Emily Windsnap and the Land of the Midnight Sun (12 page)

I don’t know if you’ve ever tried climbing up a glacier without ice picks, ropes, or the tiniest bit of instruction on how to do it, but let me tell you — it isn’t easy. In fact, it was impossible.

“We’re never going to make it,” Aaron complained after slipping and falling on his backside for the fifth time.

In any other circumstances, I would have laughed. He did look quite comical. But two things stopped me: a glance at his angry red face and the fact that I had also fallen, in an equally ungraceful manner, at least as many times.

I suppose the knowledge that we were on a highly dangerous, risky mission possibly took a bit of humor out of the situation, too.

“OK, let’s try something different,” I said after slipping and landing awkwardly yet again.

“What do you suggest?”

I looked around. “Perhaps we need to find a way around the glacier, instead of trying to climb up it.”

“I wonder how deep the ice is,” Aaron said. “Does it go all the way inside, or is the mountain still there underneath?”

“Of course! That’s it!”

“That’s what?”

“We’ve been thinking we have to search the outside of it,” I said. “But if there’s a hole in the top, maybe it goes all the way down. It could join up with a tunnel inside the mountain.”

“Like the one we came through to get here?”

“Exactly! If we can find a tunnel like that that goes through the mountain with the glacier, we might find the hole from inside it.”

Aaron didn’t look convinced.

I frowned. “Have you got any better ideas?”

“No,” he said quickly. “I think it’s a great idea. Let’s go.”

An hour later, we hadn’t found anything. I flopped down on a rock at the foot of the mountain. The lake came right up to the edge at this point, lapping against the smooth, round boulders. “OK, maybe that wasn’t such a clever idea.”

“It was worth a try, though,” Aaron said, coming to sit with me on the rocks.

I looked down at the water. It was so clear I could almost see the bottom. The edge of the lake tapered into a scraggly v-shape in the rocks, which disappeared into darkness.

Wait!

“Aaron, I have an idea,” I said, jumping down from the rock. “We need to get back in the lake.”

Aaron looked at me doubtfully.

“Look at that dent in the rocks.” I pointed back to where we’d been sitting. “It gets wider just under the surface.”

Aaron’s eyes brightened as he caught on to what I was saying. “Of course! The tunnel through the mountain might be underwater!” Aaron smiled. “What are we waiting for?” He jumped back into the water.

As soon as our tails had formed and we’d shaken off the icy cold, we explored the rocks all around the edge of the lake. Eventually, we found something: a crack that would have been barely visible above the waterline, but that opened up into a narrow tunnel just below it.

We swam into the tunnel.

We were soon swimming in pitch darkness. The tunnel snaked through the rock, twisting this way and that, narrowing in places before widening out again.

We swam close to the surface, but after a while I could feel the sandy ground below me. The water was getting shallower with every swish of my tail. And we still hadn’t found a hole in the top of the mountain.

We swam on, my tail brushing against sand and rocks, until it was too shallow to swim. In pitch blackness, we waited, beached on the sand until our tails faded away and our legs came back.

I stood up, reaching around me to get a sense of where we were. I’d gotten used to the darkness enough to be able to see the edges of the damp, rocky tunnel. I could just about see Aaron in front of me. He had to stoop slightly so he didn’t bump his head on the tunnel’s rocky ceiling.

“Now what?” he asked.

“Let’s keep going,” I said. “It’s got to lead somewhere.”

So we trudged on, through the dark, cold, echoey belly of the mountain — and tried to hold on to a belief that this was going to lead us to any sort of answer.

It felt as though we’d been walking for hours when something began to change. I didn’t even realize what it was at first. All I knew was that I’d suddenly become aware of different shades in the stony walls. Long, squiggly green lines trailed the length of the rock, like veins running along someone’s arm. Odd shapes hung down from the ceiling — stalactites shaped like ice-cream cones and daggers and fans.

“Aaron!” I burst out. “Look!”

He turned around. I could see his face clearly: a graze above his left eye where he must have hit a rock; black dusty muck all over his cheeks.

“What?” he asked. Then his eyes widened. “I can see you!” he said.

“Exactly! There’s light coming in from somewhere.”

We kept going with renewed energy and purpose. Light could only mean one thing. Well, two things. Either we were coming out on the other side of the mountain, or there was a hole letting the light in.

Sure enough, a few minutes, and a lot more light later . . .

“Wow!” Aaron said. The tunnel had opened up, widening into a circle the size of a small room. Right in the center, a thick shaft of dusty sunlight beamed down from above, like a spotlight on a stage.

We’d found the hole in the top of the mountain.

Except it wasn’t a complete hole. It went all the way up through the mountain, right from where we were — which I guessed was the very center — up as high as the mountain itself had looked from outside. But we couldn’t see the sky. Over the top of the hole was a layer of ice — the underside of the glacier.

“Now what?” I asked, looking into the shaft of light.

“I think we just need to wait.”

“Wait? What for?”

Aaron checked his watch. “For about three hours to pass,” he said.

“Huh?”

He twisted his arm around to show me his watch. “It’s just after nine o’clock,” he said. “Remember what Neptune said in that bubble?”

“Under the midnight sun, the ice will melt.”

“So we just need to wait till midnight, catch the water in our hands, and then . . .” Aaron’s voice faded. “And then . . . um . . .”

“And then we have no idea,” I said.

Aaron grimaced. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“Maybe once we’ve got the water, we’ll have some idea of what to do with it.”

“At least we’ve got three hours to think about it,” he said.

I perched on a big, rocky stalagmite and tried not to feel too despondent. If Aaron hadn’t told me about his bet, I might have been able to enjoy three hours on my own with him, but as it was, I sat as far away from him as I could, and hoped the hours would pass quickly.

We sat and listened to the sounds of the cave. A tiny
drip, drip, drip
echoed from deep in the tunnel. The rocks themselves seemed to hum — a low, damp, living noise. Every now and then, there was a shuffling, scurrying sound of something running around in the darkness. I didn’t even want to think what that something might be.

“Em,” Aaron said after a little while. “You know that stuff with Archie . . .”

“Aaron, I don’t want to talk about it,” I said. “Not when we’ve got all this to deal with.” I couldn’t bear the thought of him going over it again. Just thinking about his bet with Archie felt like a knife going through me. I didn’t want to be stabbed with the same thing over and over again.

“But, Emily!” Aaron burst out. “It was only a stupid kiss!”

“A stupid kiss?” The knife stabbed at me again.

“I mean, a stupid bet,” Aaron said grumpily. “What’s the difference? Either way, it’s all ruined now. And you’re probably right.”

“Right about what?”

“About us just being friends.” He looked at me and his voice softened a tiny bit. “I mean, if that’s what you want, too?”

I tried for a bright smile. “Yes, it is,” I lied, determined to do it convincingly. “I mean, look at us now. We’re getting along OK. We’re doing the job really well. I
like
it like this.” I forced an even bigger, brighter smile onto my face. I hoped it didn’t look too much as though someone were trying to stretch my mouth so wide that it could hang off my ears. That was certainly how it felt. But there was no way I was going to let him see that I wanted anything more. Not now that he’d made it perfectly clear he didn’t.

“You’re sure?” Aaron asked.

“Mm-hm,” I said.

He looked relieved. “OK, then,” he said. “That’s what we’ll do.”

I got up and turned away. I couldn’t bear for him to see any hint of my real feelings behind my big, false smile: the hurt at not being his girlfriend, and the anger that he was clearly fine with the idea.

“Good. I’m glad that’s settled,” I said sharply. I brushed my legs down. They were dusty from the rocks. “I’m just going to have a little look around. I’ll be back in a bit.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

I shook my head. “No, you stay here. I won’t be long.”

I turned my back and set off to explore the cave a bit farther — and tried to banish the tears that were threatening to spill from my eyes at any moment.

Eventually, after what felt like days of waiting, it was nearly midnight. We’d eaten all our provisions and almost drunk all the water. My stomach was grumbling and my legs were aching from sitting around on cold rocks for hours.

We stood on the edge of the shaft of dusty light, waiting to see what would happen. The seconds ticked slowly by until it was a minute to midnight. My heart was thumping fast.

“You OK?” Aaron asked.

“Fine,” I said. “You?”

He nodded. “I just hope this is going to work.”

“Yeah, me too.”

And then we waited in silence for one more minute, until, finally, midnight arrived.

The first thing I noticed was the creaking, squeaking sound from way, way above our heads.

“Look!” Aaron was pointing upward. “It’s happening. The midnight sun — it’s melting the ice!”

“Now all we have to do is catch it as it falls.” I had the feeling that might not be as easy as it sounded.

A moment later, the first drip came. Plopping down right in the center of the dusty shaft of light, it bounced with a loud
PLINK!
on the floor — and rebounded to scatter a tiny rainbow around the cave. A second later, the rainbow had gone, and the chamber was silent again.

“Wow!” Aaron said. “That was a bit —”