The final warning by James Patterson

Author:James Patterson [James Patterson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Jeunesse
ISBN: 9780446194051
Published: 2009-02-01T08:00:00+00:00

38

IT WAS HARD HAVING to stay on the Wendy K., taking three days to get from Argentina to Antarctica, when we could have flown it in about five hours. We did go for nice, long flights a couple of times a day. The air was cold, but no colder than it was at 25,000 feet, which was well below freezing. We found out that frigid air didn’t bother us as long as we were moving, but standing around on the ship’s deck got pretty uncomfortable.

Total broke down and consented to wear a small down dog coat. Akila had worn it as a puppy. During a record-setting cold spell, when it was, like, eighty below zero.

“Land ahoy!” Gazzy shouted from five hundred feet in the air. He pointed into the distance, where I could see a white island sticking up out of the ocean.

Michael Papa squinted at the horizon. “It should be visible pretty soon,” he said. “The air is so clear here that we get great visibility.”

“It’s visible now,” I told him. “We have really good eyesight. Like hawks.”

He nodded, digesting this, and again I saw the look of almost envy that I’d seen on all these scientists’ faces from time to time. No one had ever been truly envious of our abilities before, and it was a cool feeling. The bird kid version of being a football captain or homecoming queen. Sort of.

“I see gray, like rocks,” I told Michael. “I thought everything was covered in snow.”

“Virtually everything is,” he said. “But along the coasts and some of the outer islands, there are thin strips of bare rock where glaciers have broken off. Also, it’s summer here now, since the seasons are reversed, so things aren’t as icy as they can be.”

“I see red buildings.”

“I don’t see a thing yet,” Michael said regretfully. “But, yes, the buildings are usually bright red or bright lime green, to stand out as much as possible.”

“Like if there’s a blizzard?”

“Uh-huh. Though here blizzards just mean ferocious winds blowing snow and ice around. Hardly any new snow ever falls. Almost never.”

“That’s so weird,” I said.

“What’s weird?” Fang asked, making me jump. I hadn’t heard him come up behind me, as usual. For the past two days I’d been kind of avoiding him. I’d stood back and watched as he and Brigid Dwyer struck up a mutual-admiration society. She didn’t flirt with him, but they hung out together a lot, and every time I saw their heads bent over a computer screen or map, it made my stomach clench. Also my teeth. And my fists.

“That it doesn’t snow here,” I said. “Not a lot of precipitation.”

Fang nodded. “Brigid says the air here is some of the driest on earth.”

“I guess you’ll be glad to get off the boat,” Michael said. “We’ll be staying in the guest quarters at the Lucir station. They get tourists there every year.”

“I didn’t realize we’d be around a bunch of other people,” I said slowly. I’d gotten almost — well,

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