I stared at the tall explorer. I was sure I must have heard him wrong.

“Could you say that again?” I asked.

“Did you forget already?” He smiled. “Don’t worry. Happens to me all the time. The explorer you’re looking for is on a journey to the last unexplored part of Antarctica.”

“An Antarctic explorer?” I sputtered, unable to think of anything else to say.

“Quite a mouthful, isn’t it?” said the oldest explorer. “That’s probably why there are so few.”

“And now it seems there will be one less,” the tall explorer said with a sigh.

“This is the last email we received from Robert,” said the oldest explorer, taking a folded piece of paper from his jacket pocket. “Before all contact was lost with him. I can’t remember how long ago.”

“We keep forgetting to go after him,” said the tall explorer. “Besides which, we are probably too old to do it anyway.”

The others nodded sadly. Except the oldest explorer. He smiled and pointed at me.

“But you’re not old!” he shouted. “You’re the youngest explorer here! You could rescue him! Here, take the email. It might help you.”

He shoved the email into my hands.

“But I’m not an explorer,” I reminded them. “I don’t even know where Antarctica is! How would I even get there?”

None of the explorers had an answer for that.

“I’m headed that way,” said a voice.

Everyone turned. Standing there in the open door to the men’s room was a woman who was probably thirty years old. Or maybe forty. (It’s kind of hard to tell when people get that old.)

“Doratea!” exclaimed an explorer.

“In the men’s room!” exclaimed another.

“Bah,” scowled Doratea. “Is it not an explorer’s duty to go where others think she cannot?”

All the explorers had no choice but to nod and mutter that she was right.

Doratea turned to me. She wore an old leather pilot’s jacket over a purple shirt and orange pants. A pair of flight goggles sat on top of her jet-black bangs.

“Vamanos,” she told me. “Let’s go!”

* * *

BZZZZZZZZZZZ!

I was trapped in a giant, buzzing blender that was shaking me to pieces.

I woke up from that dream to find myself being rattled in my seat as it bounced in the small cockpit of Doratea’s seaplane. The buzzing came from the engines, which felt like they were about to shudder the plane apart.

“You have slept for a while,” said Doratea, her eyes fixed on the cockpit’s window, or windshield, or whatever you call it. “We are nearly there. I hope we are not too late. Roberto has not communicated in over a week. He may not have very much time left.

“He is my boyfriend,” she added in a worried voice.

“How do you know Roberto?” she asked.

“Oh, I don’t know him at all,” I replied. “But he’s my cousin.”

I told her my story. (I left out a couple of the embarrassing parts.) It took a while. It would have been easier to just let her read my journal, but her hands and eyes were busy flying the plane.

Doratea smiled grimly when I was finished. “I see,” she said. “Well, it seems we both have very good reasons to want to rescue him. Luckily for us, I have this map!”

Doratea nodded at the map on the floor between us.

Her map! If it were anything like the map on her TV show, we’d definitely find my cousin!

“How does it talk?” I asked, grabbing the map and trying to find its mouth.

Doratea looked like I had just picked my nose and offered her a taste.

“It doesn’t talk,” she replied. “It is a map.”

“Oh,” I nodded, not wanting to risk saying anything else that would sound so dumb.

“But,” she went on, “this map can still tell us many things. It’s a copy of the map Roberto took with him on his expedition. Look.”

“What do these symbols mean?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” replied Doratea. “Those dotted lines must be different paths Roberto considered. But I do not know which one he took. That we will find out together after we land.”

“We are muy circa — very close,” said Doratea. ”Look . . .”

I looked out the cockpit window. I knew I should have been impressed. But everything was just white.

“So this is Antarctica,” I said, trying to sound excited.

“No,” replied Doratea. “This is a cloud.”

She pushed down on the steering wheel or whatever you call the thing that drives a plane. As we nosed down, the engines rumbled louder and louder.

“This,” shouted Doratea, “is Antarctica!”

Suddenly, there it was!

The snow was so bright in the sun it almost glowed. The whole thing looked like the top of a vanilla frosted cupcake.

It was the most beautiful continent I had ever seen.

As I stared down, I saw a ship, or a sloop, or whatever you call the kind of boat rich people own, sailing toward the shore. Doratea saw it too and shook her head.

“Scientific vessels travel here. Sometimes cruise ships. But private yachts like that one?” Doratea shook her head again. “That should not be here.”

The yacht was too far away to see who was inside. But I knew. It was . . .