Stupid Perfect World

“Tossing and turning,” I murmured.

“Pardon me?” his father asked.

“Where is he?” I demanded, my resolve against intensity failing.

“Perhaps you and I should have a little chat about Kieran. You’re both very young, and—”

“Where…is…he?”

He paused, fear starting to show on his face. “Um, I think maybe you should go home and check your bioframe, young lady.”

I growled and clenched my fists, and the old man took a step backward, setting the coats hanging along the hallway swaying.

Thick, white, puffy parkas, with fur-lined collars…

I smiled. “He’s at the South Pole, isn’t he?”

“Now, young lady…”

I grabbed one of the parkas and pulled it on. Then I stuffed my slippered feet into a pair of tall boots waiting by the teleporter.

“You can’t go down there!” he cried. “It isn’t safe!”

“Safe!” I laughed. “You’re talking to a girl who walks in hurricanes, Mr. Black.” Wobbly in my oversized boots, I stepped into the teleporter. “South Pole, please!”

“Amundsen-Scott Station?” the machine asked.

“Yes, that’s the place!”

“Wait!” Kieran’s father said, a trembling hand raised as if to stop me. But he came from the soft, hormone- balanced world I’d left behind, and could hardly be expected to believe that some crazy, half-drowned girl had pushed her way into his house and now was headed straight to the South Pole.

I hummed him a mad tune as I disappeared.

The feeble sun was low on the horizon. It was dark, and cold, and white.

I pulled the parka tighter, flipping the furry hood up over my face. On this end, the inside of the teleporter had been plastered with all kinds of warnings: climate extremes, exposure, frostbite, death. But the stickers were worn and peeling, and no calm, automated voice had asked what I was doing here. Nobody came to the end of the world unprepared, it seemed.

I climbed down the short flight of stairs; the buildings were on stilts, as if afraid to touch the snow. The wind rushed in under my dress, hit my bare knees like something burning.

A woman trudged by in a tempsuit and parka, pausing for a moment to stare at me with goggled eyes.

“Where’s Kieran Black?” I demanded, my tongue freeze-drying in my mouth as I spoke.

“The school kid?” She paused a moment, then pointed one giant-gloved hand at an igloo a hundred meters away. “But I don’t think you should be—”

I growled and turned away from her, starting a grim march past a row of flags stuck into the ice, tattered leftovers from countries that no longer existed. My dress solidified as I walked, shedding hailstones of frozen bathwater.

As the cold gripped my body, I finally believed those books where heroines died from wandering around outside. Maybe it had only taken a cold rain to kill them back then, but the Antarctic wind made the whole thing much more plausible. Every breath shredded my lungs, my wet hair making cracking noises inside the parka hood.

My bioframe was threatening to call for medical attention, but I ignored it—Kieran always bragged that emergency response took long minutes here. I kept trudging, slitted eyes focused on the distant igloo.

The hard-packed snow gave way to knee-high drifts, and snow rolled in over the tops of my boots, numbing my feet. I stumbled and was forced to pull my hands out of their warm pockets for balance. If I fell down, I’d shatter like a dropped icicle.

My brain was growing fuzzy, my heart pounding sluggishly, the world shrinking to the little tunnel of the parka hood.

Then a brilliant star flared before me…

A human shape was making its way around the igloo, waving a gout of flame across the curved surface of the ice. My freeze-dried brain remembered Kieran saying something about a blowtorch.

I tried to call to him, but my lungs could only suck the tiniest gulps of air, like breathing ice cubes. My body kept moving, driven forward by the promise of the glowing ember in Kieran’s hands.

Fire was hot—I recalled this fact from some pre-Antarctic existence.

I staggered on until I was close enough to feel the warmth. My bare hands reached out for the flame, my fingertips slightly blue.

Kieran finally heard my snow-crunching footsteps and turned to face me, letting out a yelp of surprise.

“Maria! What are you…?” The torch fell from his hands into the snow, where it sputtered and died.

I fell to my knees beside it, groaning with disappointment. I reached for the still-glowing metal…and then Kieran’s hands were around my shoulders, and I wanted to kill him for dragging me away from that sliver of leftover heat.

Through the tunnel of my parka hood, I watched my boots skidding across the snow until the pale sunlight darkened. Suddenly it was warm, gloriously hot, maybe even above freezing! My hood was pushed back, Kieran’s concerned and goggled face in front of me, the inside walls of the igloo shimmering with artificial light.

“What are you doing here?” He pulled off his goggles and parka, stripping off his tempsuit right in front of me. “Are you crazy?”

Half naked, he wrapped the silver tempsuit around me, its elements burning my skin like hot coals. I could only nod and stare. It felt like my eyes would shatter if I blinked.

“Came see you,” I managed.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I never dreamed about Barefoot, never once! It was you from that very first night!” He swallowed. “But it was so weird and incredible, and everyone always said that dreams weren’t real. But they are sometimes…. Do you know what I mean?”

“Yesh,” I assured him through cracked lips. There was more in heaven and earth and all that…so much more to say.

But just then, my frantic bioframe realized that I’d reached somewhere warm and safe, and so dutifully knocked me out, not wanting to risk me freezing myself again.

Stupid perfect world.

Nine

SO HERE WE ARE at the end of our little adventure,” Mr. Solomon began.

Barefoot Tillman sneezed in her quarantine corner. She’d been much better the last couple of days; the goo had stopped running from her nose. But everyone still kept their distance.

“Gesundheit,” Maria said, having looked up a few old traditions on Barefoot’s behalf. We smirked at each other.

“But before we all return to the modern world, perhaps we should share about our experiences.” He spread his hands. “Anyone?”

Lao Wrigley raised her hand. “Well, I feel like I got much closer to my father.”

“Hmm,” Mr. Solomon said. “Because you made him fly you to and from the Bahamas every day?”

“Necessity is the mother of invention.” Lao flicked her hair.

“Check out these abs!” Sho cried, standing up in the front row, spinning around and lifting his shirt. “I may never eat again.”

“I doubt that,” Mr. Solomon said. “And I believe those are ribs, Mr. Walters, not muscles. Anyone else with profundities to share? Yes, Mr. Stratovaria?”

“Well,” Dan said, “I’ve discovered that there’s nothing funny about parasites.”

“Ah, insight from the sightless. Someone, at least, appreciates the seriousness of scarcity. Perhaps this semester hasn’t been entirely wasted.”