Hot & Cold (7 page)

EJ stood still, thinking about her next move. She needed to make another phone call, this time to
SHINE HQ.
She had hardly pushed the speed dial number on her phone when it was picked up at the other end.

‘Hello EJ12,' said A1. ‘What's happening out there?'

‘I think I'm getting warmer,' EJ replied. ‘I cracked another code, the payment has been made, and I'm pretty sure we now know the
what
as well as the
where
and the
who
but I am still a bit unsure about the
how.
I think Dr Hill is using volcanic heat energy to melt the polar ice cap. Oh, and I now know the first word of the first code. It's VOLPOL.'

‘What
is
Volpol?' asked A1.

‘It's an enormous pipe coming out from deep down in what I think is a volcano. I can hear gushing coming from inside the pipe. Do you think maybe the volcanic heat is making water in the pipe hot? That would mean the heat could be taken somewhere else.'

‘That's possible. Hold on,' said A1. ‘Let me check some things on volcanic heat.' EJ could hear the sound of A1 on the keyboard and then, ‘You're right, EJ. Water in the pipe could be being heated as it passes close to the hot rock around the volcano. But why transport the heat?'

‘I'm pretty sure Caterina is melting ice for bottled water. She's turning the polar cap into a Polar Tap.'

‘Good work, EJ. With drought in many countries, the price of water is skyrocketing. Water is the new gold and Caterina loves gold. I wouldn't be surprised if she was prepared to melt the whole polar ice cap for money—a chilling thought indeed. What else do you know about the pipeline?'

‘Not much more. I need to follow it.'

‘You do that EJ, and find out how to shut it down before it is too late. But don't be late for the party either. We need to catch Caterina. Put your best boot forward, EJ12.
SHINE
out.'

Best boot forward? What does that mean?
As EJ looked up the tunnel, she wondered how she was going to climb up the tunnel with nothing to hold on to except a boiling hot pipe. She looked down at her feet and then smiled. Why didn't she think of that before? Her special issue
SHINE
boots.

EJ clicked her boots together. The boots became flippers.
No, that won't help,
she thought, as she clicked again to get rid of the flippers and then clicked once again. This time she felt her boots rise up, and out came suction soles, with the words ‘For use on hot and cold surfaces' printed on the side. These suction soles were made from an unmeltable, unfreezable micro-rubber. They would stick to anything—including mountain walls and hot pipelines—yet release as you lifted your feet.

Keeping one foot on the platform, EJ stretched out her leg and put the other boot onto the pipe. It gripped fast but as she lifted her leg, it came away easily. Perfect, but how would she pull herself up? She needed something to grip the rock wall with as she climbed—a pick ideally, just like the one on her charm bracelet but obviously slightly bigger. She twisted the little charm, there was a loud pop and the mini pick became a maxi pick. Lucky charms indeed!

EJ plunged the pick into the wall and began to climb. She would swing the pick up into the rock, make sure it held and then bring her feet up along the pipe. It was hard work but with the super grip of the suction soles she was able to move up the tunnel wall quickly, following the pipeline higher and higher.
Thank goodness for the lights,
EJ thought,
I wouldn't want to be in this tunnel in the dark.

For most of the climb, the tunnel had been rock but now it had changed to ice.
I must be at the top of the mountain now and this is the ice layer,
thought EJ.
I should soon be at the surface.

Then suddenly the direction of the pipeline changed. EJ had expected that it would finally push out through the top of the ice but instead it turned and ran along under the ice layer horizontally. EJ was practically walking upside down as she began to follow the pipe in this new direction.

She also noticed that the pipe had now split in two. There was still the red-hot pipe and this was so close to the surface that the heat from it was melting the ice above but now, just below it, there was another, larger pipe. This pipe was different though. It was a half-pipe sitting under the hot pipe, as if it was waiting to catch something from above. And it was. It was catching water, the large drips of water that the hot pipe was melting. Meltwater, water that then flowed down the pipeline. But to where?

EJ was never going to find out in time walking one slow suction-step at a time. She would need to get up to the surface and follow the pipeline from above. She looked up at the thick ice. Using her pick would take forever. She would need something else, and watching the water drip down into the
catchment pipe gave EJ an idea. She took out her phone and activated the laser app and pointed the red-hot beam towards the ice. Within minutes she had scorched an EJ-sized hole through the ice to the surface. Swinging the pick up, she pulled herself out of the hole and onto the icy peak of the mountain. She clicked her suction soles back into her boots and stood up and looked around.

EJ could just see the little hut way down below and she could also make out the path of the pipeline running under the ice. It ran down the mountain and then along the ice plain with the melting ice forming a huge crack through the ice. If you hadn't known the pipeline was there, you would have just assumed that the ice was naturally melting and shifting, creating natural crevasses. You couldn't actually see the pipe. So the scientists could see that the ice was melting but not why.
Caterina is clever,
thought EJ,
evil but clever.

And then there were the penguins, thousands of Emperor penguins. In fact there was nearly more penguin-black than there was ice-white. It was like a sea of black—a noisy, squawking, waddling sea of penguins.

And there, still circling above it all, was that skua again. What could it be looking at? EJ took out her binoculars and scanned the penguin colony. Between the legs of the larger penguins sat fluffy, grey chicks. Maybe the skua was hungry and was looking for unprotected chicks? EJ remembered her briefing—at this time of year the penguin chicks would have hatched and would be waiting with their fathers for the mothers to return from sea with food. While already quite large, the chicks still relied on their parents for food. It was the mothers that EJ had passed on her way to Emperor Penguin Point.
Come to think of it, why aren't the mothers already back with their families?
Then EJ saw why.

The crevasse the pipeline path had created had cut straight through the middle of the penguins' breeding ground. It was going to prevent many of the mother penguins returning to the breeding ground and reuniting with their families. EJ scanned
the breeding ground again. The pipeline had created such a long and deep crevasse that access to the sea was completely cut off, except for little break-away blocks of ice, like mini-icebergs, floating in pools of melted water. And sitting on one of those blocks was a penguin chick, stranded. And above it, that skua was still there, circling. Then it began to swoop, lower and lower towards the chick.

‘Don't you even think about it!' yelled EJ, stamping her foot. She was standing on the edge and as her boots hit the ice, she heard a cracking noise and felt the ice give way beneath her. Suddenly she was falling fast.

As she fell, she felt something hard against her back—her snowboard! EJ reached back, grabbed her board, pulled it down and clicked her boots together.
Please let there be jet-pack heels,
she thought to herself.
Please!
She clicked again and the suction soles popped out. Another click—stilts.
Aaaaaaaaaaargh!
SHINE
really needed a better system than this. Still falling, she clicked again and finally a jet pack emerged from each heel. EJ checked her boots were locked to the snowboard and pulled the laces to activate her boots.

The jet packs kicked in and EJ was now flying down the steep cliff on her snowboard. She could steer her way down the cliff with her body, and then onto the ice plain below, jumping over rocks and crevasses, and all the time trying to follow the path of the pipeline and keeping her eye on the baby penguin and the skua. EJ saw the big crevasse approaching and the chick stranded on its floating ice block nearby. She needed to think fast. Pulling her laces hard, she kicked up a gear to turbo charge. She would have to pull this off with pinpoint accuracy.

Just as the skua started to sweep down, EJ soared up and knocked the skua out of the way. Then bouncing down on the ice block, she scooped up the chick. Holding the bird tightly between her legs, she soared up again before landing back on the ice shelf. The skua dived again but it was too late, the chick was now hidden inside EJ's jacket.

EJ suddenly realised just how smelly one chick could be. ‘You must really like your fish,' she told the chick, wishing she had a nose clip charm as well.

EJ pulled her laces again, moving down a gear and into cruise control, following the pipeline. Hovering on top of it, EJ could now see the water pouring into the lower pipeline and it was steaming, still hot from the melting process. Something else would have to happen to it before it was ready for bottling. She would have to keep following the pipeline to find out. As she boarded along she looked up and there again was the skua, high up in the sky never very far behind, following her.

Scanning with her binoculars as she boarded along, EJ finally saw the end of the pipeline. It disappeared into something that looked a bit like a factory building. EJ switched off her jet-boots and jumped off her board—she would need to move quietly in case anyone was around.

With the jet-boots quiet she could now hear some rather impatient squawking coming from inside her jacket. Someone was hungry but what did little penguins eat? Then EJ remembered her bracelet again and the little penguin charm. EJ twisted the
charm and it extended to reveal a tiny bottle labelled ‘Concentrated Penguin Nutrients, Contains Traces of Fish' and an eye-dropper.
How does
SHINE
always know these things?

EJ held the chick's beak open and squeezed in a few drops. Its big eyes blinked in a slightly surprised way but then it opened its mouth for more—clearly a successful recipe!
Okay, that's enough for now, my fluffy little friend.
EJ carefully put the chick back inside her jacket.
Now stay there—and stay warm. I've got some work to do.

EJ pressed the Eco-Deco button on the snowboard, which luckily dissolved with just a few quick, reasonably quiet farts. She clicked on her boots to retract the jet packs and clicked her heels again to search for the ice-skates. And then her phone went. It was
SHINE HQ.

‘EJ,' said A1. ‘You really need to get your skates on. We have just received a temperature status report from
Shining Light
and the news is not good. Both the temperature and the water levels are now dangerously high. We must shut this thing down before it causes any more damage. By our scientists' calculations, you have one hour before the temperature reaches an unstoppable meltdown level. Your alarm has been set on your phone, EJ. You must hurry. We're counting on you—the whole world is!'

Well, just as long as there's no pressure then,
thought EJ.
I don't work so well under pressure.
She fastened her skates and glided off towards the building ahead. As she got closer, she could see that the pipeline fed directly into one side of the building. Two smaller pipes, one red, one blue, came out the other side.

EJ walked around the side of the building and found a door with the words SWITCH ROOM on it. EJ pushed on the door but it was locked. Again she took out her trusty key charm, twisted it and pushed it into the lock, jiggled it around and the lock turned.
I'm in!

But she wasn't exactly sure
what
she was in. The incoming pipe fed into a large metal tank. On the front of it there was some kind of control box
with buttons and levers, flashing lights, dials and switches and beeping noises. Two pipes came out of the other side of the tank. One was red and it fed back into the pipeline and the other was blue and it shot out the other side of the tank. Right in the middle of the control box, there were two levers with screens above them. The first screen flashed words in blue and the second screen flashed words in red. But not really words.
Code. More code. Gee whizz, lemonfizz!
thought EJ,
doesn't anyone just use normal words anymore?

And now the alarm app on EJ's phone was flashing too.
Only thirty minutes to meltdown!
Time was running out but the letters on the screens meant nothing to EJ. No matter which way she looked at them, the words remained nonsense.

Don't panic,
she thought.
Keep a cool head.
She looked around for clues. To the side of each pipe was a tap. She turned the tap on the blue pipe and water gushed out—cool water. She tried the tap on the red pipe—hot steam gushed out. And then EJ got it. This machine was like a giant water cooler and heater in one. It cooled down the polar meltwater so that it could be used as drinking water and it kept volcanic heat moving through the pipeline across the ice shelf. Then it clicked in EJ's mind: Volpol. Volcanic and Polar. Hot and Cold.

EJ studied the screens again and now that she had figured out the purpose of the machine, the meaning of the words leapt out at her. They were all back to front, just like what Dr Hill was doing with the ice.

Or were they? Was she right? What if she was wrong? EJ panicked for just a split second. Then she looked at the screen one more time. She felt suddenly very calm. Yes. She was sure she was right.

Back to front!
thought EJ.
If I pull the levers the other way could I reverse the process? Could I send the cold water gushing back down the pipeline to re-freeze the ice? Could it be that simple?
With only minutes to spare, EJ decided it had to be. She pulled the lever leading to the red pipe down. There was a loud whirring noise and then a clank and a gush. And then EJ noticed the red pipe was slowly changing colour, moving from red to orange to yellow and blue. It was working; EJ had reversed the melting process.

She pulled the other lever. Again, she heard the loud whirring noise followed by a clank and a gush, and slowly the blue pipe turned red, sending warm water off towards the tanks and the hotel.

The hotel, the ice hotel!
EJ had completely forgotten about Dr Hill's party. She may have just stopped the polar ice cap from melting and quite probably prevented an environmental disaster, but she didn't feel like celebrating. She knew she would still have to stand up to Dr Caterina Hill and she felt all her courage melt away at the very thought.

As she turned to leave the Switch Room, EJ spied what looked like a fire extinguisher on the wall. It was a sort of cylinder with a pump hose attached. She looked more closely and read the label, ‘Volpol Portachill'. She pulled the nozzle and sprayed. The pressure release almost knocked her over but it was what came out that surprised her most—it was ice. The spray froze whatever it hit, in this case EJ's foot. It was frozen rock solid. She could barely lift it and could only just walk. She was certainly dressed to chill now!

EJ packed the Portachill in her backpack. That might come in handy if I find myself in hot water, she thought, and laughed at her own joke. Then she clicked her heels and, even with one boot iced,
her skates re-appeared. She turned towards the blue pipe that had now turned fire-engine red.
This should lead me all the way to the ice hotel ... it's party time!