We Sled With Dragons (8 page)

“I, LIKE, REALLY
wanted to thank you guys for coming back to rescue me,” Corey told the twins. Their parents were chatting with the professor about sea ice and walrus migration at the front of the airplane.

“I know you guys hate adventures,” Corey added.

“We don't hate adventures,” Celia said. “We just like not-adventures more.”

“Well, I promise when we I get back to Hollywood, I'm going to do something awesome to say thank you.”

“Like what?” Oliver wondered. Sometimes, what other people thought was awesome, Oliver and Celia thought was boring, dangerous, or both at the same time.

“How would you two like to see your story turned into a TV movie-of-the-week?” Corey smirked.

“Network or cable?” Celia raised her eyebrows.

“Network,” Corey said.

Celia frowned.

“Or cable!” Corey corrected. “Whatever you guys say!”

“Cool,” the twins answered him.

“Could I be in the movie?” Oliver asked.

“They'll hire actors.” Celia rolled her eyes.

“Will you play me, Corey?” Oliver smiled.

“Corey will play himself, dummy.” His sister shook her head.

“Well, I want
someone
cool to play me,” he told Corey.

“Someone cool?” Celia laughed. “It's not
Bizarro Bandits
!”

“Well, they'll have to find your actress on the Nature Network,” Oliver snapped back at her. “Maybe there's a walrus that can act like a know-it-all.”

“Maybe Corey'll just get Beverly to play you,” said Celia. “The lizard's a lot smarter.”

“I am smarter than a lizard!” Oliver objected.

“Guys.” Corey held his hands up in surrender. “Don't fight. I promise, you'll both be happy with the movie.”

“Can we get that in writing?” Celia raised her eyebrows at the teenager.

“Celia thinks she's knows everything about the movie business because she watches
Access Celebrity Tonight,
” said Oliver.

“Corey, can you put a scene in the movie where my brother loses the ability to speak so we finally get some peace and quiet?” Celia asked.

“But that never happened!” said Oliver.

“It's a movie,” said Celia. “Corey can make stuff up that didn't happen to tell a better story.”

“It wouldn't be a better story if I couldn't talk,” said Oliver.

“It would for me,” said Celia.

“Hey Corey,” Oliver said. “Can you make up a scene where Celia jumps out of a plane and has to walk to the North Pole?”

“If anyone is jumping out of the plane,” said Celia, “it's you.”

“Is not,” said Oliver.

“Is too,” said Celia.

“Is not,” said Oliver.

“Guys! Come on! Don't fight,” Corey said.

“Is too,” Celia added quietly, because she liked to have the last word.

“It seems like you guys argue all the time,” said Corey. “I was never lucky enough to have a twin brother or sister. But if I were, I'd want him or her to be my best friend, not argue all the time.”

“But,” Oliver scratched his head, “me and Celia are best friends.”

“Celia and I,” Celia corrected him. “And yeah,” she said to Corey. “We are.”

“But you guys are always arguing!” Corey said.

“
The Daytime Doctor
says that arguments between siblings help young people develop important social skills, like logical thinking, emotional control, and verbal acuity,” Celia explained.

“She means, like, being clever and talking fast,” Oliver said.

“Talking well,” corrected Celia. “Not just fast. I learned it from
Wally Worm's Word World: If you have acuity, you'll speak with ingenuity,
” she said. “Ingenuity is like cleverness,” she added, to make sure they understood.

“Know-it-all,” Oliver muttered.

“So, uh.” Corey's forehead wrinkled with thought. “You guys, like, like to argue? And it's, like, good for you?”

“Yeah,” said Oliver. “I didn't really mean that I'd be happier if Celia jumped out of the plane.”

“And I didn't mean it either,” said Celia. “I don't want Oliver jumping out of the plane. I don't want anyone jumping out of the plane.”

“Bad news, guys!” Their father walked down the aisle toward them. “We can't land in Svalbard because there's too much ice on the runway . . . so we're going to have to jump out of the plane!”

Celia turned to her brother. “You totally jinxed us,” she said.

“What? How did I do that?” Oliver replied.

“You brought up jumping out of a plane!” said Celia. “On TV, you can't talk about jumping out of a plane while you're on a plane. Because then you'll have to jump out of it!”

“That's not a rule,” said Oliver.

“It is,” said Celia.

“No,” said Oliver. “You can't talk about
not wanting
to jump out of a plane. That's the rule! And you said, ‘I don't want Oliver jumping out of the plane. I don't want anyone jumping out of the plane.' So this is your fault.”

“That's not the rule,” said Celia.

“Yes it is,” said Oliver. “I know the rules: If you knock on a door and there's no answer, but it opens slowly anyway, something terrible will be on the other side. If you step onto ice that looks solid, it will crack. And if you talk about how you don't want to jump out of a plane, then you're going to have to jump out a plane, like, right then . . . it's fate.”

“No,” said Celia. “That's not fate. It's called dramatic irony.”

“It's fate.”

“It's dramatic irony.”

“Fate.”

“Irony!”

“Fate!”

“Irony!”

“Guys!” their father interrupted. “This isn't fate or irony. It's just what's happening.”

“On TV, everything happens for a reason,” said Oliver.

“But this isn't TV,” said his father.

“The rules are the same,” he said. “The TV people wouldn't make them up out of nowhere.”

“If you say so,” Dr. Navel said. “When I was your age, we had these crazy things called books.”

“When you were our age, did your parents make you jump out of an airplane?” Oliver asked.

“Well no,” said Dr. Navel. “I guess times change.”

“I guess so.” Celia scowled.

“There's more,” Dr. Navel said. “We only have these two parachutes.” He held up two big backpacks with all kinds of straps and buckles on them. “But we have the supplies for four of us to go with a tandem jump.”

“Tandem?” Oliver looked at Celia, although he really wasn't sure he wanted to know the meaning of the word.

“Having two things close together,” said Celia.
“Don't board the ark at random, come two by two, in tandem.”

“You guys really like
Wally Worm's Word World,
” said Corey.

Celia nodded. Oliver shrugged.

“With only two parachutes, your mother and I can skydive with one of you attached to each of us.”

“Which means that Corey can't come,” said Oliver.

“Or Qui?” said Celia, glancing back at her friend.

Dr. Navel nodded. “Or the professor. Or the animals.”

Patrick the monkey swished his tail, Dennis flapped his little chicken wings, and Beverly flicked her tongue, although what that meant was anyone's guess.

“But—” Oliver objected. He didn't have much more of an answer than that.

“That's not fair!” Celia said.

“I know it's not fair,” said their mother, coming to the back of the plane. “It's not fair, but that's the way it is. Sometimes bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people, and sometimes good kids get chased out of Djibouti by pirates and have to jump out of airplanes without their friends so they can find lost cities in the Arctic Circle. Life is just like that.”

“I don't think life is supposed to be like that,” said Oliver.

“It is if you're a Navel,” said Celia.

“It's okay, Oliver,” Corey told him. “You have to fulfill your destiny now, right? The prophecy needs to be completed. That's, like, a rule too.”

“I hate destiny,” said Oliver.

Corey smiled sadly, and nodded. “But dude, it's just like commercials. Unavoidable.”

“But we came to Djibouti to rescue you,” Celia said, turning to Corey.

“It's, like, okay.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “The professor and I will take your friends home and look after your pets. I need to go back to Hollywood anyway. I've got a movie to make about my coolest friends in the world.”

“He means us,” whispered Oliver.

“I know, doofus,” she sniffled.

“So you go with your parents and save the day,” said Corey. “It'll make an awesome ending to my movie.”

“Okay,” said Celia.

“Okay,” said Oliver.

“We'll do it for the movie,” added Celia. “It needs a good ending.”

“All right, kids.” Their mother clapped her hands together. “We are nearly over the Arctic Circle, so we have to get ready to jump. The plane will lower us to twenty thousand feet.”

“I promise you,” their father said, “skydiving is a lot of fun when you're doing it on purpose.”

The twins glared at their mother, who had arranged for their last skydiving adventure over Tibet, which had not been on purpose at all.

“Let's just get this over with,” said Celia.

“You say that a lot,” her father told her.

“Yeah, well, everyone needs a catchphrase.” She frowned, realizing that she actually now had two.

Their parents clipped all the straps and clasps so they were each tied together, Oliver to his mom and Celia to her dad.

“Bye, Beverly,” Oliver told the lizard. She flicked her tongue, which was as close to a good-bye as a
Heloderma horridum
could give. “Don't bite anyone while I'm gone,” he added. “Unless you have to.”

“Ride a dogsled for me,” said Corey. “Just like
Agent Zero
would.” He gave Oliver another high-five.

“See you soon, Celia,” said Qui, groggy from her nap. Her eyes were puffy from sleeping.

“See you,” said Celia and they hugged. They didn't say good-bye, we should note, because that is the hardest thing to say to a friend and is best avoided, especially when one friend is about to jump out of an airplane on a dangerous adventure. When they separated, Qui's eyes were still puffy, but not from sleeping.

Claire Navel stepped to the door of the plane with Oliver strapped the front of her like he was a baby kangaroo in a pouch.

“Don't look down!” she shouted into his ear as she put her feet to the edge. Oliver was now hanging completely outside the airplane. He felt himself being pulled by the wind. He looked down. He kind of had to. That was also, like, a rule.

The island of Svalbard was just a white speck in the ice-blue ocean far below. In the distance he could actually see the curve of the Earth and the dark nothing beyond.

Oliver bent his neck around to the side to shout back into the plane at his sister, who was strapped to their father. “Why do I always have to go first?” he yelled.

“Everyone needs a catchphrase,” Celia shouted back at him.

Oliver frowned as his mother leaped into the sky.

“AAH!” OLIVER YELLED,
and also, “WAH!” And then he added, for good measure, “BAH!”

It seemed like the airplane fell away from them, racing toward the horizon, as they hurtled toward the ground. The wind roared and Oliver kept shouting, at first with terror and then, suddenly, with glee. He didn't feel like he was falling at all.

He felt like he was flying.

With his mother behind him, in control of the parachute, strapped and buckled securely together, he actually had an amazing new thought, something he couldn't remember ever thinking before: his father was right.

Jumping out of an airplane was a lot of fun when you did it on purpose.

“Look!” his mother shouted in his ear. He looked up and saw the curve of the Earth, like the top of a big blue balloon, water and ice and sky and clouds arcing before him.

“Whoa!” he yelled, because what else was there to say?

Celia saw her brother and mother below.

“Ready?” her father yelled, but before she could say “No, I am certainly not ready to jump out of an airplane,” her father jumped.

She wanted to frown or scream or complain about the noise, but she couldn't. She couldn't even wipe the grin off her face. It was amazing.

Suddenly, her father reached around and hugged her, pinning her arms to her sides and leaning forward. They shot downward like a bullet, racing straight for Oliver and her mother.

This time Celia found her scream. “AAH!”

She streaked past her brother with a
whoosh.
Oliver felt his arms pinned down to his sides.

“We're gonna get them!” his mother yelled, and they too were off, racing through the sky after his father and Celia.

While a family vacation to an amusement park or a nature hike is quite enjoyable, it must be said that nothing brings a family closer together than racing to the Earth at two hundred miles per hour. Dr. Navel would have liked to note, were he able to speak at this moment, that they were currently moving at the same speed as the peregrine falcon when it dives after its prey.

Oliver, at that moment, did not feel like a peregrine falcon diving after its prey. He tasted the bitter bite of adrenaline at the back of his mouth, and a tingle raced from his bellybutton up his spine. This wasn't fear or terror, but it wasn't bored or annoyed either. It didn't exactly feel good. It was dangerous and crazy and scary, but also . . . thrilling.

“Faster!” he yelled and straightened his body out as much as he could, which he noticed lowered the wind resistance against him and gave them some extra speed. They were catching up. They were gaining on Celia. Maybe he did feel a little like a peregrine falcon for just a second.

In a flash they shot past Celia. His mother let his arms go and they slowed beside his sister.

Oliver tried to stick his tongue out, but with his mouth open the wind grabbed his cheeks and they flapped like he was pressing them onto a window and blowing.

Celia laughed, and the wind pulled her mouth open in the same way. For a moment, all four of the Navels were diving together through the sky, laughing and making crazy windblown faces at each other.

Svalbard grew larger and larger beneath them. The ocean around it was a crackling sheet of ice, webbed with channels of water running in the cracks.

Dr. Navel tapped his wrist and gave a thumbs up. Claire Navel returned the thumbs up, and suddenly Oliver felt himself jerked back and up. There was a billowy
thump
as their parachute opened. They swirled and swooped and slowed. They weren't so much diving like falcons anymore. They were gliding.

But Celia and Dr. Navel below them were still diving. In fact, it looked more like they were just falling. They grew smaller and smaller as they tumbled toward the icy patch of land.

“Why aren't they opening their parachute?” Oliver yelled, but his mother couldn't hear him. Suddenly, the taste at the back of Oliver's mouth wasn't the metallic bite of adrenaline, but the acid taste of dread. Something had gone horribly wrong.

Dr. Navel pulled the rip cord.

Nothing happened. He pulled again, and still nothing.

He shook his head in disbelief. Of course they would have a problem now, just when he thought he was getting his daughter to enjoy a little excitement. He hoped Celia hadn't noticed there was a problem.

She had.

“Dad?” Celia yelled. “Daaad!”

He couldn't hear her. Svalbard had turned from a white speck in the ocean to an unforgiving expanse of rock rising up to flatten them.

“Open the chute!” Celia yelled. “Open it now!”

She should have known, she thought. Oliver would have added this to his list of rules. If you jump out of an airplane on TV, the parachute is always going to fail. Even if it almost never happens in real life, it always happens on TV. And that meant it would happen to Celia. Was that irony, Celia wondered, or just cruel fate?

Dr. Navel pulled the cord for the emergency parachute and it billowed and filled, slowing their fall. Celia exhaled with relief. Sometimes, she thought, having her dad around made things go a lot better than they did on TV.

They landed with a bump and skid, but they were safely on the ground. Only a few minutes had passed since they had jumped out of the airplane, but it felt like a lifetime.

Dr. Navel hauled in the parachute so the wind didn't lift them off the ground again. He unclipped his daughter. She stepped away from him and crossed her arms, giving him a withering glare.

“Good news!” Dr. Navel said. “It went better than our first skydive together, right?”

“I guess,” said Celia, remembering their plane ride to Tibet when they fell out of an airplane with no parachutes and her father had been unconscious. Even with things going wrong, it
had
been more fun this time.

Now that they were on the ground and the thrill of the jump had worn off, she realized how cold it was. She shivered, and her father put his arm around her. They looked up at the sky together, watching as Oliver and his mother came down for a gentle landing.

“Your mother was always the better skydiver,” Dr. Navel observed.

Once he was safely on the ground and unclipped from his mom, Oliver trotted over to Celia. Dr. Navel rushed over to his wife.

“We just went skydiving,” Oliver said, studying her face to see how she felt about that.

“Yeah,” said Celia, trying to do the same to him.

“It was . . . you know . . . ,” Oliver said.

“Kind of fun?” said Celia.

“Yeah!” Oliver almost danced in place. “It was awesome. I felt like
Agent Zero
! I can't wait to tell Corey about it. I can't believe we raced in the air! I can't believe you had to open your emergency chute . . . I thought you were doomed. I mean, that's like a rule! It's crazy! I want to do it again!”

“Oliver,” Celia stopped him. “Calm down. You sound like Dad.”

That stopped him. He looked over at his father and mother, who were studying the parachute that didn't work and trying to figure out what went wrong.

“I guess I do,” said Oliver. “I never liked excitement before.”

“Me neither,” said Celia. “What's happening to us?”

“I think we're getting old.” Oliver sighed. “We're almost twelve. I guess pretty soon we'll like eating brussels sprouts and fried scorpions and going deep-sea diving like all the other old people.”

“I don't think most old people like eating scorpions and going deep-sea diving,” said Celia. “That's just Mom and Dad.”

“They're so weird,” agreed Oliver.

“It could be worse,” said Celia.

“Yeah,” said Oliver. “Brussels sprouts.”

“No,” said Celia. “Mom could still be missing.”

“Oh yeah, that,” said Oliver. “Right.” He was still wondering how anyone could ever like brussels sprouts.

“Okay.” Their mother came over to them. “If my bearings are correct, we're near the Danskøya research station.”

Celia looked around. She didn't see anything that looked like a research station. She didn't see any signs of civilization at all. The ground was rocky and icy. Frozen glaciers loomed on the horizon and the light was dim, like twilight, and the temperature was dropping fast.

“Can we get there quickly?” Celia asked, her teeth starting to chatter with the cold.

“Oh, we'll have to,” said her mother. “Otherwise we'll freeze to death in a matter of minutes.”

Her mother wrapped the parachute around Celia's shoulders to give her some extra warmth. Oliver got the other one. They started to shuffle across the ice, looking like royalty trailing their robes behind them.

That made it quite easy for the grave robber in white camouflage to follow them from a distance so they would never see her coming. At least, not until it was too late.