1 Alika, a fourteen-year-old Inuit boy, his younger brother Sulu, and their lead dog Jamka have been trapped for four months on an ice floe that unexpectedly broke loose from their island.
2 It was early February. Alika and Sulu watched as the aurora borealis streamers, in twilight, moved from west to east, forming a curtain of yellow and white. That was the general color except in the northwest, where the sky was deep red.
3 Sulu said, “I’m still afraid of those lights.”
4 “They haven’t harmed us, have they?” Alika pointed out. More icebergs were in view, a threatening fleet of them. “I’m more worried about the bergs than the sky.”
5 The next day, twilight lasted from dawn until late afternoon, another good sign that light was returning. But then a heavy snowfall and high winds began in the early evening. The three of them again stayed inside. It was typical High Arctic weather in late winter. No two days or nights alike. It could change on the hour.
6 For almost four months, Alika had been trying to guide the conversation away from home, but Sulu persisted almost every day and night, often asking the very same questions. Alika always tried to answer them without repeating himself.
7 “You think that Papa and Mama have forgotten us?”
8 “No, they have not.” But Alika knew that they might, by now, have some doubts that their sons were still alive.
9 “How about the dogs? Have they forgotten us?”
10 “Not at all. They’ll jump all over us once we come home,” Alika said.
12 “No. He’d never forget us. Shamans never forget anything.”
13 Alika’s mind was more on the snowhouse than on Sulu’s questions. He’d built the original iglus 1not far from the west edge of the floe, and already there were signs of crumbling the farther south it sailed. The sun would warm the water. Melting was inevitable. Or those miserable crosscurrents could suddenly cause a split exactly underneath their house. It might happen in the middle of the night, leaving them a narrow wedge of ice on which to scramble. There’d likely be no warning. Alika decided to build another snowhouse nearer the middle of the floe the next day.
14 “What is Mama making for dinner tonight?” Sulu asked.
15 Without thinking, Alika said, “Oh, maybe caribou stew with those dried blackberries,” and then regretted it. He also longed for the warmth and protection of their home, and meals his mama prepared. He also longed for safety. That might be a matter of luck.
16 Sulu asked, “Will we ever see them again?”
17 “Of course we will. Now go to sleep.”
18 When they went outside in the morning, they saw fresh nanuk2 tracks in the new white snow cover.
19 Jamka sniffed them and Sulu said, “Another bear swam out.”
20 “Looks that way,” Alika said in a calm voice. “Don’t wander around.” He had already reloaded the Maynard 3.
21 They built the new snowhouse that morning and moved their meager possessions. It was near the middle of the floe, where the ice was thickest. It would be the last section to peel off. Alika moved what was left of the sledge. It was now a matter of waiting.