"Laura Resnick - The Abominable Snowman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Laura)

again invited him to Christmas dinner and tried to encourage him to
participate in all those gay Christmas festivities that any informed person
automatically associates with the North Pole. It was clearly hopeless,
however, and with a sigh that shook his piles, Kris finally left Yeti alone.
No one bothered Yeti much during the next few days, since that fourth
week in December is always such a busy time in Santa's Village. The company
controller discovered a shortage in Lettuce Patch Dolls due to an error in
paperwork, and the elves really had to put their shoulders to the wheel, so to
speak, during those last few crucial days. Then on Christmas Eve, there was,
as usual, a big send off for Kris, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet,
Cupid, Donner, Blixen, and Rudolph. The event was sort of a combination food
fest, parade, and clean up party (because all that frenetic activity of the
pre-Christmas week always left Santa's Village looking like there'd been a
rock concert there).
Yeti, as Kris had feared, didn't attend the send off. Standing around
in the snow made his feet go numb and his nose run, and he had never really
enjoyed the hot buttered rum and steamed cider that Mrs. Kringle pressed on
him -- particularly not with all those elves quivering every time his stomachs
growled.
So Yeti stayed home in his cave on Christmas Eve, dreaming of the
things he really wanted to do. He longed to lie in a softly rocking hammock
strung between two banyan trees and sip strawberry daiquiris -- or maybe
margaritas -- while fanning himself lazily and listening to the chirping of
tropical birds in some steamy southern clime.
The howling of the north wind, however, broke in upon his thoughts,
reminding him that, as Kris had pointed out at least a dozen times, Abominable
Snowmen lived in the snow, not in steamy jungles or seaside resorts. With a
great, sad sound, Yeti took himself off to bed.
His ruminations on Tolstoy were disturbed the next day when he heard
the cry of a loud male voice, a voice characterized by the somewhat jarring
nasality most commonly associated with an English public school education.
"I say! Is anybody there? Hullo!"
Wrapping several warm blankets around himself, since it was a
bone-chilling ninety-eight-below today, Yeti left his cave and went in search
of the owner of that voice. He had long since stopped being amazed at how many
people lost their way in the North Pole and stumbled upon his cave, but he
honestly hadn't expected to find a stranger wandering around on Christmas Day.
Most folks, even mad dogs and Englishmen, could be counted on to stay where
they belonged on December 25th. But not, Yeti was about to learn, an intrepid
explorer like Sir Hilary Winston Gladstone Edmundson-Smythe III.
"Speak English, do you? Jolly good show!" cried Sir Hilary when Yeti
introduced himself. "Bit lost, y'know. Devil of a time! Sherpas deserted eight
days ago. Rotten luck, what?"
"Uh, yes," Yeti said carefully. Sir Hilary was either snow-blind or
terribly jaded, since he was acting as if it were an everyday thing to
encounter an Abominable Snowman.
"Yeti..." Sir Hilary said musingly. "Tibetan word, eh? May apply to a
real but unknown Himalayan creature, or to a mountain spirit or demon."
"That's ... quite impressive, Sir Hilary. Not many people know the
origin of my name."