Migo followed the tiny footprints across the snow. Soon he heard strange music. Instinctively he kept low by rolling across the snow and hiding behind boulders so that he wouldn’t be seen.
Finally he arrived at a strange wooden dwelling with a peaked roof. The music was coming from inside, and light glowed from within.
“Wow,” Migo said. He crept closer to the building, and spotted the goat lurking behind the back wall, chewing on something. It looked up at Migo and kept chewing.
“Whatcha got there?” Migo asked, approaching the animal. Startled, the goat dropped what it had been chewing and bolted away. Migo picked up the object—a sneaker. He held it up to his own foot.
“A small . . . foot,” he said.
Then a creature walked out of the building. A creature with wavy brown hair and stressed-out blue eyes.
“There it is!” Migo cried. “Look at it. So majestic. So amazing. I should introduce myself. Oh, but why am I so scared?”
The Smallfoot was talking into a box, but to Migo it sounded like squeaks and chirps.
“Hmm, no language skills,” Migo mused. “Didn’t see that one coming.”
He cautiously made his way toward the Smallfoot—Percy, who was leaving a phone message for Brenda.
“Brenda, please come back,” he pleaded. “It’s just this one time. I promise. Then we’ll do the integrity thing. Please call me when you get this!”
Percy ended the call and glanced down to see an enormous, furry foot with blue toes. He looked up to see Migo grinning down at him.
“Thank you, Brenda!” Percy said, mistakenly thinking it was Brenda inside the Yeti suit. “You even put on the stilts! And the suit doesn’t even look fake. It’s quite convincing. So here’s the shot. I’ll film over here.”
Migo heard: Squeak, squeak! Chirp, squeak!
“It’s doing all the talking,” Migo muttered. “Just say something, you idiot! Here we go.”
He walked closer to Percy. “Hi. I’m Migo, and I have fallen very far—”
Percy heard: Grrrrrr, grroooowwl!
“Blimey, good growl!” Percy said. “Did you put an amplifier in there or something? This is why I work with you, Brenda. When you’re in, you’re all in!”
He produced a small camera from his backpack and hit a button on it. A telescoping arm shot out, and he flipped the camera toward him so that he could film himself.
“Hair looks good, nice bit of backlight. Okay. Here we go. Yeti discovery shot, take one!” he cried.
Then his voice changed so that he sounded breathless, as though he’d been hiking for a very long time.
“Percy Patterson here, high in the Himalayas,” he began. “I was looking for the rare—”
Migo’s head poked into the frame as he tried to introduce himself to Percy.
“Not yet,” Percy said, pushing Migo out of the way. “Okay. Cut that bit, and in three, two, one . . .”
He began the narration again. “I was looking for the rare Himalayan jumping spider, but I just heard a low growling coming from this direction.”
He spun the camera around to face Migo.
“Ahhh. Is that . . . a Yeti?” Percy cried, sounding like a bad actor. Then he whispered to Migo, “Do the growl.”
At that moment Percy heard the sound of an engine behind him. He whipped the camera in that direction to see Brenda, riding a snowmobile.
“Do you mind?” he asked. “Will you turn that off, Brenda? I am trying to shoot Brenda in this . . .”
His voice trailed off as the realization hit him.
“Wait a minute . . . Brenda?”
He moved the camera to Migo. Then back to Brenda. Then back to Migo.
“Hi,” Migo said, but what Percy heard was, Groooowwwwwllll! Brenda drove off, but Percy was too terrified to notice.
“Y-y-y-y-yehht-t-t-ti.” Percy could barely get the word out.
“You know, you’ll laugh, because in my world everyone thinks you’re a terrifying monster,” Migo said. He mimed being a scary monster and growled for real this time. Grrroooowwwwlllll!
Shaking with fear, Percy stumbled backward and fell.
“You don’t look terrifying to me,” Migo was saying. “You’re adorable!”
Percy screamed and ran away.
“Oh, the Smallfoot song,” Migo said, remembering the frightened screams of the crashed pilot. “I know this one. I know it, I know it.” Growwwllll! “Is that not right?”
Percy ran for the door of the Yak Shack, but Migo jumped and landed in front of him. Percy turned and ran the other way, but he tripped and fell. His animal tranquilizer pistol slid out of his backpack and skidded to a stop in front of the curious goat.
“I just need to take you home and prove to everyone that you exist, so I can get un-banished,” Migo tried to explain. “Okay?”
By now he had cornered Percy against the wall of the Yak Shack.
“You want to bring anything?” Migo asked.
Percy saw the goat walking away with the tranquilizer gun in his mouth. He had to get to it, somehow! He picked up a ski pole lying on the ground and hurled it at Migo.
Thunk! It stuck into the Yeti’s forehead, but he didn’t flinch. Percy dove through Migo’s legs, slid across the snow, and grabbed the tranquilizer pistol. His hands shaking, he turned and aimed it at Migo.
“You want to bring that too?” Migo asked. “That looks cool.”
Before Percy could shoot it, Migo reached out and tapped the gun. The dart fired straight up into the air! Realizing it was a good distraction, Percy broke into a run.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait! Where are you going?” Migo called out. “Look how excited you are!”
Migo grabbed at Percy, but he slipped through Migo’s fingers like a bar of soap. He shot up into the air, and then landed on top of Migo’s head. Percy grabbed onto Migo’s horns and fur, trying to find a way to bring the Yeti down.
Migo thought the little guy was playing. He flopped down onto the ground, laughing.
“Ha-ha-ha!” Migo laughed. “That tickles!”
But Percy didn’t hear playful laughter. He heard only growls and grunts, and thought Migo was fighting him. He struggled desperately, trying to get away, but fate had other plans for Percy.
The tranquilizer dart sailed back down from the sky. Percy saw it coming but couldn’t get out of the way.
Thump! The dart landed, piercing Percy’s butt and tranquilizing him. His eyes rolled back in his head as the sleepy effect took hold. “That’s ironic,” he said, and then he fell over, unconscious.
“Um, Smallfoot? Hello?” Migo asked, but the Smallfoot had suddenly fallen asleep.
It wasn’t a bad turn of events, actually, because now Migo could simply carry the Smallfoot back to his Yeti village. He looked at Percy’s scattered belongings and picked up a sleeping bag and a length of rope. He strapped the sleeping bag to the front of his chest and then stuffed Percy inside.
“Hope you don’t mind, but I’m taking you home,” he told the sleeping Percy. “I’m gonna be like, ‘Yo, what’s up?’ And they’re gonna be like, ‘Is that a what?’ And I’m gonna be like, ‘Yeah!’ And their faces are gonna be like . . . ‘Smallfoot exists!’ ”
He smiled and made his way back home.