”
“That’s different,” said Fish. “I dress myself in pants and a pullover and parka. Those are warm and comfortable. Those are what I like to wear. SHE wanted me in a dress. For a party I don’t even want to go to.“
“Dress?” said Drift.
“Yes,” said Fish.
“So you…” Drift eyes began to cross in the struggle to understand why the pair of them had snuck out the back door earlier. “You don’t dress in a dress?”
“No. Well yes. Some people dress in a dress. But I don’t.” Fish said. “Now if you could just—”
But again, Drift interrupted. “Then… do you pant into pants and park in a parka? Careful,” he added, looking suspiciously at the ground.
“What? No,” said Fish. “And that’s not the point. The point is—”
“So that’s why we’ve run away from home,” said Drift. “Again.”
It was true. Fish and Drift did seem to do an awful lot of running, but this time Fish felt she was right. Again. Right enough to trek away from the bright lights and warming bonfires lit to celebrate New Year’s Eve and across the snows and ice sheets to where she always felt more at home.
“The point is…” Fish nudged Drift who was now balancing on just one of his toes. “The point is, I don’t want to put on a dress for a stupid party full of stupid people. And who cares what day it is anyway? It’s always dark here at this time of year. Finding one day to start a new year is like finding the edge on a roll of sellotape.”
She finished off her speech with a satisfying CRUNCH as she stomped a furry boot into fresh laid snow. Drift panicked at the sudden movement and extended two arms around Fish’s waist to hold her steady. He received a glare in return.
“I think we should go back,” said Drift. “This place is dark enough for…” He looked around and whispered. “For YOU KNOW WHO to be hiding.” He shivered and checked under his arm pits.
“No,” said Fish, stifling a yawn. “I don’t know who. I can’t see anything. And we aren’t going back. Not until mum comes out to find us and apologises. Now, how about you make us an igloo? I’m getting tired and I’d like to sleep.”
“An igloo? Here?” Drift snaked himself around Fish’s legs and sent his eyes rippling along his body, examining the roadside. “Oh no. No no no. It doesn’t look safe here.”
“Don’t be so silly. Are you are afraid of anything you can see?”
“No, but…”
“Then nothing can hurt you.”
Drift let this sink in. “That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”
“Look, let’s just get some sleep.” Fish began to jump up and down to flatten the snow beneath her but Drift lifted her up and carefully patted the ground.
“Steady, steady,” he said. He continued to make the floor nice and flat so that Fish would be comfortable. He would much rather drift back into town but Fish was cleverer than he was and so he did what he always did in these situations, he trusted her. She probably knew best.
The snowman began to change. Smoothly and silently he began to bend and flatten, fatten and bend as he formed an igloo around his little friend. When he was done, Fish lay herself down and closed her eyes.
“Everything will be alright,” she told him. “You’ll see. We’ll be back before you…” But the rest of her words fell into the soft snow and melted away.
Drift waited for a few moments. And then he waited a while longer until he could hear the little girl snoring. “Fish?” he said. “Fish?”
When there was no answer, the snowman pulled his nose and eyes through the wall of his igloo body and sniffed the dark air outside.
“I know you’re out there,” he whispered.
He listened.
There was no reply.
Still, Drift didn’t feel safe. He knew this part of the world. He knew it better than most, even though he mostly forgot a lot of the things he knew and so was never entirely sure what he knew and what he thought he knew. And whilst he rarely knew what he didn’t know, this time he knew… something.
“I think I’d best be taking you home,” he whispered.
Sliding himself under the sleeping, snoring Fish, Drift created a perfect shell around her before giving himself two tiny feet. Tentatively, he tried walking back along the roadside but the size of him as an igloo was too awkward and his wobbling risked waking Fish.
So he added two more feet.
The ground beneath him still felt wobbly and once again Fish stirred in her sleep. Drift held his breath and regained his balance. Foot by foot, inch by inch, Drift experimented with the number of feet until he was moving around on forty-two of them, each with four large toes. He didn’t see much of Fish’s feet, they were usually knee-deep in her thick boots, but four seemed like a sensible number.
He stopped and twitched his nose. Something wasn’t right. Could feet be knee-deep? He considered waking Fish to ask her but then remembered he was trying to look after her. There were unknown dangers around these parts and only Drift could protect her from the things he didn’t know.
“You just keep away,” he whispered into the dark. “She’s under my protection.”
Drift walked on. Nice and slow. Nice and steady. This wasn’t too bad. His feet pattered along, feeling for any… He felt the ground shift beneath him.
“WHOOPSSSSSSSS!” A voice like a knife scraping steel sliced through the air and Drift’s feet spread out in every direction. He scrambled to a stop.
“I knew it!” he said, keeping his voice low so as not to wake Fish. “I knew it!”
“Ssssso – what did you know?” said the voice, each word sounding like a shaving of ice.
“I knew there was something I didn’t know.”
“Ssssurprisssse! I know you didn’t know. Nobody knowsssss… Nobody knows when to exsssssssspect… BLACK ICE!”
Drift gulped. His worst fears had come true. BLACK ICE! Even the name made him shiver.
BLACK ICE! was one of the slipperiest snowmen the land of Cold had ever seen. He was a snowman nobody saw coming and yet everyone fell for. But not in a good way. There were stories of people who had slipped into BLACK ICE!’s power as children and who were still slipping eighty or ninety years later when they were old men or women.
BLACK ICE! was bad.
Drift started to panic. Moving like a centipede in a whirlpool the snowman ran first one way and then another as he tried to find the edge of BLACK ICE! Each time he tried, however, BLACK ICE! was quicker, shifting his body and sending the igloo-shaped snowman careening in the opposite direction.
And all the while, Drift did his best to keep himself steady and straight so as not to wake Fish.
“Sssssstop resssssisssssting,” said BLACK ICE! “Ssssurrender to the sssslide.”
“You leave us alone,” whispered Drift. “And keep your voice down.” He tried piling up snow beneath himself, hoping to slow himself down. And it worked! For a moment. BLACK ICE! soon rippled beneath the extra snow and suddenly Drift was off again.
“Where are you taking us?” he demanded. “Why do you want us?”
“Where? To the Arctic Ccccccircle of Endlesssssss Sssssslipperinessssss! And why? WHY FOR FUN!”
The Arctic Circle! Drift gulped. It was the slipperiest place on the planet. Once there, Fish and he would be lost in an unmerry-go-round of slidiness at the whim of BLACK ICE! until Fish was nothing but a sliver of skeleton and Drift was nothing but a snowflake.
Think, Drift, he urged. Think. What would Fish do if she were here.
And then a light came on in his igloo-shaped head. It was the moon rising but it shone through one of his eyes and fell upon Fish. She was here! Fish would know what to do.
“Fish!” Drift whispered so as not to wake her. “Fish!” It was no good. He couldn’t wake her. The little girl was sleeping soundly.
“Ssssslip this way,” said BLACK ICE! sending Drift spinning further away from the road. “Sssslide that way.” Helpless, Drift let his tiny feet sink back into his body and gave up the fight.
Faster and faster he travelled as BLACK ICE! pushed them deeper and deeper towards the heart of the Cold where the Arctic Circle sat waiting.
Over icy lakes and through frozen forests Fish and Drift skimmed through the blackness.
“Hold on to your hatssssss!” shouted BLACK ICE! as he sent them skidding off a particularly dangerous curve. Drift felt Fish roll across the igloo floor and straight through one of his walls. He only caught her just in time as her head and shoulders broke through the snow.
A blast of winter wind woke the little girl and she found herself staring down at BLACK ICE! shimmering in the moonlight. He was curling himself far below, waiting to catch them like a long, dark tongue.
“Drift!” Fish shouted. “We’re flying!”
“I think it’s called falling,” said Drift. “But I’m glad you like it. I was a bit worried.”
“Falling?” said Fish. “Then why aren’t you doing something?”
“Oh, there’s no point. That’s BLACK ICE! down there. Once we land he will never let go again and we’ll grow old in the Arctic Circle of Endless Slipperiness. I think it’s supposed to be fun,” he added. “For him, anyway.”
“Pfff,” said Fish, pulling herself through the falling snowman and climbing onto his head. “We shall just see about that.”
Jabbing her hands into either side of Drift’s head, Fish prepared for impact. “When I say move, move,” she told Drift.
Moments later they both shook as Drift slammed into BLACK ICE!
“Wheeeeeee!” said BLACK ICE! as they skidded along. “Are we having fun yet?”
Fish ignored him. “Move LEFT,” she shouted. “Now!”
Drift leaned to one side, startling a pack of huskies and narrowly avoiding being split in two by a tree. The force of the manoeuvre propelled them faster than before but this time, in a new direction. “That’s right, Drift!” said Fish.
The snowman moved to the right. “No,” yelled Fish. “Left.”
“Oh no you don’t,” said BLACK ICE! A sudden sheet of ice sliced out and sent the pair of friends skittling backwards.
“RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT,” shouted Fish.
“OK OK OK,” said Drift. Once again, the igloo swept to one side.
“Esssscaping issss impossssssssible,” laughed BLACK ICE! as he sent out another layer of ice to bring them back.
Fish didn’t bat an eyelid. She didn’t even blink. She just chewed on her tongue and concentrated hard on the landscape. With a series of directions, and no shortage of yanking on Drift’s head, the girl countered each of BLACK ICE!’s attempts to send them into the heart of the Cold to where the Arctic Circle lay waiting to trap them like an everlasting washing machine of malice.
Using BLACK ICE! as a skatepark, Fish managed to take control of their direction until the devious kidnapper threw himself as far ahead of them as he possibly could and lifted himself up into the air like a giant Quaver crisp. Only not as tasty.
Fish made Drift swing from side to side, increasing their speed until her hood was almost falling off her head and the snowman was beginning to lose his igloo shape. “Go with the wind, Drift,” she told him. “Just let yourself drift.”
For once Drift knew exactly what to do. He relaxed. Drifting was his thing. It was what he did best. Fish let out a laugh as they sailed along BLACK ICE! It was the best fun ever, only BLACK ICE! wasn’t laughing with them.
“I’m ssssuposssed to be the one having fun,” he sulked. “Not YOU.” But nothing he did could slow them down or bring them back under his control.
Together, Fish and Drift slid along BLACK ICE! using him to go exactly where she wanted. And as they sailed along and up the great curve of ice, Drift saw the town. It lay bright and sprawling on the Cold coast, lights in every home burning for the many parties being held to welcome in the New Year. Bonfires on the edge of town warmed the air and paved a golden path towards a small and simple wooden house where, Fish knew, her mum would be waiting.
“We’re going home!” he whispered, his breath taken away at the sight.
Drift reached the end of BLACK ICE! as a rough wave of snow and scattered into the sky. The slippery villain tried to grasp him again but the snowman slipped through his fingers and Fish heard the tinkling of ice breaking behind them.
BLACK ICE! could not keep on going, he was too thinly spread and the bonfires burned too fiercely. Even Drift found himself beginning to melt away but Fish held onto as much of him as she could and together they tumbled downwards towards home.
“Sssstay and playyyyy,” screamed BLACK ICE! but Fish and Drift could not, even if they had wanted to. They rolled and rolled along the ground and crashed into the simple wooden house spilling inside with a thud.
A roomful of people stopped and stared at the girl lay on the floor before them. “Fish!” said a lady, stepping out towards her.
“Umm… hi mum,” said Fish.
“You’re soaked,” said her mum.
“I… er… fell in the snow…” said Fish.
“Oh that’s alright, dear,’ her mum said, reaching into a bag and pulling out a dress. “I’ve brought something for you to change into.”
—
Illustrations © 2016 Carl Pugh. You can see more of Carl’s incredible illustrations HERE.