Free Troubling a Star by Madeleine L'Engle Page B

lot of homework today?”
    â€œSome. If it’s okay, I’ll go up to the attic and get it done.”
    â€œI enjoy thinking of you sitting on that old green sofa. Say goodbye to me before you leave.”
    â€œOf course.”
    Â 
    The homework took less time than I’d expected. I memorized a few of those dates my history teacher insisted on, then went to one of the boxes of Adam II’s books and pulled out The Jungle Book . I started to read “Rikki-tikki-tavi,” an old favorite, which I thought Rob would enjoy. I turned the page and there was a sheet of paper, the thin kind you used to have to use for airmail. I looked at it, and was compelled to read on.

    Dear Cookie,
    Oh, how I wish you weren’t off at the monastery being a monkey! Plans are nearly complete for this new excursion to Antarctica, and I am being beautifully politic, planning to spend two weeks at the Brazilian station, two weeks at the Vespugian, on to the Argentinean, and so forth. If the Gued-ders know that I suspect them, I am in deep trouble. El Zarco wants me to see if he is correct in his assumptions of what they are up to, and get word to the U.S., to the UN, so they can be stopped before irreparable damage is done. When that first atomic bomb was exploded at Alamogordo, no one knew quite what a tiger had been unleashed. But we know more now. And we know more about the part the Antarctic ice cap plays in the world’s weather. No matter what riches are underneath it,
if another ice age is started no one will be able to enjoy the riches. But greed is always nearsighted.
    You will be desperately missed. Have you thought that, without you, we might have to eat penguins? Penguins are wonderful creatures, and it is probably one of their safeguards that they are so unpalatable. Thinking about penguin stew is a digression from my real concerns. I haven’t told the others just how far I think things have gone at the Vespugian station, things that have to be stopped. The camouflage is beautiful. They have collected every kind of starfish found in Antarctic or sub-Antarctic waters, and they have two fine marine biologists at the station. Cookie, I wish you were here to advise me, because—

    There the letter broke off.
    I felt cold.
    I shouldn’t have read it. It was private. But it gave me an idea of what might have been in the letter that caused Cookie to behave so strangely.
    I shut the unfinished letter in the book. I needed to think. If Adam II had neither completed it nor mailed it, perhaps he didn’t want anybody to know what he had written. Perhaps I had blundered into a secret that had better stay a secret. On the other hand …
    I went downstairs and out to the kitchen, grateful to find Cook alone. “Cookie, why did Adam II go back to Antarctica on the second expedition?”
    â€œIt’s an addictive place. Very few people go only once.”
    â€œBut about his death— was it an accident?”

    Cook turned from the sink, leaving the water running. “What makes you ask that?”
    â€œI don’t know. I just wondered.” My words sounded lame, and my voice drifted off.
    Cook turned the water off. “The exploitation of Antarctica has been a concern for a long time. After his first expedition, Adam managed to prevent drilling for oil on the peninsula, and he was not loved for that by those who were ruled by greed.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œAt that time the Communists were the enemy, but they were by no means the only enemy.”
    â€œYou mean, ‘We have met the enemy and it is us’?”
    â€œThat’s always part of it. Did Madam say anything to upset you?”
    â€œNo, oh, no.”
    â€œSuspicions are ugly things, Miss Vicky. Accidents do happen in that wild and nearly empty space.”
    â€œBut do you think Adam II’s death was an accident?”
    He did not answer me. The silence grew between us. Finally he said, “Go say