Bad Yeti Read Online Free Page A

too. But deer are too cute to shoot.”
    “So you can help me track it, then?” I asked.
    “I should be able to run down something as big as a yeti. How tall did you say it was?”
    “Seven feet or so. I didn’t exactly measure it.”
    “Like I said, easy.”
    We all stood there and watched as Calamity strong-armed the curlicue chair back into shape. I honestly didn’t know how she managed because she was built like a string bean. Maybe the chairs were really flimsy. I decided I’d try it myself sometime when I didn’t have an audience.
    “Well?” she grumbled, tossing the chair to the ground. “What are we waiting for?”
    I glanced around the tent. It didn’t look anywhere near as cool as it had, but I didn’t think any of the chaperones would be tempted to rope it off as unsafe, if they even noticed the disrepair at all. That was good enough for me. Who wanted to spend time redecorating whenthere was a yeti to hunt?
    “Nothing,” I said. “Let’s go.”
    #
    We followed Amethyst into the woods, weapons at the ready. The tip of my sword trembled. Europa noticed, and she rubbed my shoulder soothingly. I wanted to tell her that it wasn’t fear so much as excitement that was making me shake. Well, maybe a little fear, but that was okay. But then I realized it was pretty dumb to argue with her—as a healer, caretaking was just in her nature.
    I walked in the middle of the group, which seemed backward to me. As the lone guy, shouldn’t I have been protecting the women? I felt like I should have been bringing up the rear, but Calamity had claimed that spot and I knew she was equal to it. Maybe someone would attack us and she could take her frustrations out on them. I’d just have to resist the urge to shout a battle cry and leap to her rescue.
    I spent so long overanalyzing the situation that when I looked up, I had no idea where we were. Which may have had something to do with the fact that I’d never been a Boy Scout, and one tree looked disturbingly like another—unless they were digitized, in which case I could have spotted a lazy programmer with a blindfold on.
    We were in a clearing. I was fairly certain we were still in the same state, since we’d only been walking for about five minutes and hadn’t hit a highway. Then a familiar rock caught my eye. Lariat and I had laughed about it when we’d set up our ambush; if you were to paint it yellow, it would have looked exactly like Pikachu. Too bad I hadn’t noticed it a millisecond sooner.
    “Amethyst, stop!” I shouted just as her foot hit the tripwire buried in the leaves around the rock.
    She half turned to face me as the catapults started firing. The air filled with Grade A extra-large eggs. The first one took Amethyst on the arm, followed by four body shots in quicksuccession. The other girls tried to duck and cover, squealing, but it was no use as a second volley of ovoid ammunition flew through the air. One egg splatted on my tunic; another took me on the side of the head and oozed a cold trail toward my eardrum. I covered my face with my hands and waited for the ambush to end.
    The eggs finally stopped flying, but I didn’t move. It would have been useless anyway; we’d made sure to set up our trap so that it would catch the Apples if they tried to flee. I heard a muffled
whoomph
as the tarps released the mountain of chicken feathers we’d stashed overhead. The downy feathers fell onto our shoulders like snow.
    When I opened my eyes, the ground was white. The girls looked like chickens with leprosy, because the feathers had only stuck to their eggy bits. Which actually made it even more hilarious than if we’d been completely covered.
    I started to snicker quietly to myself, when Calamity said, “I am going to kill those Apples,” in a voice that assured us she was not kidding at all. Something told me it would be wise to let the Apples take the blame for this one, at least for now. I bit the inside of my cheek and tried to hold in the