by Maria Semple
“She’s really pregnant?” I said.
“Yep.” Poor guy, he looked like he was going to barf.
“So basically,” I said, “your life is ruined.” I’m sorry, but something in me made me smile.
“I can’t say that thought hasn’t occurred to me,” he said. “But I try not to think of it that way. I’m trying to frame it as my life being different. Our lives being different. Me and you.”
“So me and Lincoln and Alexandra are going to have the same brother or sister?”
“Yep.”
“That’s so random.”
“Random!” he said. “I’ve always hated when you used that word. But it is pretty random.”
“Dad,” I said. “I called her Yoko Ono that night because she was the one who broke up the Beatles. Not because she’s Asian. I felt bad.”
“I know that,” he said.
It was good that sappy-eyed seal was there, because we could both just watch her. But then Dad started putting in eyedrops.
“Dad,” I said. “I really don’t mean to hurt your feelings, but…”
“But what?”
“You have way too many accessories. I can’t keep track of all of them.”
“It’s a good thing you don’t have to, isn’t it?”
We were quiet for a while, and then I said, “I think my favorite part of Antarctica is just looking out.”
“You know why?” Dad asked. “When your eyes are softly focused on the horizon for sustained periods, your brain releases endorphins. It’s the same as a runner’s high. These days, we all spend our lives staring at screens twelve inches in front of us. It’s a nice change.”
“I have an idea,” I said. “You should invent an app so that when you’re staring at your phone, it tricks your brain into thinking you’re staring at the horizon, so you can get a runner’s high from texting.”
“What did you just say?” Dad spun his head to look at me, his mind in high gear.
“Don’t you dare steal my idea!” I gave him a shove.
“Consider yourself warned.”
I groaned and left it at that. Then Charlie came over and said it was time to head back.
At breakfast, Nick the penguin-counter asked me again if I’d be his assistant, which did sound pretty fun. We got to leave before everyone else, in our own Zodiac. Nick let me stand next to the outboard and steer. The best way to describe Nick would be to say that he didn’t have any personality, which sounds mean, but it’s kind of true. The closest he came to personality was when he told me to scan the horizon wide, like a searchlight, back and forth, back and forth. He said after he was down here the first time driving a Zodiac that he went back home and immediately got into a car accident because he was looking left to right, left to right, and ended up rear-ending the car directly in front of him. But that’s not personality. That’s just a car accident.
He dropped me off at an Adélie penguin colony and gave me a clipboard with a satellite map marked with some boundaries. This was a follow-up to a study a month back, where another scientist had counted the eggs. It was my job to see how many had successfully hatched into chicks. Nick sized up the colony.
“This looks like a complete breeding failure.” He shrugged.
I was shocked by how casually he said this. “What do you mean, a complete failure?”
“Adélies are hardwired to lay their eggs in the exact same place each year,” he said. “We had a late winter, so their nesting grounds were still covered with snow when they made their nests. So it looks like there’s no chicks.”
“How can you even tell?” Because there was no way I could see that.
“You tell me,” he said. “Observe their behavior and tell me what you see.”
He left me with a clicker and headed off to another colony, saying he’d return in two hours. Adélies may be the cutest penguins of all. Their heads are pure black except for perfect white circles, like a reinforcement, around their tiny black eyes. I started at the top left corner and clicked each time I saw a gray fuzz-ball sticking out from between an Adélie’s feet. Click, click, click. I worked my way across the top of the mapped area, then dropped down and worked my way back. You have to make sure not to count the same nest twice, but it’s almost impossible because they’re not in a neat grid. When I was done I did it over again and got the same number.
Here’s what surprised me about penguins: their chests aren’t pure white but have patches of peach and green, which is partially digested krill and algae vomit, which splatters on them when they feed their chicks. Another thing is penguins stink! And they’re loud. They coo sometimes, which is very soothing, but mostly they screech. The penguins I watched spent most of their time waddling over and stealing rocks from one another, then having vicious fights where they’d peck each other until they bled.
I climbed high on the rocks and looked out. There was ice, in every possible form, stretching forever. Glaciers, fast ice, icebergs, chunks of ice in the still water. The air was so cold and clean that even in the way distance, the ice was as vivid and sharp as if it were right in front of me. The immensity of it all, the peacefulness, the stillness and enormous silence, well, I could have sat there forever.
“What behavior did you observe?” Nick asked when he got back.
“The penguins that spent most of their time fighting were the ones with no chicks,” I said.
“There you go,” he said.
“It’s like they’re supposed to be taking care of their chicks. But because they don’t have any, they have nothing to do with all their energy. So they just pick fights.”
“I like that.” He checked my work. “This looks good. I need your John Hancock.” I signed at the bottom, to verify that I was the scientist.
When Nick and I arrived back at the ship, Dad was in the mudroom peeling off his layers. I scanned my ID card. It bonged, and the screen read: BALAKRISHNA, PLEASE SEE OFFICIAL. Hmm. I scanned it again. Another bong.
“That’s because you didn’t scan out,” Nick said. “As far as it knows, you’re still on the ship.”
“Well, ladies and gentleman,” said the overhead voice, followed by the big pause. “We hope you enjoyed your morning excursion and that you’re hungry for some Argentinean barbecue, which is now being served in the dining room.” I was halfway up the stairs when I realized Dad wasn’t with me. He was standing at the scanner, with a puzzled look on his face.
“Dad!” I knew everyone would be charging the buffet line and I didn’t want to get stuck at the end.
“OK, OK.” Dad snapped to, and we beat the lunch crowd.
There was no afternoon excursion because we had to cover a huge distance and didn’t have time to stop. Dad and I went to the library to look for a game to play.
Nick found us there. He handed me some papers. “Here’s copies of your data, and past data, in case you’re interested.” So maybe that was his personality: nice.
“That’s so cool,” I said. “Do you want to play a game with us?”
“No,” he said. “I have packing to do.”
“Too bad,” I told Dad. “Because I’d really like to play Risk, but we need three players.”
“We’ll play with you,” a British girl’s voice said. It was one of the two girls from Port Lockroy! She and the other girl had handwritten labels stuck to their shirts that said their names, and ASK ME ABOUT PORT LOCKROY. They were freshly showered, with gigantic smiles stretched across their shiny faces.
“What are you doing here?” I said.
“There’s not a ship scheduled to visit Port Lockroy for two days,” said Vivian.
“So the captain said we could spend the night on the Allegra,” said Iris. They both wanted to talk so badly that they were like racecar drivers jockeying to cut each other off. It must have been from the lack of anyone else’s company.
“How are you going to get back?” I asked.
“There was a change of plans involving Nick—” Vivian started.
“That’s why there’s no afternoon excursion.” Iris finished.
“The Allegra has to take him to Palmer,” Vivian said.
“So we’ll end up crossing paths with the next ship to visit Port Lockroy, and Vivian and I will transfer to that—”
“The cruise companies like to keep it hush-hush, though—”
“They like to give the passengers the impression they’re all alone in the vast Antarctic Ocean so these crew transfers are only ever done in the dead of night—”
“And you’ll be pleased to know we’ve showered!” said Vivian, and they both burst into giggles, ending the talking derby.
“I’m really sorry if I was rude,” I said.
I turned to Dad, but he was heading down to the bridge. I didn’t call after him because Dad knows my strategy for Risk, which is to occupy Australia at the outset. Even though Australia is small, there’s only one way in and out, so when it comes time to conquer the world, if you don’t have Australia, you go in and your armies get trapped there until your next turn. Then the next player can gobble up the single armies you’ve left in your path. I had the three of us quickly pick our colors and distribute our armies before Dad came back. On my first four turns, I yoinked Australia.
Playing Risk with these girls was so fun because in my whole life I’ve never seen two people happier. That’s what a hot shower and peeing in a proper toilet will do. Vivian and Iris told me a funny story about how one day they were sitting at Port Lockroy between cruise ships and a huge fancy yacht pulls up and it’s Paul Allen’s yacht, the Octopus, which he and Tom Hanks got off and then requested a tour. I asked the girls if they got to shower on the Octopus, but they said they were too afraid to ask.
The freckled lady who called me rude at Port Lockroy sat down with a book and saw me and Vivian and Iris laughing like we’d known one another forever.
“Helloooo,” I said to her like a big smiling cat.
Before she could respond, the voice over the PA said, “Well, good evening.” He was announcing a bunch of whales on the starboard side, which I’d already seen. A few more “Well, good evening”s came and went, announcing a photography lecture, and then dinner, and then March of the Penguins, but we didn’t want to stop the game, so we took turns running plates of food from the dining room up to the library. With each announcement, Dad would pop up and give me the thumbs-up through the window, and I’d give him the thumbs-up in return. The sun was still blazing, so the only way to judge the passage of time was by the people trickling out of the library. Pretty soon, even Dad stopped appearing, and it was just the three of us playing Risk. Hours must have passed. It was just us and the cleaning crew. Then there seemed to be another “Well, good evening,” but I couldn’t be sure because of the vacuum. Then sleepy-eyed passengers with parkas over their pajamas appeared on the deck with their cameras.
“What’s going on?” I said. It was two in the morning.
“Oh, we must be at Palmer,” Vivian said with a hand flutter. It was her turn, and she actually thought she was about to seize Europe.
More people appeared on the deck, but I couldn’t see over their heads. Finally, I stood on my chair. “Oh my God!”
There was a little city, if you’d call a bunch of shipping containers and a couple corrugated metal buildings a city. “What is that place?”
“That’s Palmer,” Iris said.
Palmer was short for Palmer Station. When Nick said he was packing, and when Iris said we were dropping Nick off at Palmer, I figured it was to count penguins on some island.
“That’s where Nick is stationed for the next month,” Vivian said.
I knew all about the three places in Antarctica where Americans can live. They are McMurdo Station, which looks like an awful dump with about a thousand people. There’s, of course, the South Pole, which is way far inland and impossible to get to, with twenty people. And Palmer Station, with about forty-five people. All three are populated by scientists and support staff. But I had checked the chart room and asked the captain: the Allegra never stopped at Palmer Station.
Still, here we were.
“Are we getting off?” I asked the girls.
“Oh, no,” Iris said.
“Scientists only,” Vivian added. “They run a very tight operation.”
I dashed out onto the deck. A few Zodiacs streamed back and forth the two hundred yards between our ship and Palmer Station. Nick was heading away from us on a Zodiac stacked with coolers and food crates.
“Who are those people coming aboard?” I wondered aloud.
“It’s a tradition.” Charlie the naturalist was standing next to me. “We let the scientists at Palmer come aboard for a drink. “
I must have had quite a look on my face, because Charlie quickly added, “Nope. People apply five years out to get to Palmer. Beds and supplies are extremely limited. Moms from Seattle don’t end up there on a whim. I’m sorry to be like that. But, you know.”
“Bee!” whispered a wild voice. It was Dad. I figured he was asleep because it was two in the morning. Before I could speak, he was shepherding me down the stairs. “I started thinking when your ID didn’t scan,” he said, his voice all trembly. “What if Bernadette got off the ship but she didn’t scan out? Her ID card would show she was still onboard, so everyone would naturally conclude that she had disappeared from the ship itself. But if she got off the ship somewhere and didn’t scan out, she might still be there.” He pulled open the door to the lounge, which was filling up with some pretty ratty-looking people, scientists from Palmer Station.
“Neko Harbor was the last place Mom got off,” I said, trying to put it together. “And then she got back on.”
“According to the scan of her ID card,” Dad explained again. “But what if she slipped off the ship later? Without scanning out? I was at the bar just now, and some lady went up and ordered a pink penguin.”
“A pink penguin?” My heart started quaking. That was the drink from the captain’s report.
“It turns out the lady is a scientist at Palmer Station,” Dad said. “And the pink penguin is their official drink.”
I searched the faces of the new arrivals. They were young and scruffy, like they could all have worked at REI, and full of laughter. Mom’s face wasn’t among them.
“Look at that place,” Dad said. “I didn’t know it existed.”
I kneeled on a window seat and peered out. A series of red walkways connected the blue metal buildings. There were a dozen electricity poles sticking up, and a water tank with a killer whale painted on it. A gigantic orange ship was docked nearby, nothing like a cruise ship, but more like one of those industrial types that are always in Elliott Bay.
“According to the woman, Palmer Station is the plum assignment in all of Antarctica,” Dad said. “They have a chef who was trained at the Cordon Bleu, for God’s sake.”
Below, Zodiacs were coming and going between our ship and the rocky shore. There was an Elvis mannequin in one of the Zodiacs, which the naturalists were videotaping to much hooting and hollering. Who knew. It must have been some inside joke.
“So the pink penguins on the captain’s report…,” I said, still trying to compute.
“They weren’t for Bernadette,” Dad said. “They must have been for a scientist, like Nick, who was being dropped off at Palmer Station, and who Bernadette befriended.”
I was still stuck on something. “But Mom’s ship didn’t come anywhere near Palmer Station—” Then I realized. “I know how we can check!”
I ran out of the lounge and down the stairs to the chart room, Dad on my heels. On the shiny wooden block was the map of the Antarctic Peninsula, with the little red dotted line showing our journey. I opened the drawer and leafed through the maps until I found the one dated December 26.
“This is the trip Mom took.” I laid it out and placed brass weights on the corners.
I traced the red dotted path of Mom’s trip. From Tierra del Fuego, the Allegra stopped a
t Deception Island like we did. Then it looped up and around the Antarctic Peninsula and went deep into the Weddell Sea, and back around, to Neko Harbor and Adelaide Island, but after that it turned around and went back through the Bransfield Strait to King George Island and down to Ushuaia. “Her boat didn’t come near Palmer Station.” There was no way around it.
“What are these?” Dad pointed to gray dashes intersecting the red dotted line. It happened in three different spots.
“A current or something,” I guessed.
“No… these aren’t currents,” Dad said. “Wait, they each have a symbol…” It was true. In these gray lines were a snowflake, a bell, and a triangle. “There’s got to be a key…”
There was, on the bottom left. Next to these symbols were the words SITKA STAR SOUTH, LAURENCE M. GOULD, and ANTARCTIC AVALON.
“I know the name Laurence M. Gould from somewhere,” I said.
“They sound like the names of ships,” Dad said.
“Where do I know it from—”
“Bee?” Dad said with a huge smile on his face. “Look up.”
I raised my head. Out the window, that huge ship, all orange hull, in blue block letters: RV LAURENCE M. GOULD.
“It crossed paths with Mom’s ship,” Dad said. “And look where it is now.”
I was afraid to say what I was thinking.
“She’s here, Bee!” Dad said. “Mom is here.”
“Hurry!” I said. “Let’s go ask one of those people in the lounge—”
Dad grabbed my arm. “No!” he said. “If Mom finds out, she might pull another disappearing act.”
“Dad, we’re in Antarctica. Where could she go?”
He gave me a look, like, Really?
“OK, OK, OK,” I said. “But tourists aren’t allowed off. How are we—”
“We’re going to steal a Zodiac,” he said. “We have exactly forty minutes.”
It was then that I realized he was holding our red parkas. He grabbed my hand and we twirled down one, two, three levels until we landed in the mudroom.
“How are you both doing tonight?” said a girl behind the counter. “Or is it morning already? It is!” She returned to her paperwork.