Free Surviving Antarctica by Andrea White

gives me the creeps,” Polly said.
    “We’ve got to put the cameras out of our minds,” Robert said firmly, as much to himself as to the rest of them.
    Billy touched the top button on his shirt. “Maybe the cameras are in our clothes.”
    Robert pointed to his shirt. The buttons were missing.
    “What happened to it?” Billy said.
    “Smashed them in my room last night,” Robert said.
    “And?” Polly looked up, interested.
    “They’re buttons,” Robert said. “Which reminds me: After breakfast, I want us all to try on the gear.”
    “If there are cameras, there have to be cameramen,” Polly said.
    “Yeah, remember when those cameramen got blown up in
Civil War Historical Survivor?”
Billy said.
    “Well, there’s no camera crew on this ship.” Robert had searched the whole ship and was sure of that.
    “I think that they’ve wired the ship in some way, but when we get to Antarctica, there have to be cameramen,” Billy said. “Otherwise, how would they know which way we’re going?”
    That was what Polly had been thinking. Adults. Adults had to be near them. They couldn’t be all alone.

9
    LATER THAT SAME day, the kids were in the supply room, modeling gear in front of a mirror.
    “You look huge,” Andrew said to Polly.
    “You look funny, too.” Polly giggled. She wore a parka, waterproof pants, three layers of long underwear, a pair of goggles, a pair of under-gloves, a pair of fur mittens, a neck warmer, two hats, three pairs of socks, and some fur boots tagged FINNESKOE . A vocabulary word for the schoolkids, Polly decided.
    “These clothes look old,” Billy said.
    “It’s not Gore-Tex or any of the fabrics that we’re used to,” Robert said.
    “Animal furs are warmer,” Grace told him. “And better.”
    “I’m burning up.” Andrew tugged at his turtleneck. Sweat poured down his face.
    “You’ll be glad for these clothes in a couple of days,” Billy said. In the polar gear he appeared twice his regular slim size.
    “At least it’s late spring there,” Polly said.
    “It is?” Robert spoke without thinking. He hated to admit that he didn’t know something, even a fact about a land as remote and foreign as Antarctica.
    “Yeah, we’ll be landing in November, when Scott started his trek,” Polly said. “The days will be long. The sun may not set.”
    Robert felt stupid. He should have remembered the seasonal difference in the hemispheres. What else had he forgotten?
    Polly laughed and pointed at all of them in the mirror. “We look like that photo of the Scott expedition on the video.”
    “Polly, those guys were losers,” Robert said sharply.
    No one said anything else, but for Polly the fun of dressing up was over. Robert’s rebuke hurt her feelings and angered her at the same time. She had read enough to learn that the Scott expedition boasted accomplished scientists.Among them were surgeons, a physicist, a zoologist, geologists, and a biologist. They were not losers.
    “My clothes are fine,” Billy said quietly. He slipped out of the heavy garments and stowed them in a bag marked BILLY. While the others were still fooling with the gear, he turned to go. Robert had kept him so busy last night that he hadn’t had time to study the maps.
    Billy looked at a 1911 map of Antarctica and saw that Scott had landed on something named the Ross Ice Shelf. Comparing the 1911 map with a map dated 2057, the last year that the government had sent scientists to Antarctica, he noted that the ice shelf appeared to have melted. They would land on Beardmore Glacier.
    He heard someone fidgeting and turned to see Polly standing next to him.
    “So these are the maps, huh?” she said. “What are you looking at?”
    “The Beardmore Glacier,” Billy said.
    “Oh,” Polly said. “So that’s the Beardmore.”
    “What do you know about it?” Billy asked.
    “Scott began his ascent of the Beardmore on December tenth, nineteen eleven,” Polly said, remembering the facts from one of her