Chapter 4: Fish And Drift On The Run
As his sneeze rang out across the icy wilderness, Drift once again found himself wanting to run.
“Wait,” Fish shouted. “Don’t run.”
Anna pulled her head out of the snow and rubbed her ankle. “I don’t think I could if I wanted to,” she said.
“Not you,” Fish told her. She clambered to her feet and looked at the pile of snow which Drift had become.
Her snowman friend opened one eye but otherwise kept perfectly still. He could run. Running was easy. But that would mean leaving Fish behind and she was the only one who had ever tried to help him. She was the only person who hadn’t shouted at him or shovelled him out of the way. For all his running, for all the towns he’d run through and all the people he’d sped past, he had never once encountered anyone who believed he was innocent. Whenever he had said “I’m on the run for a crime I didn’t commit,” people would just answer: “If you didn’t commit the crime then why are you running?”
That’s why he kept running.
But Fish was different. Fish had stayed and helped, even though she was just a child. Maybe children just didn’t know any better. Then again, Fish didn’t know the full story.
What was he to do?
It’s probably not hugely important to know (but interesting all the same) that snowman snot isn’t all that bad. It’s wet, of course, but not sticky or icky. Anna and Viktor were knocked over but they were already recovering quickly.
Of course, if Drift had concentrated he might have turned his snot into icicles. A hail of snot bullets could do some real damage. That would be dangerous though, and probably land him in even more trouble.
“It’s him,” Viktor roared, dragging himself out of the snow pile in which he’d landed, bum-first, after the sneeze.
“Where?” Anna looked around. “Viktor, I see nobody. There is just snow. More snow. Snow snow snow. That is all we ever see.” She clapped her hands together which caused a small avalanche to drop from her almost square body. “Perhaps I should give up. Perhaps Fish is right and we can just carry on living as before.”
Viktor pointed to where Drift was now standing. “No. Look again. He’s there. See?” It was difficult to see more than a few feet ahead as the snow was hurtling through the air.
Anna strained her eyes. “I thought your friend said he was big with no nose?”
Viktor began stabbing at the snow with his shovel. “I said… I mean, my friend said, he had a big nose.”
Drift couldn’t help himself. “I do dot have a big doze,” he protested. “And I’m dot the doughman you’re ducking for.” He pointed to his face but, of course, his nose was at that moment safely tucked inside Fish’s blanket. “I’m iddocent.”
“I told you! It’s him,” Viktor sneered, his horrible little mouth tightening even more.
He advanced on Drift, his shovel raised. He looked threatening enough but Drift stared past Viktor and shrank back from Anna.
Fish’s mum was doing nothing. She didn’t have a pickaxe raised above her head. She wasn’t moving forward with a shovel. She was just stood perfectly still, staring at him. It was an unusual thing to do when faced with the now-giant snowman you were chasing for a crime he (probably) didn’t commit.
“Mum?” Fish said.
The wind was picking up, but it was an oddly silent wind. It blew curls of perfect snow everywhere except for the space between Anna and Drift. As though her stare was too cold even for the snow and the wind.
“Mum?” Fish sounded urgent, once more trying to win her mum’s attention. She was ignored. She ran into the gap between her new friend (if that’s what he was) and her mum. “MUM,” she said again. “Talk to me. Listen to me.”
Even Viktor spoke up, trying to get the woman’s attention. “Anna, it’s him. We can end this now, finish our deal and you and Fish can move on.”
Drift looked nervous at the mention of ending things. Fish glared at Viktor and received a sly grin in reply. Anna, however, kept staring.
Eventually, after what felt like a whole ice age had passed, she spoke.
“You…” Anna said. “You…”
“Oh dear,” Drift said, getting to his feet. “This won’t end well.”
Fish had never seen her mum like this, so cold and still, so without any kind of feeling. There had been long silences recently, of course there had. But even those were filled with feeling. Feelings of sadness and loss. No, Fish had never seen her mum like this. And she wasn’t sure she liked it. She reached for Drift’s hand…
…who grabbed it and gripped it.
There are plenty of things snowmen like Drift can’t do. They can’t drink tea out of fine china cups or dance particularly well. They certainly can’t fly or sunbathe. But they can do one thing with spectacular and singular brilliance: they can snowball. And that is exactly what Drift did the moment he decided to kidnap Fish.
Swaying from side to side, like a team of polar bears getting ready to bobsleigh, Drift hugged Fish close to his chest and rolled himself into ball before launching himself directly at the two adults.
“Beg your pardon,” he whispered, from inside the enormous snowball.
Now, polar bears don’t really go bobsleighing, and they never do it whilst ten-pin bowling, but if they did then that’s exactly what Drift’s escape would look like. He curled his considerable size into a ball and hurtled straight through Anna and Viktor, scattering them once more into the snow.
Once he’d put some distance between himself and his would-be hunters Drift stood, tucked Fish into one (surprisingly cosy) armpit, and began to run through the deep snow.
“I’M INNOCENT,” he shouted, turning to look back for a moment. “FREE DRIFT.”
And then he was gone.
Viktor pulled himself up out of the snow for the second time and ran towards his sled. “Where are you going?” Anna said.
“To see two hills about a snowman,” he said.
And then he too was gone.
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Illustration © Carl Pugh