Do You Smell Carrots? 🥕 ⛄️

“STEAM THE POO!” screamed Callum at his mates who knew instantly what he meant as they joined him in running as fast as they could across the snow-covered sports field.

Over the many years of their friendship growing up together, Callum, Seth and William had generated a range of catchphrases only they would understand.

Along with “Steam the poo!” their current favourites included referring to girls as “Yucks”, parents as the “Enemy” and anyone who had really annoyed or upset them as various chocolate bars including “Fruit and Nut”, “Twix” and for the worst offenders “Kit Kat”. For example, “That Yuck told the Enemy about our trip to the cinema instead of doing our homework. What a Kit Kat!”

Their planned fun in the biggest snow fall in years had been rudely interrupted when one of their cold creations sprung to life and tried to stab Seth with its carrot nose. This was more than enough of a reason to run away. Sadly, that was as far as Callum’s idea went, so after a minute of poo steaming the boys came to a halt.

Looking back in the direction of the crazed snowman, hoping it was some kind of a snow mirage - if that was even a thing - the boys saw they had covered half of the sports field, impressing all three of them. They would readily admit they were not the peak of physical fitness. To their surprise the snowman had disappeared until its carrot nose peered out from over the hill to reveal they had not imagined it as it hopped towards them. It’s angry coal eyebrows and mouth were the main indication this cute little guy was not in the mood for warm hugs.

The boys could have kept running but Callum saw the line of trees leading to the forest were nearby so instead they ran over to hide from view. Seth spoke first, still trying to control his breathing.

“What the flipping heck is going on!?!”

“It’s obvious isn’t it? They must be some kind of snow aliens,” said Callum, trying to stay calm despite being scared out of his mind.

“Yer what? Snow aliens are not a thing!” William spent a lot of his time correcting his daft mates.

“Yes they are! Johnny Evans told me about them once and there’s a whole thing about it on YouTube,” boasted Callum.

“Yeah right, next to the real footage of Big Foot shopping in Morrisons?” said Seth ganging up with William.

“Well how do YOU explain what just happened? Psycho snowmen coming over that field to kill us? That’s not how ice works!” Callum pointed towards their hopping ice enemy which was getting closer by the second.

William thought long and hard trying to prove his mate wrong but in the end he still went with his first stupidest thought.

“Brain freeze?”

“Hahaha! You Wally!!!” Seth had defected and was now on Callum’s side of the argument.

“Oh shut up the pair of yer! We need to think!! How are we going to protect ourselves from them?” William folded his arms and ignored their giggles.

“Okay this should be easy. I’ve kicked over hundreds of snowmen made by Twixes I hate. So we should just kick it in the face!” said Callum re-enacting how he kicks down snowmen.

“Isn’t that too close, they might stab you or jump on yer!” asked William. 

“Not if I do a flying dropkick.” 

“Next!” said Seth, who had no intention of getting that close to any killer snowman again.

“Okay we could get sticks and beat it to pieces” said William thinking how else he’s destroyed Snowmen in the past.

“Not bad!” nodded Seth and Callum.

“How did the snow man die in that cartoon about the snowman? Oh! What was it called again?” asked William.

“What? The Snowman?” said Callum.

“Yeah that’s it! How did he die?” 

“I think he just melted overnight.” said Seth.

“Great! So we could hide until the sun comes out and they all melt!” 

William immediately looked at his mobile to check the weather forecast.

“It says here that it will be cold and snowing for the next three days. Crap! That’s too long! They’ll be here in five minutes!!”

“How did that snowman die in that film with the snow powers and all the frost and freezing cold weather?” asked Callum remembering he was forced to watch that film three times in one day by his baby sister.

“What? The one where everything’s frozen?” asked William.

“Yeah!”

“Well, he doesn’t die, does he? He gets his own personal snow cloud forever,” William said.

“Like that would ever happen,” said Seth scornfully.

“What, like snowmen would suddenly come to life and try to kill us would never happen,” batted back Callum sarcastically.

“Oh this is useless, I think we need to go get some help because we’ll be dead before we come up with a good idea.” William immediately thought of someone that fit the description.

“That’s it! We need help. Nice one, mate!”

“Cheers Seth!”

“And who do we annoy and upset when we need some help at school?” asked Callum

“MR ROACH!!” all three screamed at the same time.

“His house is only a few minutes away by the school so let’s see if he’s in. He’ll know what to do!” All three boys saw the snowman was now only metres away so they ran into the forest, darted for the path that led to the other side of the school and sprinted to Pat’s flat whilst the snowman reached the trees, hopped around on the spot trying to find its human targets. Their little carrot nose twitched trying to pick up their scent.

Pat Roach sat warmly in his little caretaker flat next to the main school building with his feet up on the sofa watching an omnibus of “Homes Under The Hammer”. He was giggling intermittently to himself overjoyed in the knowledge the cold weather and the amount of snow overnight had given him an extra day off. His blissful extra holiday was unexpectedly interrupted by a banging on his front door and the muffled shouts of “Sir!! Are you there?”

With his retirement a few months away it took Pat a bit longer to get up these days. This meant over the next two minutes as he made his way out of the chair and to the front door he had to keep screaming “Shut up! I’m coming!” and “Stop banging you pillocks! You’ll break the door in!”. Unlocking the front door Pat was presented with his three least favourite pupils. His face immediately dropped.

“What do you three want? It’s a snow day! Just go have fun and leave me alone!” Pat started to slam his door and Callum lunged for the door jamming his foot to keep it open.

“No sir, listen! We need your help! We’re being chased by this… this thing!”

Pat had heard something like this before from these nuisances.

“Oh yeah? What is it this time? Nessy? Dracula’s sister? Or Frankenstein’s Gran?” 

“No sir, honestly we’re not lying this time. It’s true! It’s a killer snow…” Callum stopped speaking as he noticed Pat’s face had gone pale. Before he could ask his mates what was behind him, Pat let out a huge “AGGGHH!”, kicked Callum’s foot out of the doorway and slammed his front door making sure it was fully locked before running into his living room to close the curtains.

Callum span round and saw William and Seth being swung around by the crazed snowman.

“Hit him, Call!!!” screamed William trying to wrestle his way out of its wooden twig arms.

Callum ran off and disappeared from view shocking his mates.

“Where are you going?” shouted Seth as he was flung to the ground along with William. Scrabbling around they tried to get onto their feet only to find the snowman had stopped to face them.

“Maybe it’s run out of evil energy?” proposed William but was soon proved wrong when the head of the snowman began to rock back and forth, back and forth faster and faster on top of its frosty body until its carrot nose was acting as a head banging death machine.

Once the head was in kill mode, it began to hop its icy body towards its latest victims as William and Seth tried to stop slipping on the icy snow and get out of there. It was too late, the snowman now inches away loomed over them both when…

“DUCK!” screamed Callum

“Where?” said William stupidly looking to the sky.

“No! You Twix! DUCK!!!?” 

William and Seth understood the second time of asking as Callum swung a huge fallen branch he’d found nearby towards the snowman, sending its snow head flying high into the air and smash into tiny pieces on the roof of Pat’s flat. The rest of the snowman’s body remained fixed to the ground rocking from side to side.

William and Seth ran up to hug Callum.

“Yes mate, I thought you’d run off and left us for a minute!” revealed William.

“Leave my mates? Never!” Callum would never reveal to them how close he was to just running home as fast as possible and leaving them to it.

“Shall we do the rest of the body just in case?” asked Seth staring at this wobbly lower body of the headless killer snowman. Callum didn’t have a chance to respond as they saw the snowman’s stick arm twist and point to the sky. Instantly the powdered ground shook, sending the boys crashing to the floor. All the snow around the snowman began to dance in the air, first around its body and then either side creating three large snow tornadoes or snow-nadoes in front of the boys.

Before they could run away the snow-nadoes cleared, they found themselves facing not one killer snowman but now three new and improved killer snowmen including their old adversary with a new head. All three snowmen gave a lumpy coal evil smile as they planned their next move.

“Please we mean no haAGGGHH ME ARM!!!” 

All three snowmen had chosen one of the three boys and leapt onto them ready to finish them off. Callum caught the snowman’s twig arms in mid-air and was trying to rip them off. William was in a similar tussle on the floor trying to kick his opponent in its snowy nuts. Finally, Seth who was the strongest of them by far was enjoying the wrestling match and bit off the end of his snowman’s carrot nose. He spit it out when he realised it contained bogeys. Although they were all putting up a great fight, they were starting to run out of steam against these unstoppable ice-cold killing machines. If only Mr Roach had helped them! 

Just when they all thought they were about to be even colder than their opponents permanently, a wave of fire blew over their heads engulfing the three killer snowmen melting them instantly and soaking the boys with warm water. The fire died down quickly revealing the boy’s saviours. Standing in front of them were the missing “Yucks” Gabi, Ella and Sadie who had been very busy on their own adventure. Ella was shaking her head at the pathetic soggy frightened mess of boys laying in front of them.

“Never send boys to do a girl’s job!” she declared proudly blowing out the flame on the end of her make shift flamethrower built from a Bunsen burner from the science block and a big can of de-icer. 

Gabi and Sadie nodded along to the sentiment as the boys remained frozen in time on the ground with the smoking twig remains of their defrosted alien attackers still wrapped around their necks. 

“Saved by the Yuckiest of Yucks? We’ll never live this down!” thought Callum as he stared at himself in the mirrored puddle of killer snowmen around him feeling his fear and fingers beginning to thaw.