Katie and the Snow Babies (4 page)

Everything was going very wrong, thought Katie. She had to do something—and she had to do it quickly.

With a sharp flick of her lemon-colored tail, Katie pulled herself out of the sea and onto the ice.

“Lord Ulrick! Please wait,” she gasped. The others quickly followed her onto the frosty bluff. But at that moment, the mermaids heard a sudden noise of wailing and crying. It was coming from where the mother walruses were huddled together on the flat stretches of ice.

“Caspar! Oh, my lovely son, Caspar,” sobbed a plump mother walrus as she scrambled clumsily over the ice toward Ulrick. The Chief Walrus spun his heavy head around toward her.

“Why are you weeping, Inga, my daughter?” he asked anxiously. “What has happened to my dear grandson, Caspar?”

Inga paused and hid her face with her front flipper.

“My baby has gone,” she cried. “We can't find him anywhere!”

The Chief Walrus's face seemed to grow haggard in front of the mermaids' eyes.

“G-g-gone,” he stammered. “What do you mean?”

Then a rough, growly voice called out in answer from the sea, “I can tell you, if you will listen.”

Katie, the other mermaids, and all the walrus folk swung around to see who was speaking. Paddling furiously through the waves toward the ice's edge was a large, wet polar bear. It was Finn. He soon heaved himself out of the water and onto the ice, shaking his furry coat and scattering rainbow drops everywhere. Then he looked into Ulrick's dark eyes and spoke.

“Our babies—they're both missing.” Finn sighed heavily. “Your Caspar and my Max!”

Katie listened in shock as deep cries of concern echoed around the walrus folk. Ulrick stared at the father polar bear with confusion. “H-h-how can this be?” he stuttered.

Finn sat down wearily. “Max and I had been talking with these brave mermaids,” he explained. “Then we set off across the ice to go home. Max was dashing around
and playing as usual. But when I reached our lair he wasn't with me anymore. His mother is sick with worry.”

“And Caspar has gone from our home, too,” cried Inga.

Katie thought quickly. “Finn,” she said, turning to the father polar bear, “didn't you say that Max and Caspar were friends? Couldn't they have gone off together?” Then she turned to Ulrick. “You wouldn't allow them to play together, so they had to sneak off without telling their families. Your argument has put them in danger.”

Ulrick hung his head in shame.

“You said that I was wise, Sisters of the Sea, but I see now that I have been so foolish,” he said humbly. “Oh, Finn, my old friend, how could I let our stupid fight stand in the way of our babies' friendship?”

“It was a dark day when our own friendship was broken,” answered Finn quietly. “But maybe it is not too late to fix it.”

Ulrick looked up with hope in his eyes. “I wanted to make up with you long ago,” he said, “but I was too proud. And now our precious babies are lost in the wild snow—all because of my false pride.”

“Then let us forgive and forget,” said Finn gruffly. “In the name of friendship, let us work together to get them back!”

The lordly walrus and the kingly polar bear solemnly embraced each other, good friends once more.

“And now,” said the Chief Walrus, “we must put aside all that has happened in the past. Mermaids, I was wrong about Finn. Perhaps I was wrong about Mantora, too. But I cannot put my mind to those weighty matters until our young ones are found.”

“Will you help us to search for them, Sisters of the Sea?” asked Inga with pleading eyes. Katie, Amber, Jess, Megan, Becky, and Poppy nodded in agreement.

“We'll help you,” they vowed. “We'll do everything we can to rescue your lost babies.”

“But we need to have a plan,” added Amber urgently. All the mermaids knew that it would be difficult for the young creatures to survive alone in the icy wilderness, away from their families.

“Let's split up,” suggested Katie, looking around at the creatures sitting expectantly on the ice. “That way we won't all be searching in the same place at once.”

“Good idea, Katie,” said Jess. “Finn could search over the ice. Max and Caspar might be wandering far on the frozen plains.”

The shaggy polar bear rose quickly onto his strong paws.

“I will call my brothers to help me hunt for them,” said Finn, raising his head and uttering a deep roar. After a few moments, two other large polar bears bounded into view across the sparkling ice. They hesitated when they saw the Chief Walrus and looked uncertainly at their brother, Finn. But Ulrick spoke up.

“You are welcome,” he said. “There is no
longer any disagreement between the walrus folk and the bears. Speed on your way across the ice and good luck in your hunt!”

Finn and his brother bears set off swiftly across the wide, level ice, their white coats soon blending in with the horizon of snow.

“Could your folk swim up and down by the ice shore, looking for the little ones?” Megan asked Ulrick. He waved his flipper at several large walruses as a signal. They instantly dived into the sea to search by the frozen coast.

“And the seabirds could help us, too, if Katie calls them with her harp,” suggested Becky.

Katie quickly lifted her delicate mermaid harp from the cord over her
shoulders. She began to play a lively tune on its golden strings. The sweet, wild notes rose into the cloudless air. Before long, there was a flutter of wings and a group of gray and white gulls landed on the ice. Katie explained hurriedly what she needed them to do.

“Will you seek far and wide over the cold sea and fly swiftly to tell us any news?” she asked.

“We will!” the birds cried huskily as they flapped their strong wings and glided away.

“And now we must go, too,” Katie explained to Ulrick and Inga. “We are going to swim far from the ice shore to search the open sea. Wait here for us, and we will do our best to find them!”

One by one, the mermaids dived gracefully from the ice edge, calling their rescue cry:
Mermaid S.O.S.!

As the friends plunged underwater, hundreds of silver bubbles streamed out behind them. Swishing their jeweled tails, they darted away through the deep sea, calling “M-a-x!” and “C-a-s-par!” over and over again. But there was no reply.

“Be careful,” shouted Jess, who was slightly in front of the others. “Iceberg ahead!”

Katie looked up and saw the craggy sides of a huge underwater
iceberg looming over her. The mermaids surged around it, carefully avoiding its sharp, menacing edges.

“There are lots of icebergs in this part of the sea,” said Amber.

“And lots of smaller ice floes, too,” replied Becky thoughtfully, pointing upward to the surface. The mermaids could see several chunks of ice floating above them on the waves, like frozen rafts.

“Have you noticed something else?” asked Poppy. “The water doesn't seem as cold as it usually is. And some of those ice floes above us have strange cracks running across them.”

The mermaids looked up curiously.

“Let's go up to the surface and take a quick peek,” said Katie. “There's no
sign of Max and Caspar down here anyway.”

As the young friends lifted their heads above the waves and shook their shining curls, they saw several jagged white ice floes. These flat lumps of ice jostled into each other on the surface of the swirling sea, like the scattered pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

“You're right, Poppy,” said Megan. “These blocks of ice are starting to break up. That must mean the water really is getting warmer!”

The young friends looked very concerned, as they hovered in the clear waves. Was this cracking ice just due to chance, or did it have something to do with the missing diamonds? Was Mantora's evil plan to let Ice Kingdom melt starting to work already?

“We've simply got to find those snow diamonds,” said Amber in a determined voice.

“But first, we've got to find those snow babies,” cried Katie. “Caspar! Max! Are you out there?”