Surviving Antarctica

by Andrea White

  “Tell me about it.”

  “When we woke up in the morning and tried to put on our clothes, they were frozen into boards.”

  “So you know what it’s like to be cold?” Andrew said, trying to ignore the growing numbness of his hands and feet. I never want to be cold again, he thought.

  “Poor kid,” Steve muttered to Chad.

  “How long do blizzards last?” Andrew asked.

  “Not too long,” Steve said. He wished that he knew.

  30

  “POLLY, IT’S IMPOSSIBLE to rescue him right now,” Robert argued. “Go to sleep so you can be fresh when we try again.” Even though they were all huddled around the Primus, he had to raise his voice to make himself heard over the wind.

  “No,” Polly said.

  “Don’t get emotional on me,” Robert said.

  “I am emotional,” Polly said. “I’m mad and scared.”

  “Who are you mad at?” Billy asked.

  “What?” Polly said.

  Billy repeated his question. Ever since he had failed to help Robert, he had felt guilty.

  “I’m not mad at you, Billy,” Polly said. “Or at you, Robert, for caring about a broken-down motor.”

  “Then who?” Robert asked.

  “I’m mad at the Secretary of Entertainment. I’m mad at anyone watching this stupid television show. I’m mad at America. A sweet boy may die so the viewers at home can be amused. It’s sad. It’s sick. I don’t care what the Secretary does to me, I am never, ever watching one of her sick shows again.”

  “The viewers,” Billy said.

  “Oh, she’ll cut this scene from the program,” Polly said with disgust. “I’m sure other contestants have felt like me, but no one has ever heard them complain on television.”

  “I agree with you,” Robert surprised Polly by saying. “But we can’t let our anger get in the way of our survival,” he continued. “We’re running out of food. The best thing we can do is sleep.”

  “But we just woke up,” Grace said.

  “Does anybody have a better suggestion?” Robert said.

  As if in answer, the wind howled.

  “I can’t sleep, thinking of Andrew lost out there,” Polly wailed.

  “If anybody can make it, Andrew can,” Robert said.

  Billy planned to eat a health-food bar for his dinner tonight. But it was his last one, and he was worried. He had lots of Chocobombs, but the sugar wasn’t filling. He hoped that everyone would fall asleep, because he wanted to count the bags of peanuts and crackers. He was scared that if the blizzard didn’t stop soon, he was going to be hungry. It was frustrating to realize that more supplies were only seventeen miles away.

  “What happened, Polly?” Billy asked suddenly. “Why did Scott and his men die?”

  “I thought we were going to try to get some sleep,” Robert said.

  “You were,” Grace answered.

  “Sounds like an essay question for EduTV,” Robert said.

  Billy didn’t laugh. “I want to know.”

  “Well,” Polly began, “the mystery about Scott’s death is that he and his men died in their tent eleven miles from a depot of food. Scott’s diary suggests that the polar party had a run of unusually bad weather, a blizzard of ten days’ duration.”

  “Ten days?” Billy said. This blizzard couldn’t last that long. They would run out of food for sure.

  “So just bad luck?” Robert said, interested in spite of himself.

  Polly shook her head. “On the ship, I read some modern books about the expedition. Research proves that on Scott’s polar trek the weather was colder than usual, but it also proves something else.”

  “What?” Billy said.

  “In all the years that scientists tracked temperatures here, they never once recorded a ten-day blizzard.”

  That’s better, Billy thought. “So why didn’t Scott hike to the food?”

  “Scott wrote this: My right foot has gone, nearly all the toes—two days ago I was proud possessor of best feet. These are the steps of my downfall. Like an ass I mixed a small spoonful of curry powder with my melted pemmican—it gave me violent indigestion. I lay awake and in pain all night; woke and felt done on the march; foot went and I didn’t know it.”

  “So Scott had frostbite?” Robert asked.

  “Yes,” Polly said.

  “But what about Bowers and Wilson?” Grace said.

  Polly was surprised that Grace knew their names. She hadn’t realized that Grace listened to her stories.

  “So Scott ordered Bowers and Wilson to stay?” Robert said.

  “No,” Polly said. How could Robert think that Scott was a man who would order his friends to starve to death?

  “Don’t make us guess,” Robert said. “You said that Scott had frostbite and that’s why he didn’t go for food. Why did Bowers and Wilson stay in the tent instead of trying to get to the depot? They could have brought food back to Scott. At least two of the explorers could have survived. Why didn’t they?”

  “Wilson and Bowers could have made it to the depot eleven miles away. Their feet weren’t frostbitten. But they couldn’t have carried Scott the hundred miles back to camp.”

  “You’re not making any sense,” Billy said. “You just said that blizzards don’t last for ten days. Why did Scott lie about the ten-day blizzard?”

  “Scott would never lie. Remember, Scott couldn’t walk. He couldn’t leave the tent,” Polly said. “He had to depend on what Bowers and Wilson told him about the weather.”

  “I don’t understand. Stop talking in riddles,” Billy said.

  “This was one of his last diary entries: Since the 21st we have had a continuous gale…. We had fuel to make two cups of tea apiece and bare food for two days on the 20th. Every day we have been ready to start for our depot 11 miles away, but outside the door of the tent it remains a scene of whirling drift.”

  “So they all starved.” Billy had made his decision. He would rather freeze to death than starve.

  “Probably,” Polly said.

  “Was that his last entry?” Billy said.

  Polly shook her head. “No. His last entry was undated: For God’s sake look after our people.”

  “But what about Wilson and Bowers?” Robert asked.

  “Wilson and Bowers gave up,” Billy said. “It was easier for them to stay inside a warm tent than to brave the cold.”

  “Those two would never have given up!” Polly shot back. The insult to her heroes filled her eyes with tears.

  Suddenly Grace understood: Bowers and Wilson had stayed in the tent because they didn’t want Scott to die alone. She heard the pounding of the wind outside and found herself strangely grateful for the two men’s kindness to the long-dead explorer.

  “There wasn’t a blizzard, but Scott believed there was.” Robert thought out loud. “Wilson and Bowers must have lied to Scott. Why would they lie?”

  “Otherwise Scott would have ordered them to save themselves,” Polly said, reciting the theory of an expert on polar exploration. “That was the kind of man he was. The kind of man whose last words were For God’s sake look after our people.” After everything he’d gone through, Scott thought of their families at the end.

  “So Bowers and Wilson chose to stay?” Billy asked, amazed.

  “Who knows what really happened?” Polly nodded her head and wiped her tears with her sleeve. “But somewhere out there in that snow and ice Andrew is dying alone,” she choked out. She couldn’t talk anymore. She crawled toward her sleeping bag and stuffed her head inside it to muffle her sobs.

  Bowers and Wilson were good guys, Robert thought.

  Bowers and Wilson died because they were loyal. Andrew went down into that crevasse to save Robert. Polly wanted to go out in the snow to look for Andrew. The snow teaches people to take care of one another, Grace thought.

  I miss my home, Billy thought. I miss my Compu-gametable. I want to survive. I don’t care if I win. I want to go home. More than an
ything else, I don’t want to starve.

  When Polly lifted her head up, she heard Robert’s and Billy’s loud snores.

  “Grace, are you awake?” Polly asked.

  “Yeah,” Grace said.

  “Can I talk to you some more?”

  Grace didn’t say anything, but Polly didn’t sense her silence to be unfriendly.

  “Scott headed to the Pole with only four men. The rest of the expedition waited at different camps. Around the time Scott was expected to return to the main camp, Cherry-Garrard, one of Scott’s crew members, drove a dog team to try to find Scott and make his journey back easier. When Cherry-Garrard was about to run out of dog food, he returned to the main camp. That’s what Scott had told him to do. He was just following orders. Months later, Cherry-Garrard was one of the men who found the explorers’ bodies. He read their diaries. He figured out that he had been only a two- or three-day march away from the Scott team as the men lay dying.

  “Cherry-Garrard was a rich man. He had an estate in England. But he was never happy after he learned that he might have saved Scott. He always wished that he had ignored Scott’s orders and gone on and looked for his friends.”

  “Horrible,” Grace said.

  “Yet Cherry-Garrard shouldn’t have gone on searching,” Polly said. She paused to gather strength to recount the haunting story. “His trip to find Scott was the first time that he had managed a dogsled. Cherry-Garrard wore glasses that constantly fogged up, but he was blind without them. He probably wouldn’t have survived if he had ignored his orders and continued looking for Scott.”

  “Just like you and the wind,” Grace said.

  “Yeah,” Polly said. “The fact that Cherry-Garrard didn’t attempt that impossible task ruined his life.” She started crying. “And that’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “Polly,” Grace crooned, as she did to her animals.

  “I’ll hate myself,” Polly mumbled.

  What could Grace say? What could anyone say? Blizzards froze comforting words into ice.

  31

  “HOW CAN I leave him?” Steve said to Chad.

  “You must,” Chad said. His hand lay heavily on Steve’s shoulder. “The day shift will be here any minute.”

  Steve sighed. Some nights the sound of Pearl’s sweeping was reassuring, but now its clocklike regularity was eerie, and Steve wanted to yell at her to stop.

  “What you’ve done is a crime,” Chad reminded him. “Do you want to get us all on Court TV?”

  Steve didn’t say anything. They stared at each other. Chad’s face was white, his mouth tight. Steve knew his father would not have wanted him to repay Chad’s kindness with disobedience.

  Chad leaned close to Steve. “I trust you.” He gestured toward the empty basement. “We all trust you. I just don’t want us all to become Pearls.” Chad’s eyes were big and dark. Steve had never seen a grown man so scared.

  “Okay.” Steve turned to Andrew’s screen. “Andrew, buddy, this is Birdie.”

  “Yeah,” Andrew answered groggily.

  Andrew might not be alive when Steve returned.

  “I’ve got to go for a while.” Steve struggled to think of an explanation. “I’ve got duties in heaven.”

  “Okay.”

  “You’ve got to promise me something,” Steve said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Hang on till I get back.”

  Andrew moaned.

  “I mean it. I’ll be back.”

  “Soon?”

  “Yeah. You’ll be fine,” Steve said, and wished that he believed it. He turned away from the screen.

  “You did what you could.” Chad clapped Steve on the back.

  “That’s supposed to make me feel better?” Steve muttered.

  “Yeah. It is,” Chad said. He walked over to the corner of the room. “Let’s go, Pearl.” He took her broom.

  The three of them were walking out the door just as Blair Provenzano and a few of the day-shift guys burst in.

  “I’ve skimmed your summary,” Blair said. “So we’ve had a great night.”

  Chad nodded sadly.

  Steve turned away. He couldn’t bear to watch the day shift’s excitement.

  Steve hurried home and turned on the television.

  Except for a white slit, the screen was black. Andrew’s eyes must be almost closed. He imagined Andrew huddled in that tiny crevasse, his small store of hope dwindling.

  Steve stood up. He couldn’t watch television anymore. He didn’t know how or when he had changed, but he had. In his heart, he knew that he was no longer a viewer.

  The Secretary appeared on the screen. “History exam day. We have now covered the land …” A photo of Antarctica appeared on the screen, captioned LAND.

  Steve barely paid attention as the Secretary reviewed the other topics: the explorers, the journey, the diaries, and the weather. How could the Secretary interrupt the program to give an exam? Andrew was in the crevasse. Polly was still stuck in the tent.

  “I quit!” Steve yelled at the image of the Secretary on the screen. “Not only that …”

  Steve’s heart was racing from his daring decision. But he would go back to the DOE and do what he could, regardless of the consequences.

  His father would probably have said that he had lost his temper again, but the decision to act made him feel calmer than he had felt since Andrew had fallen into the crevasse.

  But what could he do?

  He started thinking through his options. It was unlikely that he could get past Security and talk to the Secretary. Even if he did and she agreed to help—a highly unlikely proposition—what could she do at this point? Dropping food supplies wouldn’t save Andrew’s life.

  In fact, the more he thought about it, the clearer the solution became.

  The only person who could save Andrew was Polly.

  He had to go to the production room and get hold of the mikes.

  With a little luck, the weather would have cleared. Then all he would need was ten minutes or so to guide Polly to Andrew.

  He felt excited until he remembered that he still needed to figure out how to take over the mikes.

  Steve looked around the apartment for something that resembled a gun—or better, a bomb. He pulled a piece of string out of his drawer. That could be his fuse. His bowling ball was under his bed, but he couldn’t risk trying to get anything that big through Security. A pizza crust, a bag of chips, and an empty box of Fried Flying Shrimp, the Crispiest Grasshoppers Around, lay on his kitchen counter. Think, he commanded himself.

  Steve poured the crumbs out of the box, punched a hole in the bottom, and pushed the string through the hole.

  He held up his amateur bomb and examined it. The string hung out of the bottom of the pink box like a droopy tail. The bomb looked pitiful, and not at all scary. This wouldn’t work.

  He paced around the small hut. There was no point in getting frustrated with himself. It wasn’t as if he knew how to be a terrorist.

  Wait a minute.

  Steve knew something that the Secretary was afraid of. She didn’t want anyone to know about the corneal implants. If he cleared everyone out of the production room, he could threaten to broadcast some footage about the corneal implants. He wasn’t sure what Chad had saved in the P.B. (possible blackmail) file, but at least he could broadcast the scene on the ship when the kids had discussed the operation.

  I still need a bomb to clear the room, Steve reasoned. He forced himself to think. A dangerous-looking bomb. Not a bomb with a picture of a grasshopper on the front.

  What kind of bombs were there?

  Atomic bombs.

  Nuclear bombs.

  Pipe bombs …

  A pipe bomb!

  “Questions for ages eight through ten. First: Scott liked ponies better than dogs. True or false?” The television was still blaring as Steve rushed out the door.

  Steve headed for the DOE. His stomach was churning, but his goal was clear. Polly needed to save Andr
ew, and Steve was going to help her.

  Although it was almost winter, the air outside was hot and muggy. The weather was totally unlike a polar day.

  How was Andrew holding up in the cold? Steve wondered.

  Steve didn’t have to imagine how Andrew was feeling, because he knew.

  Andrew felt all alone.

  As Steve rounded the corner of K Street, he heard shouts and cries. He quickened his pace. A mob was demonstrating in front of the Department of Entertainment.

  Steve scanned the signs: “SAVE ANDREW” “SURVIVAL ISN’T A GAME” “SECRETARY OF ENTER-TROCITIES” “GET ANDREW OUT OF THE FREEZER.” One man held an effigy of the Secretary. Her body dangled at the end of a rope. Her neck was bent. Fake blood oozed out of her mouth.

  Steve elbowed his way to the DOE. This crowd was huge, and angry. All around him, men, women, and children were chanting, “Child murderer! Child murderer! The Secretary is a child murderer!”

  Steve was glad that this crowd was here, but demonstrations wouldn’t save Andrew. He followed the path to the employee entrance at the back and flashed his credentials. The guard glanced at Steve’s ID before waving him through.

  Steve put his package on a bench, collected his gear from his locker on the back wall, and sat down. He dutifully tied his heavy shoes, but he slipped the tooth mike into his pocket. He passed through the metal detector without a problem. His weapon was waiting for him inside the DOE.

  At the entrance to the production corridor, he stepped on the foot pad and pressed his thumb on the fingerprint detector. He waited for the computer to recognize his weight and thumbprint.

  Come on. Come on.

  The door opened, and Steve started down the familiar hall. He was breaking all the rules, but the Secretary had left him no alternative.

  The production room was packed. He snaked his way through the crowd toward the entrance to the basement.

  “Hey,” Toby Kyle, his old friend on the day shift, exclaimed. “You’re not supposed to be here!”

  Steve pushed past him. He didn’t have time to argue. He popped the tile in the floor, only vaguely aware that he had just given away one of the night shift’s biggest secrets, and rushed down the dark stairway. He didn’t have time to worry about what the night shift or Chad would think. He had run out of time even to be afraid for himself.