Surviving Antarctica (18 page)

“Enough already!” Robert snapped.

Polly felt like ignoring him. “They called him Birdie—Birdie Bowers—and even Scott thought that he could do anything.” She smiled at Andrew.

ANDREW HAD NEVER
had a pet of any kind. Not even a pet rat. Now, to get to ride this great pony, to get to take care of her, to get to be her master—even though he was tired after a long day riding, it was almost too much happiness.

Cookie stumbled in a snowdrift.

“Come on, girl. You can do it,” Andrew said.

There was only one drawback to his pony ride. Andrew understood, as clearly as if Cookie could talk, that she didn’t like the snow or the cold. Andrew had never had this idea before, the idea that each animal had a personality. But it was true.

Cookie was a pony who liked the hot sun. He
wondered what country she had been sweating in when someone told her that she had to go to the coldest place on the globe. What chain of bad luck had led her here?

Thud, slosh, snap, thud.
If only Cookie could talk!

They had made better time on this, their second day. Against the backdrop of the mountains, the snowcycles looked like ants on spilled milk. He wasn’t used to land looking like this. It had a weird quality to it. No one had ever messed it up.

But maybe it was the way he was looking at things that was different. When he looked out the window of a bus, even if he stuck out his finger to let the wind bend it back, he felt as if he were watching the houses, fences, grass, and trees on television as they passed by. His view had always been framed by a window.

Here he felt he was actually somewhere.

He knew that the snow Cookie was plodding through was the real thing. The way the steel gray sky blurred into the land at the horizon was real. The faint whirr of the snowcycles, the thud of Cookie’s hooves, and the distant barking of the dogs were all real.

He pictured the kids at home who might be watching him. They would see Andrew and
Cookie traveling in this big white land on a square television. He felt sorry for them.

Here there was no frame.

But wait a minute.
He
was the one everyone felt sorry for.

Cookie slipped again.

The audience might feel sorry for him, but he felt sorry for Cookie. She was a pony who longed for a beach. Andrew leaned down and nuzzled his face into her mane. “You can do it, Cookie,” he said.

Steve stood in front of all five screens, but his eyes were drawn to Robert’s. Robert was surveying the progress of the kids behind him, and his eyes had settled on Andrew. Riding that pony, Andrew looked like the king of the world. It took so little to make some kids happy. Like his little brother, Sam.

It made Steve sad that his memories of Sam had faded. Sam had died at the age of six, so he’d be fourteen years old if he were alive today.

Fourteen years old—the exact age of the
Antarctic Historical Survivor
kids.

Chad interrupted his thoughts. “How’s the footage for today’s episode?”

Steve started. “Great,” he said. “An uneventful day.”

“Well, after yesterday that shouldn’t make the Secretary too mad,” Chad commented.

“My guess is that they’re about to stop and set up camp,” Steve said.

Chad clapped Steve on the back. “Then what do you say? Let’s go downstairs with the others and break for dinner.”

“Not until the kids are safe inside their tent,” Steve said.

“Have you spoken to Andrew again?” Chad asked.

“Not since the ship.” Steve paused. “Do you think I should?”

“No rush, but it might not be a bad idea to check in with him. He needs to get to trust your voice.”

Steve decided that he would try to contact Andrew that night.

“You sure you don’t want to take a break in the basement for a minute?”

Steve shook his head.

Chad sighed. “All right, but you’re missing some fun. Jacob baked us some cookies.”

Steve watched Chad head toward the tile in the floor. Cookies sounded good. He couldn’t explain the way he felt. He couldn’t do much, but how often had he longed for someone to be with him when he was scared or in pain? The
least he could do was watch the screens.

On Robert’s screen, Steve saw Billy staring in Robert’s direction and pointing at his watch.

Robert nodded.

Billy stopped his cycle, and Polly hopped off. Her legs looked stiff.

Robert shaded his eyes with his hand and scanned the horizon for Andrew and Cookie, and Grace and the dogs.

Andrew and Cookie would make camp soon, but Grace and the dogs were specks on Robert’s screen.

It looked as if the kids were going to make it through a second day traveling in Antarctica. Steve pulled up a chair and sat down.

He could start to relax.

The low-hanging sun still watched over Grace as she knelt by T-Rex. She held his paw in her hand and slowly checked each of his toes for the little balls of ice that seemed to collect there.

He licked her.

She howled. Her breath was a white cloud in the gray sky.

He howled back.

She laughed and put his paw down on the ground. He turned around and around before
settling down in the snow for his night’s rest. As he turned, he kept his eyes fixed on her.

She turned to Dryosaurus next.

“Grace, the food is ready!” Polly called from the tent.

“Are you sure we can’t help you?” Andrew shouted.

“Be there in a minute!” She’d take care of her dogs, then she’d eat. She wished that she had something to feed them besides moldy food.

Inside the tent, Polly was stirring the hoosh. The tang of fuel was in the air. She was grateful that the sun circled them without setting, because she was able to cook by its faded light.

Andrew was holding Robert’s feet against his chest to warm them.

Billy was examining the map. “We made a little under eleven and a half miles today.”

The short distance didn’t surprise Robert. With the heavily loaded sleds, the snowcycles had had to work to plow through the soft drifts. At times Robert, Billy, and Polly had gotten off and pushed the sleds. Besides that, the dogs had gone so slowly that Grace had pulled into camp long after the rest of them. Yet there had been no surprises, and on balance Robert was content. It had been a fair day.

“So how far to the depot?” Andrew asked.

“About thirty miles,” Billy said triumphantly. “We—by that I mean the cycles and the pony—averaged about three miles an hour today. Grace arrived later, of course, but if we can keep up the pace tomorrow, we’ll easily make it to the depot in three days.”

“This is not that hard,” Robert said.

Robert sounds so cocky, Polly thought. They had been incredibly lucky so far. “We’re riding,” Polly said. “Scott and his crew had to man-haul a lot.”

“What’s man-hauling?” Andrew asked.

“They pulled the sleds themselves,” Polly said.

“That would be miserable,” Andrew said.

“How many miles did they have to man-haul?” Robert asked, curious despite himself.

Polly searched her memory for the answer. “The plan was for them to man-haul seven hundred forty miles, and each sled started out weighing around eight hundred pounds.”

Billy was sick of Polly’s books. It had been a long day, and he wished that she would shut up. “They were losers,” he said.

“They
weren’t
losers,” Polly said angrily.

“Another explorer beat them,” Robert countered wearily. They’d died on their journey back. It was obvious that they had lost.

“Against incredible odds, they made it to the Pole,” Polly said. She didn’t understand Billy’s and Robert’s obsession with being first.

“Who was it again who beat them?” Andrew asked.

“This guy Roald Amundsen,” Polly said. “He was known as a North Pole explorer. When Scott was in Australia on his final stop before sailing to Antarctica, he got a surprise telegram from Amundsen saying, ‘… Proceeding Antarctic. Amundsen.’”

“My dad said Scott’s considered a bumbler,” Billy said.

Andrew hated that word. It had been applied to him once too often.

“That’s because Scott liked ponies more than dogs,” Polly said. “And Amundsen used only dogs.” Why couldn’t she make them understand that these men were heroes?

Billy yawned. Arguing with Polly was a waste of time.

“Did Scott know that Amundsen won?” Andrew asked.

“You guys about ready to turn in?” Robert said. Maybe Polly would take the hint and shut up.

Billy crawled to the front of the tent and yelled, “Grace, we’re going to sleep!”

“Be there in a minute!” Grace called.

“Are you sure you don’t want any help?” Andrew yelled.

“No!” Grace replied.

“Amundsen set up a tent at the Pole and left Scott a note in it,” Polly said as she crawled to her sleeping bag. “Scott’s diary entry for the day he reached the Pole reads:
Great God! This is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority.”

She paused. “But the next day, Bowers wrote a cheery note to his sister, telling her,
Captain Scott … has taken the blow very well indeed.”

“What’s your point, Polly?” Robert said.

“Scott had spent his whole life dreaming of this one goal, but when Amundsen beat him, he didn’t waste any time feeling sorry for himself,” Polly said. “He and his men weren’t losers.”

“Have it your way, Polly,” Robert said. “But shut up.”

“Could you recite another page from the diary, Polly?” Andrew said when they were in their sleeping bags.

“A bedtime story?” Billy mocked him.

Robert groaned but didn’t protest.

Polly ignored Robert and Billy and scanned her memory for something fun. “Okay, I’ll tell you Scott’s diary entry on Christmas day:
We had four courses,
Scott wrote.”

“Four courses!” Robert yelped. “I thought the Secretary was supposed to be authentic. Why can’t
we
have four courses?”

“The first, pemmican …”
Polly continued.

“Yuk,” Billy said.

“… full whack, with slices of horse meat …”

Billy sighed.

“… flavoured with onion and curry powder and thickened with biscuit;…”

“Nothing that they had sounds good,” Billy complained.

“… then an arrowroot, cocoa and biscuit hoosh sweetened; then a plum-pudding; then cocoa with raisins, and finally a dessert of caramels and ginger.”

“Even though I don’t know exactly what caramels and ginger are,” Andrew said, “they sound delicious.”

“After the feast, it was difficult to move. Wilson and I couldn’t finish our share of plum-pudding. We have all slept splendidly and feel thoroughly warm—such is the effect of full feeding,”
Polly finished. She was glad that for once Robert and Billy didn’t jeer.

“I would give anything for some candy,” Andrew said.

“What kind do you like?” Polly asked.

“My favorite is Chocobombs,” Andrew said. “I
especially like the grape and the cherry.”

Billy thought guiltily about the stash in his sleeping bag. He could feel the packages with his toes.

“I don’t like them,” Robert said. “Too gooey.”

“I love them,” Polly said. “My mother used to buy them on holidays.”

“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:

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.