Steampunk Family

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A Clue

By Madame vonHedwig on Friday, January 1st, 2010

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In which Bettina finds moss where no moss should be.

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The children clustered aft in the boiler launch, guarded by a yeti controlled by an evil Italian botanist. The boiler crew’s launch was larger than the Schmetterling, but far less organized. Equipment parts were strewn about, as were tools, mechanical parts, cushions, broken chairs, tin cans, forged iron puzzle toys, a Chinese checker board with its marbles everywhere,  clumps of dust and hair, and food.

The yeti stood between them and the Count like a furry wall, but never looked at the children, staring straight ahead. While Montesanto looked out the fore windows to guide Adolphus’ flight, the children explored their prison.

The twins methodically checked the broken chairs for use as clubs. Claire and Gerhardt examined tools and equipment parts in the mad hope of building something useful. Bettina sifted through the rubble as well. She found a bag of marshmallows, and gave them to Gerhardt without eating a single one. As he took it from her he saw the reddish brown thatch clutched in her hand.

“Where did you get that?” he whispered.

Bettina pointed to the yeti.

“May I see it?”

She held out her hand for his inspection, but did not relinquish her souvenir.

“That’s not fur,” he said, perplexed. “Claire, that’s not fur.”

“What?”

“Quiet from the children!” sang the Count. “I have so many hostages, I can afford to keep only quiet ones.” He turned and smiled a wicked smile at them, and they noticed for the first time that he had an unpleasant, smudgy mustache. They repressed a collective shudder.

“Cavolo! Keep your eye on your work, you foul boy! You nearly ran us into the mountain.” Their captor turned back to supervise Adolphus, who had tried to crash-land the craft while the Count wasn’t looking.

Claire returned to the project at hand, sorting possibly useful detritus from not.

Gerhardt persisted. “Claire,” he whispered, “it’s not fur, it’s moss!”

“Who cares?” she mouthed.

“It may be important, you know, a thing… a whatsit.”

“A weapon?” whispered Mirabelle.

“No!” Gerhardt looked harassed. “A thing that makes you figure out things.”

“A clue?” Annabelle whispered.

“Yes! Why is there moss on a yeti?”

Claire had sorted all the mechanical bits she could find without crawling past their hirsute guard. She looked wistfully at a small welding torch hanging on the wall behind the Yeti, but it was out of reach.

The others examined their guard. It towered over the children, head grazing the ceiling of the launch. It was all over in reddish brown shaggy hair, except its face and the pads of its paws, which were much more like feet and hands than paws.

“I don’t see any moss,” Annabelle said.

Bettina pointed up, and their gazes followed. The fur on the yeti’s head and neck looked matted, short and tangled compared to the hair on its body.

“It’s like a helmet,” Gerhardt said, “a helmet and gorget.” He had made a study of warfare in the middle ages, as boys of a certain age are wont to do.  “I don’t think that’s natural.”

“Poor Bear-Man,” said Bettina.

“More of an Ape than a man, I think.”

“Poor Bear-Monkey Man.”

“I think that botanist chap with the nasty mustache put the moss on the yeti,” Gerhardt said, “but I don’t know why.”

“Does it matter?” asked Mirabelle. “If we take it off, we’ll be fighting the mustache man, right?”

Gerhardt looked skeptical, but Annabelle nodded, and without another word they turned out their pockets.

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This story began in On Grandmothers. The previous episode is Kidnapped! and the next is The Yeti and the Comb.

Tags: Adolphus, Annabelle, Bettina, boiler monkey, children, Claire, gas, Gerhardt, hedwig, Himalayas, lamp, light, Mirabelle, punk, steam, steampunk, stories, story, vonHedwig, ya, Yeti, young adult