CHAPTER 34

We all raced back to our cabins to put on our warmest expedition gear.

I wasn’t so sure this was a smart idea (the same way I wasn’t sure that the North Pole was the answer to the Enlightened Ones’ clues).

“Um, Mom?” I said as we climbed up the decks to our cabins. “A couple hours ago, Viktor Zolin’s flunkies were sort of threatening us. Now they want to loan us their snowmobiles? Don’t you think that smells kind of fishy?”

“Nah,” said Tommy. “That’s the salmon from the barbecue. Wasn’t it awesome? Amahle liked it too.”

“I’m serious, you guys,” I said. “Something’s not right about this. I don’t trust those Zolin Oil guys. They’re too… oily!”

“You’re right, it’s a risk,” said Mom. “But, Bick, never forget who we are.”

Right. We are the Kidds. The Wild Things. We live for action, adventure, and doing risky stuff like diving into freezing-cold water or borrowing skeevy henchmen’s snowmobiles.

“Besides,” said Mom, “if we have a chance of seeing a polar bear up close and personal in its native habitat, well, that’s something I don’t want you guys to miss. It’ll remind us all why protecting the Arctic Circle is so important.”

But then she told us to grab our go bags, just in case.

Whenever we’re on an expedition, we all keep our most essential gear in small gym bags—our go bags—so we can grab them if we need to make a fast exit or escape. For me, that’s clean socks (after our adventures in Africa, you know why clean, dry socks are always super-important), some spare clothes, and my baseball cap. Oh, and the most important thing for me is my journal, to record our treasure-hunting escapades. For Beck, it’s her sketchbook. For Tommy? Duh, hair gel. And Storm always makes sure to tuck a few Hostess Twinkies into her go bag.

So even though we are like the Wild Things in that book by Maurice Sendak, we are also semi–Boy Scoutish too. We are always prepared. Like Dad says, “Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.”

Once we were all squared away with our subzero expedition gear and go bags, we headed back down to the ice.

“Enjoy,” said Nikita and his thug buddies, who stood next to five snowmobiles. “We have checked your gas tanks. All is as it should be. Have much fun. Take many selfies with polar bears to post on Instagram. We shall see you when you return to the ship!”

We zoomed off across the frozen tundra. Fortunately, the trail of polar-bear prints was straight and clear.

We zipped along following the prints, and in no time at all, I couldn’t even see the ginormous icebreaker boat behind us when I checked over my shoulder. I was starting to worry we wouldn’t be able to find our way back, that our tracks would get buried by the blowing snow we were stirring up as we raced across the ice.

After about thirty minutes, the paw-print trail came to an end. But instead of the big white bear we were expecting, we came upon a cluster of men dressed in combat camo. Some were armed with guns and grenades.

And the reason the paw prints were so clear? One of the men was wearing paw-shaped snowshoes!

And he was holding a bazooka.