by E. W. Clarke
She shook off the creepy feeling that had settled around her and snatched the diary out from under his arm. As quickly as she could, Lulu ran to the other side of the tent. She flipped through the notebook, glancing at some of the other entries. Many were about the harsh conditions:
We are going to have a pretty hard time this next one hundred miles I expect. . . . Wish we had more fuel. . . . Thermometer went below -40°F last night . . . The Sun shines brightly, but there is little warmth in it. There is no doubt the middle of the Barrier is a pretty awful locality.
Those entries made her feel ill.
But they were interspersed with others:
I remember Owen telling me about what his research had uncovered. That in fact the French Revolution should have had a different outcome. . . . I have heard a strange prophecy that within a hundred years time will become more flexible, that people will learn to move backward as well as forward. . . .
Lulu snapped it closed.
Mission accomplished.
That is, if she and Eddie could make it back without running into the SQ.
With the notebook stashed in Lulu’s pack, they started retracing their steps, more slowly this time. It didn’t take long for them to come back to the crevasse field. Lulu felt almost light-headed with joy. They were so close, and soon they’d be able to return home!
A loud noise blasted through the Antarctic silence.
Had the ground suddenly given way beneath her?
Lulu looked around wildly. There, behind them, was a small group of men. Holding guns. And the man in front was raising his again.
Lulu threw herself onto Eddie, pushing him to the ground and cutting her cheek on the ice. The blood on her face was so warm that she thought it felt good for a second — but only for a second, because then the pain came, a sharp pain, made worse by the cold air. She yanked her head up quickly so that the blood wouldn’t freeze her face to the ice. Beyond that, there wasn’t a second to spare worrying about the cut now.
The men were sprinting toward her and Eddie, rapidly gaining ground. The closer they got, the better their aim would be.
“Eddie?” Lulu said.
He nodded at her, and she knew he understood instinctively what she planned to do.
Wildly, they ran into the crevasse field.
The men reached the edge of the chasm-riddled landscape and came to a sudden stop. They knew that going farther would be certain death. What were these kids doing in Antarctica? They had been expecting well-trained Hystorians, not a school field day.
“Men,” snapped their leader. “We have two choices. We shoot, and then we risk going out into this death-trap to retrieve the notebook from the bodies. Or we let them reach the other side alive — and apprehend them there.”
Nodding, the men prepared to put away their weapons.
“What are you doing?” their leader shrieked. “Did I tell you which option I’d chosen? Shoot! Shoooot!”
Bullets whizzed by as Lulu and Eddie leapt from crag to crag. Tiny cracks appeared under their feet every time they landed. Then medium cracks appeared. Then big ones. The ground was growing more unstable, but if they didn’t keep moving, one of the bullets was sure to find its target.
“What do we do?” Eddie panted.
They glanced around. Surrounding them was nothing but the ice field: white, open, and empty, other than the crevasses where they’d narrowly avoided plunging deep into the earth. Lulu thought quickly. Well, there was no escaping the ice field — so what if they did the opposite? What if they purposefully went down into it?
Would it be worth the risk to try to climb into a crevasse and find an ice shelf where they could hide and wait out the danger?
The trouble was that the ice around the crevasses was not strong, and could crumble in if too much weight was put on it. But it was their only hope.
“Eddie, give me the rope.”
He handed over the rope without hesitation. Lulu quickly fastened it around her waist. She jogged to the nearest crevasse, a narrow gap in the snowy ground. It was probably about half a meter wide; the bottom was too deep to see. But maybe two meters down there was a narrow ledge that jutted out from the wall. Could it hold their weight? Lulu decided she’d go down first.
“Eddie, lie down on the ice, as flat as you can get, so that they don’t shoot you. I’m going to climb down and test out the ledge. If it feels sturdy, we can hide there.”
Eddie was starting to look frantic. “Lulu,” he said, his voice wavering. “Don’t go down there. Let me go.”
Lulu was surprised by the offer — so unlike the selfish, immature brother she thought she knew. “I’ll be fine,” she said.
Eddie nodded reluctantly. He looped the other end of the rope around his waist, securing it with double knots and tugging hard on it to test that it would hold.
When they were certain that their knots were secure, Lulu crawled on her hands and knees to the edge of the ice shelf. Eddie kept the rope taut so that she wouldn’t be able to fall more than a few inches if she slipped. He was on his belly, bracing himself by digging the points of his ice picks into the ice.
Another shot flew by, puncturing the snow only a meter away, and Eddie jumped, then settled back into his position.
Lulu lowered herself over the edge, feet first, hanging until she was gripping the top of the ice wall with her hands. Her cold muscles ached with the exertion.
She used her right hand to work one of her ice picks out of her belt, and she swung it into the frozen wall, holding her breath.
It stuck. And the wall didn’t crumble.
She did the same on her left, easing down and then swinging her second pick in. She used the points on her shoes to brace herself against the wall, and slowly, slowly, went down, one foot after the other, one frozen hand after the other. It was a short distance, but she felt like it took ages to get down. At last she was able to reach out with her right foot, and after some groping around, felt the shelf beneath her. She gently lowered herself onto it and crouched, not moving, as she caught her breath.
She called up, as softly as she could, “Give me a little more slack!”
Eddie let the rope out about thirty centimeters.
She crouched over and pressed against the snow. It felt like it was pretty sturdy. Should she try jumping?
Lulu hopped lightly from foot to foot.
It held.
Peering up at the sky, she called up to her brother. “It’s safe.”
Once Eddie had started to crawl forward, releasing all the tension from her rope line, she panicked. The thought of the floor dropping out from under her and depositing her in a broken heap fifteen meters below stuck in her skull and wouldn’t leave.
Finally, willing herself to move, she jammed her ice picks back into the wall as firmly as she could, and gripped the handles. Now at least there was something tethering her to the earth.
Above, Eddie came squirming into view. She could tell that he was either very nervous or very tired. His legs shook as he braced them against the wall. He was doing the same thing she’d done, gripping the picks, and using his legs to walk down along the wall toward the shelf. If he fell, it would be up to her to pull him back up, using the rope that still connected their bodies.
Once he was close enough, Lulu grabbed him and helped him land softly.
“Lulu . . .” Eddie moaned. His legs hadn’t stopped shaking. So it was nerves, not the exertion. She wrapped her arm around him and pulled him to her. His faint body heat felt good next to her.
“It’s going to be okay. We’re going to be okay. Father will come for us.”
If they were going to wait it out, she decided, they might as well be warm. Carefully, they removed the rope from their waists and pitched their small tent on the tiny ledge.
Lulu meant to stay alert, remain aware of the movements o
f the SQ, and it didn’t seem like it would be that hard, what with the noises of the bullets that still flew by overhead. But they had been trekking for a long time, and eventually she fell into a doze.
Lulu woke up with a start. She was huddled in their tent, tightly gripping Eddie’s hand. He was still asleep.
She didn’t know what had woken her up — until she heard it again. Footsteps. Moving quickly. Footsteps most likely meant danger.
But Lulu Charles was not ready to die.
She untangled herself from the tent and stood on tiptoe on the small ledge. She still couldn’t see over the rim of the ice. Cautiously, Lulu swung her ice picks into the wall, hauling herself up, determined to see what was causing the noise. If it was those lousy SQ bullies, well, she might as well meet them head-on.
When she pulled herself far enough that she could peek over the edge, she was greeted by an astounding sight.
A huge pack of dogs was bounding toward her. For a moment Lulu wasn’t sure if they were the dogs she knew so well, or hunting dogs set loose by the SQ, and then —
“Mizu!” she cried.
There, slowly sharpening to a distinct outline against the blinding-white snow, was her dog with the spot on her nose. Mizu and the others seemed to have a sixth sense for the stability of the ground, leaping over weak spots and skidding past crumbling snow.
“Wake up, Eddie!” Lulu scrambled back down and started taking down the tent with Eddie still in it. He squinted against the light and the sudden noise. “The dogs have come to help us get back. Come on!” Finally alert, he crawled out of the collapsed tent and helped Lulu stuff it in the pack. Together, they ice-picked their way back up to the surface to find that a wall of dogs stood between them and the SQ encampment. Staying crouched low to the ground, they tried to take stock of the situation. What was the best way out? Even though the dogs had come for them, they were still in terrible danger if they made a run for it.
As though sensing their indecision, Mizu came and nudged Lulu’s hand. It was then that Lulu realized there was a note tied around Mizu’s neck.
Lulu and Eddie, it said, follow Mizu. She’ll lead you out. Love, Father.
The kids looked at each other and shrugged.
“All riiight,” Eddie said hesitantly.
“We trust Mizu,” Lulu said. “And we trust Father.”
A shot rang out, and a dog near them suddenly leapt backward, blood streaming from a wounded paw. Mizu looked at them imploringly, as though begging them to make up their minds and follow her.
They had no other choice.
All at once, Mizu took off running, with the children right behind her. Around them, the pack of dogs burst into action, with some staying in a tight, protective circle around Lulu and Eddie, and others splitting up to create diversions. Glancing back, Lulu could see that three dogs, dodging and scrambling, were headed right for the far bank and the SQ. The sound of their threatening growls echoed over the ice.
Seeing that their targets were making a run for it, the men started firing wildly. But the children were too far away for them to shoot with any degree of accuracy. And leaping, crazed wolflike creatures kept getting in their way.
Almost ready to tear his hat off with frustration, their leader raised his numb hands in the air.
“Cease fire, men!”
Immediately, fire ceased.
“We’re going in after them, like we should have done to begin with! Right now. Let’s go!”
In two straight rows, the men started sprinting out into the crevasse field. The children had a head start, but the men were moving quickly and purposefully, not stopping to dodge around dangerous areas, rushing straight for their targets.
But the dogs had been doing more than creating a distraction.
Bounding over the ice, back and forth, they were loosening the weak spots, putting pressure on icy pinnacles that were about to give. With teeth bared, they ran toward the men, then backed away, as though daring them to come any closer.
Unfazed, the men ran closer still.
Then, with a loud crack, a chunk of the ground gave way.
Like children on a playground slide, the men flew down the icy slope and into the crevasse.
Lulu and Eddie paused when the echoing screams reached their ears. Looking back, they saw nothing but ice and snow and sky. But from the earth, they could hear the curses and shouts of the men rising up. If they’d survived the fall, it wouldn’t be long before they climbed their way out of the pit and were on the chase again.
But it was time enough for Lulu and Eddie to reach their camp, reach their father. He would know what to do with the journal. Adjusting the pack more securely on her back, Lulu took Eddie’s hand in hers. And together they ran after Mizu, toward home.
Lulu and Eddie were hailed as heroes by the Hystorians. Their daring saved countless lives, ensuring that our most sensitive secrets remained secret.
They never took the credit, though. According to them, all of the credit belonged to the brave Huskies who had saved them. They adopted Mizu, of course, and the dog accompanied them on many adventures to come. By the time they retired from active Hystorian duty, Lulu and Eddie had crossed four oceans and visited all seven continents. And they did it all together.
— Arin
The author gratefully acknowledges Emily Seife.
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e-ISBN 978-0-545-52272-4
First edition, December 2013
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