Surviving Antarctica (7 page)

As she slammed the door shut, she thought, Where would the government have put the dog food?

In the outer room, which seemed to contain most of the supplies, Grace pried a top off the closest barrel and stuck her head in. She couldn’t identify the type of meat. The sides of the barrel were moldy, which worried her, but moldy food was better than none. How would she feed this pack? If she threw the meat to them inside the animals’ room, the dogs would fight one another. A dog might get hurt.

She’d have to lead each dog into the supply room, harness it, and feed it separately. Which meant that she needed to go into that room of snarling dogs.

“An Iñupiat can think like any animal,” her grandfather had told her. She thought like a husky as she cracked open the door again. The dogs lunged at her, but this time she braced her foot inside the doorway to keep the door from closing and sidled into the room.

I bring food, Grace thought. The dogs jumped up on her, but none bit her.
Then she noticed the ponies. Two white ones were in a pen at the back. She spotted a bale of hay but couldn’t concentrate on the state of the ponies because the dogs were leaping and jumping all around her. Now that she was close to them, she realized that what she had mistaken for fury seemed to be only a frenzied excitement. What were ponies doing on an Antarctic voyage?

She grabbed one husky, a large brown one, by the scruff of the neck. The dog twisted and bucked, but she managed to drag it into the supply room. With her free hand she lifted a harness off the wall and slipped it over its head. Although most of her tribe used snowmobiles, her grandfather preferred a sled. He had told her many stories of sled dogs. She wondered if these dogs had worked together before.

The dog quieted down now that he was in harness. She took a cupful of the food from the barrel and poured it on the floor. The dog devoured it in a few moments and then looked up at her, hopeful that there would be more.

She stared into the dog’s eyes. Okay. One more scoop. She poured it on the floor and considered where she would put this dog while she fed the next. And what were they going to do with ponies? The Indians on the reservation
owned horses. Occasionally one escaped, and once Grace had kept a brown mare for a few days before she found the owner. She had a hard time believing that ponies would do well on ice.

She finally decided to tie the dog with a rope and fasten it to the stairwell. That done, she opened the door to retrieve her next dog.

The thought of what the other kids might be doing crossed her mind, but the dogs howled. She was needed here.

Polly noticed a stack of books on her bedside table. She had read thousands of books on her electronic book card, which she refilled at the computary. But only once had she read a book with an actual cover and pages that turned. It was
The Fellowship of the Ring
by J.R.R. Tolkien. She could still remember the pleasant hours she had spent with that book one summer on the steps outside her hut, fanning herself because of the heat.

She picked up
Scott’s Last Expedition: The Journals
. It was surely no accident that the book was in her cabin. She knew a few facts about Scott, of course. The
World Book
had had a short entry on him. She turned to the back cover and read,
In November 1910
…
It was almost November 2083, so here they were, starting out 173 years later.

… the vessel
Terra Nova
…

Their ship was named the
Terra Nova
.

… carried an international team of explorers led by Robert Falcon Scott, an Englishman determined to be the first man to reach the South Pole.

Why would Scott care about being the first to reach the Pole? She didn’t know about Robert, Grace, and the others, but here she was on the first kid-led expedition to the Pole, and she had no interest in record-setting.

Scott kept a detailed journal of his adventures until March 29, 1912, when he and the few remaining members of his team met their ends in a brutal blizzard
.

“Brutal blizzard.” She hated the sound of that. Her backpack still unemptied, she settled on her bunk, resting her head against the small pillow. She opened the book to the first page. She was used to reading adventures; she had read them ever since she was little:
The Wizard of Oz
,
Treasure Island
,
Into Thin Air
. She wasn’t used to being in one. By reading, maybe she could forget that she was on this great big ship heading to Antarctica.

She sighed. Why, oh why, had she been chosen?
If a girl had a special gift for running, she should be in a track meet.

If a girl had a special gift for cooking, she should work in a restaurant.

But why send Polly Pritchard, whose special gift was the Memory, to Antarctica? She would be more of a freak in Antarctica than she had been on West Ninety-eighth Street in New York City, where her neighbors all hated reading.

She felt vaguely nauseated and rubbed her stomach. Just in case, she grabbed her book and went into the bathroom.

Sunlight flooded through his porthole, but Andrew Morton lay inert on his bunk. He had been miserable ever since he had boarded this ship. As far as he could tell, there was no TV anywhere. So last night, after searching for one, he had just gone to sleep.

“I don’t care! Go!” his dad had screamed over the noise of the TV when Andrew confessed that he didn’t know why they had picked him.

“They must have made a mistake.” Andrew moaned.

His mother tightened the sash on the thick bathrobe that she wore all day long. “They probably did, but go anyway.”

His parents wanted a chance at the contest
money. One hundred thousand dollars was a lot. For thirty years, his dad had worked as a shoe salesman, but his mom complained that he didn’t make enough money to keep his own kids in shoes. Andrew didn’t mind going barefoot, so his parents bought shoes for his little brother, Bart.

Andrew got up and looked out the porthole at the gusty sea. Boring.

This was the first time in his life that he would ever be without a television. Before this, he had hardly ever missed an episode of his favorite show in the world,
Lives of the Rich.

His dad had explained that as life grew harder in America, as the rich grew richer and the poor poorer, the poor people rebelled. To protest their hard lives, they waged the Urban Trash Wars. The politicians decided that better programming was the way to make Americans happier. So the Department of Entertainment was created. The Secretary encouraged everyone to enjoy television. Through television, each viewer could be anyone and do anything.

Andrew totally agreed. Day after day and night after night, Andrew watched reality television, showing on close to one thousand channels. On
Lives of the Rich,
his favorite character was Craig. Craig had a room of his own much
fancier than even this cabin of Andrew’s on the compucraft, and Craig had plenty to eat and drink and a closet full of clothes.

Sometimes, at home, Andrew would eat his bag of roast-beef chips while he watched Craig eat real roast beef and mashed potatoes, and he would be fooled and think that it was he, Andrew Morton, who ate roast beef off gleaming plates, and not Craig Collins.

Craig had a go-cart and nice parents. Craig’s parents would never let him enter a kids’ survival contest.

Andrew idly wondered where the other kids were, but he didn’t really care. As long as he stayed hidden in his cabin, they wouldn’t find out that they had been saddled with a mistake.

Craig had had some adventures. Once he had gotten locked inside a department store all night and played with the robots. Craig always had a good time. If Craig were on
Antarctic Historical Survivor
and in this cabin, what would he do now?

Ah, Craig would never be here, Andrew reminded himself. Never. Never. Never.

Andrew’s mom, his dad, and Bart were probably sitting on the couch watching television, trading bets on whether he was going to make it to the Pole or not. They might even be watching
him right now. They had cameras everywhere on these survivor shows. “Hi,” he mouthed, just in case his family was watching him.

He looked around the room but couldn’t spot the lens.

He wasn’t sure whether it felt better or worse to be all alone.

Polly’s stomach turned, and she tried not to retch. She hoped that Mama couldn’t see her now. She didn’t want her mother to know that she was seasick. She examined the mirror again for a hidden camera but saw only her own serious face.

This was the first time she had ever had a bathroom to herself. She wished this morning that she could enjoy it in some other way besides hugging the toilet.

A loud bell clanged, and Robert’s voice sounded over the intercom: “Meet in the mess hall in five minutes.”

What a bossy boy! He was acting like he was captain or something. Casey Duncan and the other boys who lived on her street had been bossy. Over the years she’d learned to deal with them by staying away.

“Polly Pritchard comes to town; her fat brain
weighs her down” was just one of the rhymes they taunted her with.

She sighed and stood up. It was going to be hard to avoid Robert.

ROBERT STOOD AT
the head of the small table while the other kids sat around it in the room labeled
MESS HALL
.

There’s got to be a camera on us right now even if we can’t see it, Billy thought. Involuntarily, his eyes swept over every inch of space in the small white room. He would give anything to know where the camera was hidden.

“Okay. We all know how these things work from other shows,” Robert said.

Billy nodded.

Grace was sewing a torn harness.

Polly was reading.

Andrew just looked miserable.
“This is day one. We have a total of five days on this ship to ‘bond together as a team and get ready for the challenge.’” Robert’s voice sounded more sarcastic than he had intended.

Polly put her book down. Her stomach still felt unsteady, but she steeled herself. “Excuse me. Who appointed you leader?”

“I appointed myself.”

“What are your qualifications?”

Robert smiled as if she had asked the easiest question in the world. “I’m going to survive. Any more questions? Anyone else want to be leader?”

“Grace? Andrew? Billy?” Polly studied each kid’s face. “Don’t you want to talk about this?”

Billy’s plan was that Robert would do all the work and then, at the end, he, Billy, would do some amazing thing and be voted MVP. So he was happy for Robert to wear himself out as leader.

Grace didn’t care.

“I think Robert’s great,” Andrew said.

“You can be leader, Robert,” Polly said, since Robert was set on the title and no one else wanted it. “But on the big decisions, I think we should vote. One person, one vote. Does anyone disagree?”

No one said anything.
“Be leader, then,” Polly said. “It’s fine with me.” She picked up her book. Scott’s ponies had gotten stranded on an ice floe that floated out to sea. Henry “Birdie” Bowers, Titus Oates, and Apsley Cherry-Garrard were trying to rescue them. Polly was happier than usual to have a good book to help her escape from her life.

“Billy and I worked on the supplies,” Robert said. “How about the rest of you? What did you do last night?” Except for Billy, he guessed that they were a worthless bunch.

No one spoke. “How about you, Polly? Did you read all night?” Robert tried unsuccessfully to keep the sneer out of his voice.

“I did,” she said calmly. She held up the book,
Scott’s Last Expedition: The Journals
.

“So?” Robert said.

“There are books about polar exploration in my cabin,” Polly said. “I know it’s part of the game. You should read one.”

Robert had never learned anything worth knowing from a book, but before he could respond, Grace interrupted. “Did you hear the animals?”

“Yeah,” Robert said. “I was going to bring that up next. We need to figure out how to take care of them.”

“I already have,” Grace said.

“You fed them all?” Robert asked, surprised at her efficiency. “What’s on board?”

“Twelve dogs and two ponies.”

“Ponies?” Billy said.

“I don’t understand.” Robert scratched his head.

Polly cleared her throat. Here was her first chance to show how useful the books were going to be. “Captain Scott used ponies, dogs, and a primitive form of motor sledge for his polar expedition. Of course, his faith in ponies and motor sledges was misplaced. Roald Amundsen beat him to the Pole in 1911 using only dogs.”

“Ponies hauling on ice and snow?” Robert asked. The idea sounded strange. “How did they do?”

“They slipped a lot, and the weather was hard on them. They did better when they wore snowshoes,” Polly added.

“Snowshoes for horses?” Billy asked incredulously.

“Any weird-looking snowshoes down there, Grace?” Robert asked.

“Yeah,” Grace said, thinking of the round things hanging next to the ponies’ bridles that had puzzled her. “Now that you mention it. I didn’t know what they were.”

“That’s the Secretary of Entertainment for you, accurate down to the last little detail.” Billy was anxious to do everything he could to remain the Secretary’s favorite contestant.

“Let’s get one thing straight,” Robert broke in. “I hate the suck-ups on the reality shows. The wonderful Secretary of Entertainment this. The wonderful Secretary of Entertainment that.” He tried to imagine a camera in the corner and looked straight at it. “I don’t mean any disrespect, ma’am. I’m glad for this chance to earn money.” Robert turned and glared at Billy. “But we won’t have any sucking up while I’m team leader, you got that?”

“I didn’t mean …” Billy’s voice trailed off.

“So let’s get back to our plan. Billy and I are going to handle supplies.” Robert looked at Grace. “You, animals?”

Grace nodded.

“Polly,” he said deliberately. “I guess you should be Director of Research.” He smiled at his joke. She was prim and executive-looking, like her title.