The Haunted Igloo (5 page)

“
Wh–what?”

“
I’m freezing! Will you see if the
fire has gone out?” She burrowed deeper into her covers and
shivered.

Cordell sat up on the side
of the bed and rubbed sleep from his eyes. He, too, shivered. The
room was like the bottom of an iceberg. “I’d better see,” he
mumbled. His big feet slapped the floor like two wet beaver tails.
“Like ice in here! Maybe a polar bear’s come to visit and left the
door open. Or a penguin.”

“
No penguins in the Arctic,” said
Lise, her teeth chattering. “Only Antarctica. I’m cold, not
stupid.”

“
Huh?”

“
I’m turning blue and you’re cracking
jokes.”

Cordell set a flame to the
wick and carried the lamp to the other room. Even before he got to
the stove, he saw the open door. “What th—?” Dangerous arctic air
streamed into the room. Cordell’s feet were freezing through his
wool socks. He ran over and slammed the door, sliding the bolt into
place. He was sure he had bolted that door before going to bed. But
he couldn’t have, of course, or it wouldn’t have blown open. He
checked the stove to be sure it was still going. Then he stood
beside it, half asleep and thinking.

“
Cordell?” called Lise. “What’s
wrong?”

He went over and poked his
head through the doorway. “It’s okay. The door just blew open. Go
back to sleep.”

Before returning to bed,
Cordell went into Jean-Paul’s room. From the shadows cast by the
nightlight came movement on the cot. Something wiggled by the
sleeping bag. He looked closer, then whistled softly. “I don’t need
to ask how you got in here,” he whispered to the pup. “And he left
the door open, too.” Sasha pricked up her ears. Cordell reached
down and scratched beneath her chin. “You’re a pretty little lady.
Too bad we can’t keep you.”

He picked her up again,
then changed his mind and put her back down. “I guess one night
won’t hurt.”

Chapter 3

A
lthough Jean-Paul went each morning to check the trap, he was
always disappointed to find it empty. The trap had been set for a
few weeks, the bait frozen into an icy black mess that no longer
looked like meat. He was glad his father had not discovered the
missing trap. As it was, Cordell had gone about his own trapping as
before, not noticing one of them was gone.

One day, when Cordell came
into the cabin, Lise was stirring a thick fish chowder on the
stove, the spicy aroma rising from the steam and filling the room.
Cordell hung his parka on the hook, then went and stood in front of
Jean-Paul.

“
Do you know what day this is?” he
asked.

Jean-Paul shrugged and
shook his head. He thought for a minute. “November something,” he
said.

Cordell smiled down at his
son. “Today’s the day the sun goes down and stays down for a long
time.”

Jean-Paul closed the book
he was reading with a snap and laid it on the floor. “Wow! I almost
forgot!”

Lise turned and glared at
them both. “Humph!”

Cordell went over and
hugged her. To Jean-Paul he said, “Your mother doesn’t like the
long Arctic night!” He kissed her on the cheek and said with a big
grin, “When the sun comes again, you’ll have a small Lise. Just
like a mother bear has cubs when she hibernates.”

Lise ignored the remark as
she finished setting the table. She didn’t think it was funny. As
if to herself, she said, “A small Lise in heavy boots. Not pink
bootees and lace, but…”

Cordell tried to console
her. “Well, our daughter will wear furs right from the start,
eh?”

“
Humph!” said Lise again. “Then Papa
Bear had better set another trap!” She smiled in spite of
herself.

Jean-Paul couldn’t help
laughing out loud. It was all he could do to keep his secret to
himself. Tomorrow he would check again. If
he
had anything to say about it, his
new sister would wear white fox.

Later, the Ardoin family
stood outside and watched the sun roll over the horizon and drop
out of sight.

“
Well, that’s that!” Cordell slipped
an arm around Lise’s shoulders. “We won’t see it again until late
January. But look, it left a nice sunset for us to enjoy. Tomorrow
will be clear.”

“
And dark,” replied Lise. “If it
weren’t for you and Jean-Paul being here, I think I would go
mad.”

Jean-Paul felt a shiver of
fear rush up his spine. He didn’t like the long, dark days and
nights all running together. Before going back inside, he looked up
and found the star that would guide him through the dark months
ahead—Polaris. He wanted to wish for daylight, but he knew it would
do no good.
I’d like fox fur for Ma’s
baby.

____________

J
ean-Paul watched his trap for the next week, but it still had
not caught anything. Not even an
okalerk
. In the last week of November,
he went to look again. He aimed the lantern’s beam down at the
trap. Sasha, always at his heels, looked up at him and
whined.

“
It’s no use, Sasha. If the fox
doesn’t step in the trap soon, my sister will be born
already.”

He made a tight, hard snowball and tossed it
into the trap. The mighty jaws sprang shut with a loud clank. Sasha
jumped back with a yelp.

“
I just wanted to see if it still
worked. I guess it does.” He kicked at the bait with the toe of his
boot. “It’s all in one piece. That means nothing has tried to get
it off. And there are no tracks.”

Sasha watched Jean-Paul reset the trap, not
daring to move an inch toward the strange monster with big iron
teeth.

“
Not even a rabbit. You’d think there
would at least be a dumb ol’
okalerk
.”

It was Saturday morning, a very dark and
dreary morning. Even the Northern Lights had not come to brighten
the sky with their wavering shafts of color.

Jean-Paul felt lonely and
left out. He knew the other boys had things to do. With their own
dogsleds, they could go riding and visiting anytime they wanted.
Chinook had his own husky, a large brown dog with white patches
around its eyes. The white circles made the husky look like a
bandit. He also looked mean, but Jean-Paul knew he wasn’t.
Chinook’s dog’s name was Amarok, which meant
wolf
, but he was as gentle as a
kitten.

As they walked back to the
cabin, Jean-Paul compared Sasha with Amarok. She would never be as
big as he was, but Jean-Paul had the feeling she might be almost as
strong. She wasn’t mean-looking, either, but had gentle,
intelligent blue eyes. There was a nice black streak marking her
forehead, and her mouth seemed always to be smiling. She had grown
a lot during the last two months. Her baby fuzz had been replaced
with black and silver guard hairs on the outside. Her undercoat was
soft and thick, in spite of her staying in the cabin too much.
Sasha was low to the ground, her feet and legs dainty, though
well-muscled.

Now, Jean-Paul ruffled the
thick hair that stood out around Sasha’s neck. “I could teach you
to pull a sled if you were bigger. I’ll bet you would be as good as
Amarok.”

____________

T
hat night after supper, Cordell went outdoors. Soon he
returned and walked over to Jean-Paul, who sat working a jigsaw
puzzle. Cordell watched him silently, and Jean-Paul sensed
trouble.

“
We need to talk,” said Cordell,
finally.

Jean-Paul didn’t look up.
“Wait till I find where this piece goes.”

When Cordell spoke again,
Jean-Paul nearly jumped out of his chair. “The puzzle can wait! Put
it away now! We’re going for a walk!”

Cordell looked ferocious
when angry. Jean-Paul laid down the puzzle chip and rose. “Wh–where
are we going?”

Cordell ignored the
question. “Bundle up. The wind’s sharp.”

Without speaking, Jean-Paul
pulled on his parka, closing it tightly around his neck. Next came
the boots. When he turned to the door, Cordell already had it
open.

The first blast of cold air brought a gasp
from Jean-Paul. He pulled his hood tightly around his face. Only
his eyes were open to the strong wind as he peered through a very
small space.

The huskies arose from
their warm snow beds and howled, the noise promptly blown away by
the wind. Sasha trotted over to the group and barked, as if to say,
“You don’t have a warm bed to sleep in at night!” Then she joined
Jean-Paul and Cordell.

Once or twice Cordell had
to wait for Jean-Paul to catch up, the drag of the boy’s crippled
foot slowing him down. They went up behind the shed and started
down to the stream. Cordell carried the lantern, beaming its yellow
light on the ground ahead of him. Jean-Paul was glad he couldn’t
see his father’s face. His thoughts went around and around inside
his head.

Cordell’s deep voice cut
into Jean-Paul’s thoughts. “Aha! Look over here, Jean-Paul!” He
aimed the beam at the ground. He no longer sounded angry, but a
lump came into Jean-Paul’s throat just the same.

“
It—it looks like…”

“
Footprints,” Cordell said. “Where do
you suppose they came from?” Jean-Paul didn’t answer. Cordell
stooped down and examined the tracks.

A chill shot down
Jean-Paul’s spine as Cordell pointed to another set of tracks near
the larger ones. “And a smaller animal, too. Could be a mother with
her cub, no?” He arose. “Well, come on then, Jean-Paul, let’s trail
them to see where they go.”

Sasha bounded on ahead,
knowing exactly where they were going. Jean-Paul also knew.
Suddenly he hung back, refusing to budge. Cordell was already
there, kneeling in the snow to look behind the boulders. He turned
and called Jean-Paul over.

Jean-Paul limped slowly to
his father. Before him in the lantern light was the big steel trap,
exactly where he’d checked it earlier that morning.

“
Now who do you think swiped my old
trap and set it up back here?” Cordell said.

There was no use denying
it. Jean-Paul was caught. What could he say, with the evidence
right there before him? The only thing he had in his favor was that
his father didn’t stay angry long. He hung his head. Sasha nuzzled
the hand hanging limply at his side. He hunched himself down inside
his parka, feeling smaller than ever. There was only one thing to
do.

“
It was me,” he said.

Cordell stood up. “Why,
Jean-Paul? Why did you take this, when I’ve told you never to touch
the traps? This particular trap is very dangerous.”

“
It—it was a surprise.”

“
A
surprise?
It certainly was! When I saw
the tracks this afternoon, I followed them and wound up
here.”

“
You knew they were mine,” Jean-Paul
said, shaking his head. “Mine and Sasha’s.”

“
Do you take me for a fool, son? Of
course I knew. What I want to know is why you disobeyed me. If you
wanted to trap, why didn’t you come to me?”

Tears stung Jean-Paul’s
eyes. “I wanted to show you I could do it all by myself. If I’d
asked, you wouldn’t have let me.”

“
I see.”

“
And—and Ma said she wanted an Arctic
fox fur for the baby.”

“
Arctic fox?”

Jean-Paul nodded. “Yes,
sir. She said she wants a girl. And she wants white fox fur for a
baby parka and boots.”

Cordell thought for a
moment. “Yes, I understand. I guess she’d like silks and laces for
our new baby. Sometimes I forget how hard it must be for your
mother, living up here like this. She hasn’t made many friends, and
women need other women when a baby’s coming. What do men know, eh?”
He looked at the trap again. “Has it been here long?”

“
A few weeks.”

“
And you haven’t caught anything
yet?”

“
Nothing!” Jean-Paul said. “Not even
an old rabbit!”

Cordell studied the trap.
“Well, it might have caught a
boy.
Or a husky. But since you’ve already got it set, I
guess it can stay.”

Cordell slipped an arm
around his son. “What makes you so sure the baby will be a
girl?”

“
Because I think that’s what Ma wants.
All she’s got now is a crippled boy.”

Cordell gave him a hard
squeeze. “Aw, now, son, your mother wouldn’t trade you for all the
girls in the world.”

“
Did she say that?”

“
She doesn’t have to.”

“
But a girl would make a difference,
huh, Pa?”

Cordell laughed. “It might.
But for different reasons, not because her son is lame. Mothers
don’t stop loving their children just because they might have a
birth defect. Besides, I believe there is someone out there who can
fix you right up. All we have to do is find him, eh?”

Jean-Paul nodded. “I hope
so, because I don’t like being different.” Then he had a sudden
thought. “I don’t know anything about babies, Pa. What will I do
with a baby in that small cabin?”