WHOA, MY IGLOO'S A TIME MACHINE!

Perhaps you can't travel back to the ice age, but maybe you can bring the ice age to you — or at least some of its legendary creatures. That's exactly what Jamie "Toddle Turtle" does in this heartwarming and fun family centered story.

For those of us who are still a kid and love the ice age:

“Ice age legend has it, if you finish building an igloo after dark, with the entrance facing north . . . a yeti will appear.” said my dad in a serious voice, while we were sitting on the stairs of the back porch stargazing. “Fortunately, there are no yetis son.”

Boy was I disappointed, no yetis?! “Whew, shucks dad! So glad to hear that yetis are NOT real.”

“But just in case, you better hurry up and finish your little igloo before dark,” whispered dad as he looked at the bushes and held out his fist, “fist bump!”

Our family motto — one can never leave without a fist bump.

“Later, if all goes well.” said dad as he walked up the squeaky stairs to the house.

“Much later.” I thought, wondering why dad whispered when he looked at the bushes, was something watching us?

“Oh well, one could only hope a yeti would soon arrive.” I thought and continued building my igloo, slowly — hoping it wouldn’t be done until after dark.

Almost two hours later, it was completely dark and my backyard igloo was finally done, with an entrance facing north. “Yay!”

I then zipped inside the house and ran upstairs to find a flashlight. NEVER, never underestimate the power of a flashlight, it has powers beyond imagination.

In no time at all I was back outside and crawled into my most coolest igloo — now all I had to do was close the entrance with my old wooden sled and wait for the yeti to come.

My igloo was cozy and even warm inside, but quite dark, which made this the perfect opportunity for me to turn my flashlight on . . . and off, and on, and off, and on — I was bored, until I heard a sudden SNORT right outside my igloo.

Could the legend really be true? Or was my dad perhaps playing a trick on me?

There it was again, more noises! Huffing and growling. And then, there was a knocking on my door, I mean sled. “Um, no one’s home right now. Good answer genius,” I said to myself, trying to stop my legs from shaking, “okay dad, very funny.”

I looked through the cracks of my sled and saw to my surprise a white woolly dwarf MAMMOTH, so I thought, or was it an escaped snow monkey from the zoo?!

Of course not! Had to be mom, wearing her fake fur coat. “Hold on.” I chuckled, while the “creature” whimpered as if it was hurt.

I quickly moved my sled, but before I even had a chance to say “Gotcha!” a very real yeti, half my size, swooshed right by and into my igloo.

“Are you okay?” I asked the trembling yeti. “Do you have a name?! My name’s Jamie, ahem . . . Toddle Turtle.”

The yeti wrote it’s name in the snow with a sharp claw. “Jimbo Baby Frost.” I read outloud, I couldn’t believe it — there’s such a thing as YETI SCHOOL!

Jimbo Baby Frost smiled.

“How about I call you Jimbo?” I suggested, to which Jimbo Baby Frost nodded and held out his fist for a fist bump.

It was settled then, from here on out we would be known as the “Jimbo & Jamie” team, and NOT the “Toddle & Baby” team.

Jimbo’s stomach rumbled.

“Oh, so that was your tummy growling earlier. Wait here!” I said and hurried into the kitchen looking for food in the pantry.

“Expecting company or running away?” asked my mom jokingly.

“Mom! There’s a hungry yeti in my igloo!” I exclaimed.

“Oh great, for a minute there I thought it was something serious.” said my mom and smiled.

“Yeah . . .” I said with a crooked smile and rushed back to my igloo with a bagful of food and goodies.

Now what happened next may sound to amazing to be true, you’ve been warned. Five shrewd looking GECKOS from the ice age had appeared! Each as tall as me and of various colors — clearly my igloo was a time portal, WHOA.

As the geckos were crawling around on my igloo, it was obvious they were searching for Jimbo and up to no good, so I did the only thing I could do, I dropped the bag . . . and turned on my flashlight!

My flashlight was no longer just a flashlight, but a magic light beam — which, when pointed at a gecko, caused it to shriek with fear.

Lucky for me they happened to be cave geckos.

The creepy geckos quickly gave up and took refuge in the bushes, knowing that they were no match for my FLASHLIGHT — yeah, who’s bad?

“Jamie Toddle Turtle!” called my dad, bummer.

“I’ll be in in a minute!” I yelled and tiptoed back inside my igloo with the bag of food and goodies.

“Look Jimbo, I got food for ya.”

But Jimbo wasn’t hungry, the geckos had scared away his appetite.

Question now was, which ice age creature would be next to travel through my igloo? A white woolly T-Rex?

First thing tomorrow, I’d have to install control buttons to keep out unwanted travelers.

“Mookiimookii,” said Jimbo, “mookiimookii bad mo’o, mookiimookii take Jimbo food.”

Somehow I understood that Mo’o meant gecko. “Yes, bad mo’o, stealing food from little Bigfoot wrong.” I said and opened the bag. “Here, try the brownies.”

“Brownies, yum-yum.” said Jimbo and stuffed his face, suddenly he had forgotten all about the mookiimookii, “Jimbo sad, no more!”

“Yeah, brownies are kinda magical, they’ll cheer you up and smackdown ALL your worries.” I said. “Hey, don’t your parents ever give you brownies or chocolate chip cookies?”

Jimbo looked down. “Jimbo, lost yeti.”

“Well, as long as you’re not the last yeti — we will find your family,” I promised Jimbo, “family is everything.”

Jimbo was apparently a hugger, ‘cause a split second later I could hardly breathe, with Jimbo’s arms tight around me!

“We, family?” asked Jimbo.

“Yes Jimbo, bros forever.” I answered. 

Snow began to fall. “Woo-hoo!” Until . . . thundering footsteps in the distance.

Nah, it couldn’t be, or could it?

And there it was, A MIGHTY ROAR!!

The white woolly T-REX — ice age king — had arrived. 

THE END, OR . . . TO BE CONTINUED