Surviving Antarctica Read online

  “You guys won’t admit it, but you’re sick of pemmican,” Billy said, glad that he only had to pretend to eat the miserable stuff.

  “What does pemmican have in it, Polly?” Andrew asked.

  “You sure you want to know?” Polly replied.

  “Yeah,” Andrew said.

  “No,” Billy said.

  “Dried meat and lard,” Polly said.

  “I knew something tasted awful in that stuff,” Billy said. “Scott probably invented it.”

  “He didn’t,” Polly said, tired of their disrespect for Scott. “Good night.”

  “I’m going to turn in, too,” said Robert.

  “Good night,” Andrew said. He hadn’t bumbled anything today, had he?

  “Lard,” Billy said. How could the others stand that stuff? He bent over and pulled up a bag of cherry Chocobombs, Andrew’s favorite.

  Polly closed her eyes. She remembered another passage from Wilson’s diary. He was one of the four men who had died along with Scott during his attempt to return from the Pole. She wouldn’t share Wilson’s quote with the group:

  Very hungry always, our allowance being a very bare one. Dreams as a rule of splendid food, ball suppers, sirloins of beef, caldrons of steaming vegetables. But one spends all one’s time shouting at waiters who won’t bring one a plate of anything, or else one finds the beef is only ashes when one gets it…. One very rarely gets a feed in one’s sleep.

  I’m going to prove Wilson wrong, Polly decided. She tried to glue a picture of a bag of strawberry chips on the inside of her eyelids. She challenged herself to eat the whole bag in her dreams.

  Billy listened until he heard the kids begin to breathe regularly. Grace would be outside half the night with the dumb dogs. He ripped open the candy bag as quietly as he could and took that first bite. It was delicious. There were five in a bag. Maybe he should wake the others and share a Chocobomb with each of them.

  He popped another one into his mouth.

  Naw, they needed their sleep.

  Next Billy ate two at once. Robert didn’t even like them. He had one left. Maybe he should wake Andrew.

  He popped the last Chocobomb into his mouth. There weren’t that many in a bag. Sharing with the other kids was impossible. Besides, they weren’t as good as he remembered. The kids hadn’t missed that much.

  Then Billy heard the thud of footsteps in the snow. His mouth full of cherry and chocolate, he froze.

  Grace crawled inside.

  Billy swallowed the whole mess in one gulp. It was impossibly sticky and gooey, and he coughed.

  “Billy?” Grace whispered. She started peeling off her layers.

  “Hmm,” he mumbled.

  “What’s that smell?”

  “I dunno,” Billy said, feeling his heart start to race.

  “Is there such a thing as a smell hallucination?” Grace said.

  “I dunno,” Billy said again.

  “Because I’m having one,” Grace said.

  “Shh,” Billy said. “Don’t be so inconsiderate. The others are sleeping.”

  Grace slipped into her sleeping bag. She was too tired to eat her hoosh, but not too tired to wonder.

  “What’s he doing?” Chad asked. He had just returned from working on his summary of the kids’ day.

  The screens were dark and quiet except for Billy’s. The scene on his screen flashed with silver.

  Steve turned up the volume on Billy’s screen. They heard some loud cracks and rustlings, then a soft, muffled “One, two, three …”

  “Billy’s got some junk food hidden in his sleeping bag,” Steve explained. “It sounds like he’s counting it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I saw him do the same thing on the ship.”

  “He’s put one over on the Secretary, hasn’t he?” Chad said.

  “Yeah, and on his teammates,” Steve said.

  “You’re right,” Chad said. “You want to intervene on this one?”

  Steve smiled, thinking of how outraged Robert would be if he learned about the candy. “I’m going to let Billy answer to his conscience.”

  “Probably the toughest voice there is,” Chad said.

  Steve nodded.

  “Ready to go back and make our last set of edits?” Chad asked.

  “Sure,” Steve said. All the screens were dark now. “But if you don’t mind, I’m going to help Billy hide his candy from the Secretary.”

  “Go right ahead,” Chad said.

  While Steve double deleted the scene, Chad was giving him advice: “I think the best drama is still Grace and the dogs. So let’s send the Secretary at least an hour of footage showing Grace’s struggle to get them under control.”

  “Good idea,” Steve said.

  “I’ll work on the dogs,” Chad said. “Why don’t you go through and see if you can find some scary shots of that sky?”

  “What do you mean?” Steve asked, his heart in his throat.

  “You didn’t notice it?”

  Steve shook his head.

  Chad met Steve’s eyes. “I’m afraid bad weather is on the way.”

  21

  “So, what are we likely to see today, Billy?” Robert asked after breakfast on the morning of the third day of their trek. They were all huddled around the Primus stove, even though Billy had turned it off to save fuel.

  Once again Polly felt relieved that she wasn’t the navigator.

  “Five or six miles from here this old map says that the ice is full of crevasses,” Billy said.

  “Triceratops fell into one the other day. I didn’t see it because those darn goggles that we have to wear are tinted,” Grace said.

  “Why didn’t you tell us about that sooner? What happened?” Robert said.

  “It was shallow. The dogs pulled her out,” Grace said.

  “And you didn’t even see it?” Billy asked. He wouldn’t have ridden in the lead so confidently if he had known that they might hit an early crevasse.

  Grace shook her head.

  “We all need to wear goggles to prevent snow blindness,” Polly said.

  “What’s snow blindness?” asked Andrew.

  “The snow reflects the sun’s rays, and your eyes are burned by the light.” Polly paused. “In Scott’s expedition the men got snow-blind a lot.”

  Robert held up his hand. “No history lessons. We don’t have time.” He looked at Grace. “But wear the goggles.”

  “I thought I saw some crevasses, but they were shadows,” Andrew said.

  “What if we let the dogs lead?” Polly said.

  Billy snorted.

  “The dogs are too slow to lead,” Robert said.

  “But the dog team is long and wide. If the dogs’ weight makes a snow bridge collapse, chances are some will get across. The others will dangle in their traces over the crevasse. But”—Polly sounded like a schoolteacher even to herself—“if one of us falls into a crevasse, we’ll fall all the way down.”

  Grace wanted to tell Polly not to argue with Robert. The snow would be his teacher. But she started crawling toward the tent flap instead. Time to harness the dogs.

  After thirty minutes on his cycle, Robert could feel the tiredness easing out of him. The sun had gotten stronger, and the wind, which had been a torment when he had been colder, seemed friendly now.

  But Robert was watching something that made him nervous. Something that he guessed the others didn’t see. Between the mountains, a thin, dark line sliced the northwest sky near the horizon. A storm was coming toward them, getting ready to spoil their third day out.

  Robert hit a slight rise and the drone of the motor became louder, but not so loud as to drown out his worries.

  All morning something had been bugging him while he drank the hot chocolate that Billy had made, and while he loaded the tent and the other supplies onto the sled attached to the back of the cycle. He hadn’t seen the line yet. But without knowing it, he had picked up on the wind and humidity that made bad weather mo
re likely. A thin black line without any clouds meant a cold front.

  That line linked this world of ice and snow to the world he knew. It told him that though they were different, in many ways they were the same.

  Just like this snowcycle’s engine and the one in his dad’s motorboat.

  He had worked on his dad’s motorboat since he was a little boy; he knew its exact clatter. It sounded like a disposal grinding away at a spoon, sort of alarming and brittle until you realized that the sound was good.

  He didn’t know the snowcycle’s engine well, but the vibrations against his legs were even. He checked the engine’s temperature with his hand. Neither hot nor cold. Reassuringly warm.

  The engine was in good shape.

  But the line hadn’t moved, and that was bad. When fronts moved fast, they passed over quickly.

  In Houston cold fronts could be violent. On the bayou it was best to hole up for a few days and get out of the way.

  He settled in for a short ride.

  Grace noticed that she was gaining on Andrew again. She braked the sled to keep the dogs from catching up to him. They had been on the trail for only an hour, but she had had to hold the dogs back the whole time. To avoid crevasses, she was following the path already taken by the others. But soon she’d have to pass Andrew.

  She had harnessed the dogs the same way as before. They looked the same in their traces, but overnight so much had changed. The constant nipping and feuding, slipping and sliding, and bumping into one another had all but stopped.

  The dogs were finally working as a team.

  For the first time, she was riding trancelike, trusting the dogs. “Iñupiat Eskimos have great powers of observation and a fantastic memory for the landscape,” her grandfather had bragged. “I can draw a map of the cove where we fished, with every inlet, although I haven’t been there for many years.” Her grandfather had never lied, but it was hard to believe that even he would have been able to remember the slight valleys and low hills of this white desert.

  Desert. She would never have believed it, but Polly had sworn that it was so. According to Polly, a desert didn’t have to be hot, only dry. Polly claimed that Antarctica was one of the largest and driest deserts in the world.

  So what was the sky doing? She shot the black clouds the evil eye. Not now, she wanted to command them. But she knew better than to try to control the weather.

  “Accept what you cannot change,” her grandfather had always said.

  One of her dogs growled. Then another. Their ears stood up. Fur bristled on their backs. Grace tensed, waiting for a fight, but then noticed that the animals weren’t focused on one another.

  She scanned the dark horizon and spotted a speck of black against the white snow. Could it be moving?

  Grace squinted. She yanked off her fogged goggles, and the vast whiteness seemed to collapse on top of her. She struggled to focus again. Unmistakably, a spot of black was crawling across the snow.

  About half a mile ahead of Grace, Robert and Billy stopped their snowcycles and stared in the direction of the seal. Robert got off his cycle and began searching for his rifle.

  Grace kept her eyes on the animal.

  Ears back, T-Rex lunged forward.

  As Grace sped past Andrew and Cookie, she gripped the handles to keep from falling. Why hadn’t Robert shot the animal yet? He must be having trouble finding the rifle.

  Polly got off the cycle and began searching through Billy’s sled.

  What was a seal doing so far from the coast? Grace wondered. Had it gotten lost during a storm? She wished that her grandfather were with her so she could ask him. Grace dragged the paddle in the soft snow as a brake and whipped the air over the dogs’ heads to slow her team down, but the animals were racing. She couldn’t help feeling proud of her dogs. She was going faster now than the snowcycles could. Why, she would bet she was going over five miles an hour!

  Robert pulled the rifle off the sled and aimed.

  A shot rang out, and Grace winced. It had been a long time since she had heard a loud noise, she thought as she desperately whipped the air again to slow the dogs. They kept up their pace, oblivious.

  “Stop those dogs!” Billy called.

  Grace hated to do it, but she lashed their backs. The whip licked brown fur. Once, twice. Instead of slowing, the dogs moved forward in a frenzy, past Robert and Billy. Their eyes trained on the bleeding seal, they tumbled down an incline. The seal appeared to be small, maybe a youngster lost from its family. Grace stuck the paddle in the snow as hard as she could, but the paddle popped out, worthless.

  “Get those dogs!” Robert shouted at her.

  Billy was jumping up and down. “Stop them!”

  T-Rex, Brontosaurus, and Dryosaurus were in front, so they pounced on the seal first. Bits of black fur and blood popped out from the jumble of animals. The other dogs, maddened by the smell of blood, rushed to join them. The pack seethed with squirming, climbing, snarling bodies.

  Grace jumped off the sled. “T-Rex! Dryosaurus!” she cried. She whacked T-Rex on the head with the paddle, but he didn’t seem to notice. There was no other way: She pushed through the ring of frenzied dogs and barred their way to the seal.

  T-Rex, Dryosaurus, and the others pulled back. They snarled and growled, but they didn’t attack her. She raised the paddle, ready to smash any offender’s head.

  Brontosaurus alone ignored her. He thrust his teeth into the seal’s side. She whacked him, then bent down and shoved his face away from the seal’s body. She stood up, careful to stay between the dead seal and the dogs. The dogs fidgeted and whined but backed away.

  “Wow!” Robert said.

  Until Robert spoke, Grace hadn’t noticed that the others had run over to her.

  “Those dogs looked like they were going to eat you alive,” Billy added.

  “Are you all right, Grace?” Polly asked.

  Out of breath, Andrew arrived on the pony.

  “Yeah,” Grace said, but her heart was pounding. She led the dogs a few paces away from the seal’s bloodied corpse.

  “Good shot,” Andrew said.

  “Thanks.” Robert examined the dead seal. “I don’t want to stop and skin it now,” he said, cupping his hand over his eyes and reexamining the sky. “But I think we should take what’s left of its carcass with us. It’ll give us a few days’ extra food.”

  “Where did you learn to shoot like that, Robert?” Polly asked.

  “Around,” Robert said. On the bayou sometimes, if he didn’t shoot dinner he went hungry.

  “Fresh meat will protect us from scurvy,” Polly said.

  “What’s scurvy?” Andrew asked.

  “It’s a vitamin C deficiency,” Polly said.

  “I’ve never taken a vitamin in my life,” Robert said.

  “Robert, I’m tired of you not taking what I have to say seriously. Scurvy can kill you,” Polly said sharply.

  Grace’s grandfather had told her about scurvy. People didn’t get it unless they had had no vitamin C for months, but she didn’t want to contradict Polly. What was the point?

  “Okay,” Robert said. “So we also need the meat to prevent scurvy. But”—he looked around carefully—“I’m worried about where we’re going to load it.”

  “Why?” Grace asked.

  “The cycles are already loaded. The pony can’t pull any more,” Robert replied.

  “The dogs could,” Grace said. “They’re moving faster than the pony now.”

  “I’ll say!” Robert said.

  Robert’s dark eyes were fixed on Grace. She wondered if he had noticed that the dogs were faster than the cycles, too.

  “Okay,” Robert said, though he didn’t know how much longer they could risk traveling. Twenty minutes? Thirty minutes? An hour? It was important that they cover as much distance as they could, but getting caught in a storm could mean death.

  Billy and Andrew began dragging the seal’s body over to the dogsled.

  “I have an extr
a rope,” Grace said.

  Grace stood over the carcass while Billy lashed it onto the sled. He couldn’t help hoping that the TV audience was watching him right now. He was good with knots. He had represented his Scout troop in a national knot-a-thon. He stood back and surveyed his work. The seal was tied tightly to the sled.

  Even though Grace wanted to eat the seal, she felt sorry for it. “There’s a special prayer that you’re supposed to say when you kill a seal,” she said.

  “How do you know?” Billy asked.

  “I’m an Iñupiat,” Grace said.

  Robert sighed. “So what is it?”

  “I don’t remember,” Grace admitted. But she wanted to honor the memory of her ancestors at her first kill. “My grandfather used to sing it to me. But I’ll make one up.” She pitched her voice low. “Oh, seal, oh great black one,” she sang. It was almost scary how much she sounded like her grandfather. “Thank you for giving your life that we may live.”

  “Amen,” Robert said. It was kind of strange. Grace was singing songs. Billy, his snow-and-ice man, looked unconcerned. None of these kids understood the weather. But he warned himself not to worry them yet. He wanted them to concentrate on making the best time they could in the short time they had before the front moved in.

  “Amen,” Polly, Andrew, and Billy said.

  Robert stared at the sky. “Can’t you go a little faster?” he asked Andrew.

  “I don’t think so,” Andrew said. “But Grace, you flew by me.”

  Grace climbed into the sled. The seal’s purplish tongue brushed her jacket. The steam from its body warmed hers, but she was already warm, almost overheated.

  I’m an Iñupiat coming home from a good hunt, she thought. She flicked the whip.

  The dogs started moving gracefully across the white wilderness. If only the sky weren’t getting so dark, the day would be magical.

  “A storm’s coming.” Robert stopped his cycle.

  Billy pulled up next to him. “But we’re just starting to make good time,” he protested. Ever since they had killed the seal, the snow had been soft. Ahead of them, he saw a stretch of blue ice that his machine would fly across.

  Robert glared at him. He was tempted to ask Billy where he had gotten his snow-and-ice experience, but Billy was so prickly. He understood in his gut that it was better to praise Billy than to risk making him feel ignorant. “We’ve got to stop.” They had traveled for thirty minutes since shooting the seal. He didn’t want to push their luck.