by Justin D'Ath
Then the engine revved up and the kidnappers went roaring off around the boulder, looking for the place where my tracks came out of the bushes. But they weren’t going to find anything. In thirty seconds, they’d do a complete circuit of the boulder and be back where they started. Then they’d work out what was going on.
Unless I did a disappearing act.
I counted slowly to ten, then gently pulled my finger from Tommy’s mouth and bulldozed out through the bushes. Tommy started crying again, but there was nothing I could do. A crying baby is better than a choking baby, which was what might have happened if I tripped over while I had a finger in his mouth. I could hear the snowmobile on the other side of the boulder. I had about fifteen seconds left. I hoped it was long enough. Placing my feet carefully in the boot tracks I’d made coming the other way, I lumbered away from the boulder as fast as I could. I just made it into the trees when I heard the snowmobile come roaring around the side of the boulder.
It slowed down and stopped, but the motor kept running.
Would they notice I’d doubled back on my tracks?
Would they hear Tommy? He was crying his little heart out. I bent my thumb so he could suck on the knuckle while I walked. It was too big to choke on and stopped him crying. I heard the snowmobile stop, too. The stutter of its two-stroke engine echoed faintly through the mountains even after it was turned off. Then I heard the kidnappers’ voices.
‘… no other tracks …’
‘… must be still in there …’
It had worked! The kidnappers thought Tommy and I were still hiding in the bushes. They’d have to go in on foot to look for us. It would be at least a couple of minutes before they worked out I’d tricked them.
How far could I go in a couple of minutes?
Not far. After only one minute, I had a really bad stitch. I had to stop and take a break.
That was when I heard it. The snowmobile had started up again. But it sounded like it was ahead of me, not behind.
Was I going in circles?
Suddenly I saw a flash of movement between two trees about fifty metres away. Mystery solved. I’d forgotten there were two snowmobiles. Two snowmobiles and four kidnappers. This was the second pair of kidnappers – the ones from the cable car. They must have changed into white ski suits like the others and were following the tracks of the first snowmobile.
Uh oh!
I was standing in the middle of the tracks.
4
AVALANCHE
They were going way too fast, weaving through the trees at breakneck speed. The driver was watching the tracks in the snow, not what was ahead.
He didn’t see me and Tommy until the last moment.
He hauled on the handlebars to avoid running us down. I tried going the other way, but it was impossible to move quickly in the knee-deep snow. All I could do was wrap both arms protectively around the baby prince and turn my back on the approaching snowmobile, hoping my body would shield him from the impact.
WHOMP!
That’s what it sounds like when a snowmobile hits a tree. Somehow the driver had managed to swerve past without hitting me. But he lost control of his big, heavy machine and it flipped, throwing him and his passenger clear. Which was lucky for them. They landed in the soft snow next to me. The snowmobile cartwheeled down the steep, slippery slope and slammed into a tree.
For about three seconds there was silence, then …
BOOM!
That’s what it sounds like when a snowmobile explodes.
It looked amazing. There was a giant ball of yellow flame. Bits of snowmobile and branches went flying into the sky, trailing long lines of smoke and sparks behind them. I felt the shock wave from thirty metres away.
Then I felt something else. The ground shook.
And I heard something else – a deep, low rumble, like thunder.
All around me, trees began trembling. A sudden shower of snow fell from their leaves and branches.
The kidnapper nearest me sat up. He frowned at the other kidnapper, who was rubbing his shoulder.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
‘Earthquake?’ suggested the other man.
But it wasn’t an earthquake, it was something worse. Something I’d seen before, on a skiing trip to the South Island of New Zealand.
‘It’s an avalanche,’ I said, rising to my feet. ‘Quick, climb up the hill.’
Both the kidnappers looked at me with startled expressions, as if they’d forgotten I was there. I shouldn’t have attracted attention to myself. The man nearest me leapt up and grabbed my arm.
‘Why go up?’ he asked. ‘If it’s an avalanche, won’t it come down the mountain?’
‘The explosion set it off.’ I pointed in the direction of the wrecked snowmobile. ‘It’ll probably start down there.’
There was another rumble, louder than the first one. This time I didn’t just feel the ground move, I saw it move. Just downhill from where we stood, a long blue line appeared in the snow. It slowly grew wider, until there was a deep trench running right across the slope.
Then, with a rumble that made my teeth rattle, everything below the trench – a patch of snowy hillside roughly the size of a city block – began sliding into the steep valley below us.
‘Crikey!’ muttered the man holding my arm.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it!’ gasped the other one.
For a few seconds they forgot all about me. It was the distraction I needed. Steadying Tommy with my free arm, I flung myself sideways, away from my captor. He wasn’t ready for it. His gloved hand lost its grip on my shoulder and I was free.
‘Hey!’ he yelled, stumbling clumsily after me.
I tried to get past him, heading uphill, but the other kidnapper anticipated my move and cut off my escape route.
I whirled around and went flat out in the other direction. Back down the slope. The kidnappers were right behind me, puffing and cursing as they blundered through the heavy snow. I couldn’t let them catch me.
Couldn’t let them get Tommy.
With a giant leap, I flew across the widening trench and landed safely on the other side.
But how safe was that?
I’d jumped into the avalanche.
5
GAME OVER
It was just like being on a moving island. Everything around me was sliding down the mountainside. Not just the snow, but the trees as well. They toppled like matchsticks, mowed down by the avalanche. It was a million-tonne tsunami of snow and ice. Nothing could stand in its way.
And it was moving faster every second. So was I.
I looked back at the kidnappers, two tiny figures standing on a bank of solid snow where the avalanche had started. What had I been thinking? Tommy would have been safer if I’d left him with them. No amount of ransom money would bring a dead prince back to life.
But he wasn’t dead yet, and neither was I.
We would be soon if I didn’t do something. We were sinking. I was buried to my hips in a rushing, tumbling, heaving sea of snow and ice. It was like being caught in an ocean rip. All I could do was hug Tommy to my chest and try to stay upright. I had to keep our heads clear. If the avalanche dragged us under, we’d be history. Tommy peered out through the narrow gap of my ski-suit zipper like a frightened joey. It looked like he was crying but I couldn’t hear him. There was too much other noise. The hiss of sliding snow. The boom boom boom of tree trunks snapping. The rumble of a whole mountainside on the move.
Suddenly there was an extra loud BOOM, and a huge grey shape splashed into the snow next to me. It was a mountain ash. They’re the biggest trees in the forest. Its broken trunk towered over me like the hull of a ship, rocking and swaying as it was swept along by the awesome power of the avalanche.
Then it happened. I started going under. A whirlpool of icy snow wrapped around me, spinning me, tugging me down. It was too big to fight. Too powerful. I felt like an ant caught in rapids. Totally helpless. I couldn’t see anything. Could ba
rely breathe. When I tried to gulp in air, my lungs filled with ice.
And what about Tommy? I thought. Could he breathe?
Was my jacket keeping the ice out of his mouth?
I screamed. Or tried to. Something crunched into my back, turning my scream into a shout of anger. I didn’t want to die! Didn’t want Tommy to die, either. I felt mad at the avalanche. I wanted to lash out at it. Defend myself. Fight it. But you can’t fight snow. It just slips through your fingers. So I took my anger out on the thing behind me – the thing pressing against my back. It felt solid. Summing up all the force I could muster, I drove my elbow into it.
Thump!
Luckily the sleeves of my ski suit were padded. And luckily I was wearing two layers of clothing underneath. But it still hurt. Ooow! The pain brought me back to my senses. I realised what was behind me. The trunk of the fallen mountain ash. And I realised something else, too. A tree trunk is solid. It doesn’t slip through your fingers like snow. You can grab it.
Fumbling blindly, I found the stump of a broken branch. I grabbed hold and pulled myself up through the press of smothering snow. There was another branch higher up. And another one just above that. Feeling my way from branch to branch, and being very careful not to crush Tommy between me and the tree, I climbed out of the avalanche onto the wide, rocking trunk of the mountain ash.
It was totally wild! The huge fallen tree was careering down the mountainside, riding the avalanche like a surfboard. With me and Tommy on top, safe from the churning white chaos all around us. But it didn’t feel safe. The tree bucked and swayed and jolted. At any moment, I expected it to go nose-down into a sudden gully, or roll over, or ram into something and spill us into the swirling snow. But our giant surfboard held its course. It flew over every gully and smashed through every obstacle, all the way to the bottom of the valley.
Finally the avalanche emptied onto a flat river plain and spread across it like a spilled, million-litre vanilla slushy. A dirty vanilla slushy – the churned snow was littered with torn-up boulders, branches, logs, whole trees.
The trunk of our mountain ash came to rest overhanging the river.
In the sudden stillness that followed, the loudest sound was a wailing baby.
‘We made it, Tommy,’ I gasped, and gave him a fingertip to suck on.
I was shaking from cold – or maybe with delayed shock after our narrow escape – and my teeth were rattling. And there was a burbling river ten metres below us. So even when Tommy stopped crying, I didn’t notice the other noise straightaway.
But after a few seconds it was unmistakable – a tiny drone, like a wasp, getting louder. Uh oh.
It was a two-stroke engine.
I looked back up the mountain. The snowmobile was about four hundred metres away, weaving down through the trees beside the wide, ploughed-up scar left by the avalanche. Sunlight flashed on the passenger’s ski goggles as she turned her head in our direction. She tapped the driver on the shoulder and pointed.
They’d seen us.
‘We’re out of here!’ I said to Tommy.
But where else could we go?
Across the river. The snowmobile wouldn’t be able to follow us. But how would I get across? The water looked really cold. I could see a crust of ice along the opposite bank. If my socks got wet – and they certainly would – I’d risk losing my toes to frostbite. And the risk to Tommy was even worse. Babies need to stay warm. One slip or wrong step while I crossed the river, and Tommy would get a dunking in the freezing water. He’d be dead within half an hour.
I couldn’t risk Tommy’s life again. Already I’d risked it by jumping into the avalanche. That time had been an accident – I was trying to get away from the kidnappers and hadn’t thought of the consequences. This time I had thought of them. If things went wrong, Tommy would die. And it would be my fault.
So crossing the river wasn’t an option.
What else could I do? The snowmobile was getting closer. It was only three hundred metres away. I could never outrun it.
Game over, I thought.
Then I had an idea. The kidnappers were after Tommy, not me. If I left him next to the giant tree trunk for the kidnappers to find, they wouldn’t bother coming after me. I could cross the river and escape. Frozen toes would be better than what the kidnappers might do if they caught me.
Tommy looked up at me with his big blue eyes and blew bubbles around my finger.
I sighed. I couldn’t leave him.
‘We’re in this together, Tommy,’ I said.
Pulling my zipper up so the baby prince was warm and snug against my chest, I climbed down off the tree trunk and turned towards the river.
6
GUYS WITH GUNS
I hadn’t seen them earlier because the tree trunk partially obscured my view. But when I came slithering down the slope, I noticed a row of small red reflectors poking out of the snow. They were the tops of buried marker posts.
There was a road next to the river. A good two-hundred-metre section of it was buried under the avalanche. Further along, a strip of frosty bitumen emerged from the snow and curved around the side of a hill. I quickened my pace. I had no plan other than to reach the unburied section of road before the kidnappers caught up with me.
Maybe snowmobiles can’t travel on sealed roads, I thought.
I didn’t find out, because I was only halfway there when a blue-and-white campervan came racing around the side of the hill. It had chains on its tyres. They clattered noisily on the bitumen. But not noisily enough to drown out the rising, wasp-like whine of the snowmobile behind me.
‘Help!’ I cried, waving one arm in the air and supporting Tommy with the other. ‘It’s an emergency!’
The van came shuddering to a standstill next to me. A man wearing a yellow-and-brown beanie leaned across from the driver’s seat and pushed open the passenger door.
‘Jump in,’ he said.
I climbed in and slammed the door. ‘Do a U-turn,’ I cried, gasping for breath. ‘We’ve got to get out of here!’
Beanie Man eyed me strangely. It was hardly surprising. I’d jumped into his campervan and started giving orders.
‘There are some guys after me,’ I explained. ‘Guys with guns.’
The snowmobile was less than a hundred and fifty metres away and closing in fast.
‘Hurry!’ I said.
Beanie Man seemed unconcerned by my panic. ‘How’s His Majesty?’ he asked.
We both looked down at the bump in my ski suit.
‘H-he’s okay,’ I stammered, confused. How did he know about Prince Thomas?
‘Show me,’ said Beanie Man.
I opened my collar so he could see Tommy’s head.
Beanie Man smiled. But it wasn’t the goofy smile of someone looking at a baby. It was an evil smile. Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out a big, snub-nosed pistol and pointed it at me.
‘Look, another guy with a gun,’ Beanie Man said.
7
END OF THE ROAD
There were five kidnappers, not four. The fifth one – Beanie Man – must have broken into the cable car control room down at the ski lodge. The others would have been in touch with him by mobile phone and told him to stop the cable car when it reached the pylon.
When I escaped with the baby they must have got in touch with him again, and he’d come looking for me. No wonder he looked so pleased with himself. I’d delivered Crown Prince Thomas right into his hands.
But not literally. Not yet. Tommy was still in my hands. Dazzled by the sunlight reflecting off the campervan’s windscreen, the baby prince started crying again. I shifted closer to the door to get him out of the glare.
‘Don’t try anything smart,’ warned Beanie Man, waving the big ugly pistol in my face. ‘This is a .357 magnum. Have you ever heard one go off?’
I shook my head.
‘They make a very loud bang,’ he said. ‘If I have to shoot you, the noise might damage His Majesty’s eardrums. And we don’t
want that to happen, do we?’
‘It’s okay,’ I said, giving Tommy a fingertip to suck on. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
‘Wise choice,’ said Beanie Man. ‘You never know, if you behave yourself, the boss might take pity on you.’
Then he chuckled. ‘But probably not. When I talked to her on the phone, she sounded pretty annoyed at you for running off with His Majesty. In fact, she sounded thoroughly ticked off. And the boss is not a very forgiving lady.’
I was surprised to hear that the kidnappers’ boss was female. Probably the woman on the snowmobile. I watched it come racing towards us.
It stopped next to the campervan and the two riders climbed off. The boss ripped off her goggles and helmet and came marching around to my door. She yanked it open.
‘Get out!’ she snapped.
I climbed gingerly out onto the snow-covered bitumen.
‘Give me the baby,’ said the boss.
I did as I was told. My hands were shaking. This was the end of the road – not the one I was standing on, but the one I’d been travelling for the past fourteen years. My life. The chilling look in the boss’s eyes told me it was almost over.
Tommy started crying again. The boss was holding him awkwardly, like someone who’d never held a baby before.
‘You need to support his head,’ I told her.
Her face twitched with anger. ‘Did I ask for your advice?’
‘No. But babies’ necks aren’t very strong.’
The boss shifted Tommy around so his head rested against her shoulder. It didn’t stop him crying.
‘Do you have any other suggestions, Mr Mum?’ she asked sarcastically.
I shrugged. ‘He might be hungry.’
‘Shhhh!’ said the short man who had been driving the snowmobile. He was frowning up at the sky with his head tilted to one side, as if he was listening to something. Or trying to listen. Tommy was cranking up the volume.
‘Waah waah waah WAAAAAAAH!’
With a look of frustration, the boss shoved the crying baby back into my arms. ‘See if you can shut him up.’