"What's that you're writing, Idiot?"

It was you-know-who, Xrytspet. I said, "Stop calling me, Idiot. Scram, Xrytspet!"

"Why are you saying in your article that there is no Big Foot, Mapinguary, Sasquatch, Florida Skunk Ape, Yeti, Yowie or Jersey Devil?" She gave a little snort and shook her head.

I said, "Mapinguary?"

She said, "The Brazilian Big Foot! Why is Taylor Jones, the hack writer, writing that crap?"

"Scram, Xrytspet!"

She didn't scram. She said, "I was going to take you to the Yeti Confutation in the Himalayas. Now I'm going by myself."

She stomped out of the room.

I ran after her.

The next thing I knew we were in her FnL7 Time Craft passing Hawaii. I asked Xrytspet what the Yeti were confuting. She said, "They are confuting Taylor Jones, the hack writer."

We landed in the clouds. Xrytspet said, "Here! You will need this. We are on Karakorum 2."

Karakorum 2 is K-2, the second highest mountain in the world. She gave me a device in the shape of my nose that fit over my nose. I slipped it on and was breathing normally at 25,000 feet altitude.

I said, "I could patent this and get rich."

She said, "Sure you could, but you couldn't make one. What good would it do you? You need Fenton technology to make them."

Fenton is Xrytspet's planet in G10009845788899990766. They are far advanced.

We stood in the fog on K-2. I said, "Now what? I'm freezing my buns off?"

She reached in her belt and pulled out a packet about the size of an Old Maid deck and told me to put it on.

I said, "Put what on?"

She opened the packet and threw over my head what looked like a large clear plastic sheet with a hole in the center. It instantly shrank around me. I was as warm as toast.

When the clouds drifted off, I could see that we were at the mouth of a cave; a cave in solid granite. We walked along a dark tunnel with only the orange glow that Xrytspet naturally emitted. Then we came into a very large chamber about the size of the main room in Carlsbad Caverns. Light came from a single but large torch. Xrytspet said, "Let's find a place to sit. We've got a while before they will be here."

I said, "I'm hungry!"

She said, "You are worse than a kid. Here, try this." She handed me a pill.

I said, "I'm not taking another one of your pills, Xrytspet. The last time I couldn't get off the throne for a week."

"Well, you asked for it with out asking what it was. This is okay. Eat it."

Reluctantly, I did. I felt like I had just eaten Thanksgiving dinner. That's when a train of hairy creatures came through the tunnel into the chamber. They carried torches and stopped dead when they saw us.

Xrytspet raised her arms and said, "Srusshtuh louilloa priscacanna Hisas aleqrum!"

They all ran like hell back out the tunnel, leaving the torches behind.

I said, "Now look what you've done."

She said, "They will be back. I should have used the common language of the Yeti, Zactrinaium. I used the priestly language, Tritomycola. But the priest will tell them to come back."

I asked, "What did you say?"

She said, "I told them that we were sent by their Great God, Hisas."

They didn't come back. I decided that they thought that Hisas sent Xrytspet to punish them. Xrytspet can be pretty scary the first time you see her.

That's when a huge hairy creature walked into the cavern. Xrytspet said, "Oh, it's you Phontos."

In a low growl he said, "Silzrack dropped me off. He told me to tell you that you must return to Fenton next week to check on your sick grandmother. He said that you will have to take me back to Fostoria."

I knew that was just a code that Silzrack, another Fentonian, used. It meant, "Sorry I couldn't stay to chat."

Phontos was about 8 feet tall, had glowing black eyes, a black nose like a polar bear, and smelled like my dog when he climbs out of the irrigation canal. He asked, "What happened to the Yetis? I saw them running, rolling, and sliding down the mountain like they had seen the Jersey Devil."

I said, "They did!"

Xrytspet said, "A slight misunderstanding. This is Taylor Jones, the hack writer. He doesn't believe you exist.

I said, "I'm sorry, Phontos."

He said, "No! Keep it that way. Keep writing those articles. That way more people will come looking for me. The more the better. They look during the day and I steal their provisions at night.

"They usually think it is a bear, not me.

"A Chigan's got to eat and I'm sick of eating the roots and nuts which I have been eating for the last three hundred years."

I said, "Oh! You call yourself Chicans. Do you have a family, Phontos?"

"We were Chicans. No family. I'm the only one left. When I die in a few hundred years, the tourist trade in the Northwest will drop like a spent rocket."

I asked, "How do you leave so few tracks and so little scat?"

"Levitation! That's why I come to these meetings. The Yetis have it perfected. As for the scat, I recycle."

I said, "Ugh! Where exactly do you live, or do you move around."

"In the summer if it's raining I sleep under a tree or, if it's clear I sleep on top of a mountain where I can study the cosmos.

"In the winter, I sleep in the public library in Fostoria until New Years, then I move down to Florida to become the Swamp Skunk Ape. I've read every book in the Fostoria library except those by Danielle Steele."

I said, "You don't like Danielle Steele?"

"I cruise the yard sales in the summer. Her novels are all over the place. That's when I read them."

I said, "You've got to be kidding."

He said, "You've seen some of the those creepy crawlers that go to yard sales. I fit right in."

I said,"You don't smell like a skunk like the Florida Swamp Ape."

He said, "I carry a vial of essence of skunk."

I said, "I've got an idea, Phontos. Have you heard of the Mapinguary?"

He said, "Thanks for the sentiments, Taylor Jones, the hack writer. There is only one Mapinguary left. We spent a couple of years together but she never liked me. She said, "Adios in 1876 and I haven't seen her since."

There were tears in his eyes.

I can't stand to see a great ape cry. I said, "Well, I think it's time to go. Those Yetis are never coming back to this place."

The End