Llama On Ice

By Annabelle Sami

Laugh-out-loud funny and a wonderful story about finding your voice. I loved it! – David Walliams

‘Anarchically silly fun!' – Guardian

Sidesplitting middle grade comedy, with serious heart (and one very funny llama). Illustrated by Allen Fatimaharan, the official illustrator for World Book Day 2022.

It's the Christmas holidays and Yasmin is miserable. Her family don't celebrate Christmas so she doesn't understand all the hype, plus Ezra has gone to Jamaica for 2 weeks and Levi is away on a mission.

Then a snowstorm hits London, meaning Yasmin's enemy Tia can't fly to her luxury holiday in France. Yasmin is horrified when she gets sent a solo mission – to give Tia the best Christmas ever!

Soon Tia is bossing Yasmin around and without her friends to help, Yasmin starts to wonder if making her arch nemesis happy might be mission: impossible . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Oct 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9780755503919

Annabelle Sami

Annabelle Sami is a writer, director and performer. She is the author of Llama Out Loud and mystery series, Agent Zaiba Investigates.

Book preview

First published in Great Britain 2022 by Farshore

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF

farshore.co.uk

HarperCollinsPublishers

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Dublin 4, Ireland

Text copyright © Annabelle Sami 2022

Illustration copyright © Allen Fatimaharan 2022

The moral rights of the author and illustrator have been asserted.

eISBN 978 0 7555 0391 9

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

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To all the readers of Yasmin and Levi’s adventures.

Thank you for being the best Llama fans ever.

Every night for the past week, eleven-year-old Yasmin had listened out for the sound of clip-clopping on the roof of her small attic bedroom, but it never came. Her toy llama best friend, Levi, had been gone on a training mission for a month now, and it seemed like even a Christmas miracle wasn’t going to bring him back.

Not that Yasmin believed in such things. Her family, the loud and boisterous Shahs, were part of the large Muslim community that lived in Whitechapel, London. So December only meant two things to Yasmin:

The fear of slipping on an icy pavement. (It had happened once when she was five. The bum bruise was epic . . .)

Having to watch Frozen in every single class of the last week of term. Seriously teachers, let it go.

It had been an eventful year for Yasmin. From becoming a guardian llama, to going on a holiday that turned into a mission and starting Year 7. It had all been extremely fun and extremely chaotic. But then Levi had gone solo in September, at the beginning of term, and his latest trip was a training mission ‘in deepest, darkest Peru, like Paddington, innit!’. Yasmin knew from watching her auntie’s dramatic soap operas on TV, that ‘if you love something, you have to let it go’. But she still missed Levi. A lot. (Even if he was incredibly annoying at times.)

So here she was again, sitting in her bedroom alone on a Saturday with no Levi curled up at the end of her bed having his afternoon kip. She casually flipped through channels on her TV, looking for nothing in particular, and saw a programme about a woman who was training her dog to speak through talking buttons.

Ezra would love this, she giggled to herself, reaching for the phone to call her (human) best friend. But just as soon as she tapped his name on the screen, she froze. You see, not only had Levi gone off to Peru, but Ezra had gone to his grandad’s house in Jamaica for two whole weeks. Her shoulders sagged and she dropped her phone on the carpet sadly. She was just so used to calling him, that she kept forgetting he wasn’t in the country. (And Yasmin’s Papa hadn’t splurged on the ‘free international calls’ package.)

The first week that Ezra was gone, Yasmin had been doing okay by herself. She went to the skate park, caught up on reading at the library and helped her ammi with chores.

But after a week, the Ezra-shaped hole in her life felt even bigger. Having no Ezra there to cheer her on when she successfully learnt a kickflip, or giggle when he got shushed by the librarian, made her feel really lonely.

That was the problem with Christmas, you see. All your friends go away to visit random family members they’ve never mentioned before, while you are left at home by yourself. But Yasmin understood, a bit. She loved it when Eid rolled around and all her family came over, bringing with them presents, delicious food and gossip on the latest family drama. But Eid had been and gone earlier in the year.

It was just easy to feel a little . . . left out, at Christmas time.

Suddenly, a rush of excitement came over Yasmin. She jumped up from the floor where she’d been sulking and ran over to the little desk in her room, flicking through her diary.

Yes! It’s the nineteenth.

Ezra was coming back to London tomorrow! Yasmin wouldn’t be alone for much longer. She just had to get through one last day.

Her phone pinged on her desk and Yasmin saw the Instagram icon pop up. Now she was in Year 7, her parents said she was allowed to have an Instagram account, but only if it was monitored. Yasmin didn’t mind much. She only wanted it to post pictures of her drawings and watch funny videos of ferrets. She’d deliberately blocked both of her brothers after Tall Brother had written Looks like a butt under her drawing of some mountains.

Tia_x has posted a new story.

Yasmin clicked on the image and saw her classmate Tia’s story. It was a live countdown over the picture of a perfectly lit ice rink.

Can’t believe it’s just 1 more day until I go to my dad’s ski lodge. Ice Fantasy All-Star Icestravaganza, here I come!

Yasmin rolled her eyes and scoffed.

She wasn’t being mean, promise! Let me explain the drama . . . Tia and Yasmin go way back.

They’d been best friends in Years One and Two, regularly going to each other’s houses to play and always together at school. But when they got into Year Three, Tia told