Jack and the Geniuses

by Bill Nye

  “And?” Matt asked. “What did she find?”

  “What did she find?” he roared. “Who cares what she finds? She dove for three hours! This was impossible before my wet suit.” The snow in the pot was fully melted, the water boiling. He lined up five tin cups and sprinkled chocolate powder into each. Then he filled the mugs halfway with steaming water and passed them around. “This Clutterbuck Prize,” he said. “Why can’t you just melt snow, like this?”

  I studied his face. Did he really not know? Or was he hiding something?

  “We use too much water as it is,” Hank explained. “If we melted snow, there wouldn’t be any left on Ross Island. Plus, it would take too much energy. The goal is to find a more efficient and less expensive method. Now, you were talking about your expedition with Anna . . .”

  “Yes. Okay. So after few days,” he said, holding a steaming cup just below his chin, “she looks in her notebook at her little map, and she tells us we are going to move on. This next place was same story. Lots of looking. Lots of Anna swimming. No big findings. No new creatures to make Dr. Golding jealous. Then one day we wake up, no Anna. Snowmobile is missing, too, but tracks are buried from the snow and wind, so we don’t know where she has gone. And no wet suit!” He slammed down his fist.

  Startled, I spilled some of my hot chocolate over the rim. “That was Tuesday?” I asked.

  “No, I’m talking about first time she disappeared. Tuesday night was second time.”

  “Wait,” Hank said. “Back up again. Where’d she go with your wet suit the first time?”

  “And what kind of creatures was she looking for?” Matt asked.

  The Russian held up a finger. The knuckles were like small, dented golf balls. “Ah, these things she does not tell us! So, last week. We had been out on ice for long time already. Then, Thursday morning—”

  “A week ago today,” I said.

  “Yes? A week ago. Why is this so hard? So. Thursday morning, she takes snowmobile and leaves us note. She promises she will be back in two days. Food in fridge, plenty of water, enough to survive. Sure. But this was not allowed! This leaving us alone and disappearing was not what we agreed. So we radio the base.”

  “You sold her out,” I said.

  “What does this mean? I didn’t sell anyone.”

  “No, I mean, you told on her. You got her into trouble.”

  “She abandoned us in small hut on ice sheet! These other men, they smell like woolly mammoths.” He pinched his nose. “Dead woolly mammoths. We could not stay there two more days.”

  Matt slurped some of his hot chocolate.

  “Phobos, Matthew,” Hank said. Then he asked Levokin, “So what happened when you got back to McMurdo?”

  Levokin sneezed again. He still wasn’t getting a turn with my vacuum. “Everything must be approved here, yes? Well, when we are picked up, we discover that Anna was only approved to be in the field for five days. We had already stayed ten days. She was in very deep trouble. There was talk of sending her home on the next plane. The director . . . you have met her?” Hank nodded. I elbowed Ava. “She is not very warm. Cold and brutal as Herbie storm. She was mad. Very. Then Anna comes back to McMurdo on Monday morning with smile as bright as star. The director says she will be sent home, but Anna does not care.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  Hank edged closer to the Russian. “She found a new species, right? New sea creatures?”

  Levokin’s enormous eyebrows rose twice in silent confirmation.

  “That was Monday?” I asked.

  He rocked his head back and forth, then whistled briefly. “Monday. Yes. I am certain. She returns with my wet suit. The next night, Tuesday, I am sitting in my room, playing violin, very nice tune, very relaxing, when the crazy woman bursts through the door and starts to search my bags and my desk. ‘Where are they?’ she cries. ‘Where are my babies?’”

  Matt scooted forward on his knees. “The creatures?”

  “Yes, yes. I tell her I don’t have them, but it takes some time for her to believe me. Finally, she apologizes. She says someone has stolen her creatures, her computer, more. Then later that night she disappears again with my wet suit.”

  Ava looked at me, half smiling. She had been right about the laptop.

  “You didn’t lock it up?”

  Levokin shrugged. “I didn’t think the thief would steal it twice.”

  In my head I was trying to picture it all. Monday Anna had returned triumphant. Britney had mentioned that. Then on Tuesday she was panicking. What happened in between? Clearly someone had stolen her work. Maybe destroyed it. And the director was threatening to send her home. So she ran off with Levokin’s wet suit to look for more samples. All of that I understood. But why didn’t she leave Hank a message? Or tell someone else? Why did she have to be all sneaky about the whole thing?

  “She must’ve gone back to the same site,” Hank said. “The place where she found the creatures when she left you at the camp. Do you have any idea where that might be?”

  “This I hope you could tell to me,” Levokin said. “She didn’t send you note? Call you? Maybe write e-mail?”

  A long pause followed. The interior of our snow fort became uncomfortably quiet. Even the wind decided to stop, as if it were waiting for an answer.

  Then I noticed that the geniuses were staring at me.

  Levokin joined them. “Why are we looking at this one?” he asked.

  Hank squinted. He lowered his voice. “Jack?”

  “Jack,” Matt added, “you have been checking Hank’s e-mail, right?”

  8

  MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE

  So, yeah. I forgot. But, honestly, can you blame me? A lot had been happening. Sure, checking Hank’s e-mail is supposed to be my job, and the geniuses were really quick to remind me of that fact, but it’s not like anyone else remembered, either. Was it really all my fault?

  The worst part was that we couldn’t check it right away. We hadn’t been allowed to bring phones or computers, and there isn’t exactly Wi-Fi out on the ice shelf, anyway. So we suffered through a mostly sleepless night. At one point Levokin started singing, and while his voice was unusually beautiful, it didn’t hustle me on my way to dreamland. Instead, it kept me awake.

  In the morning, we quickly packed our gear. A PistenBully picked us up, and although it was toasty warm in the back, I swear the old lady with the walker on the first floor of our apartment building could have outraced the machine. When we finally got back to the base, we dashed to Hank’s room. Matt tripped at one point, and I didn’t even laugh. I was too anxious. Sure enough, there was a note from Anna waiting in Hank’s inbox, but it wasn’t quite as revealing as we’d hoped. We each read it four or five times before anyone said anything. Her message was short:

  Sadly, I won’t be able to greet you. Some unpleasant developments. Left you a map to my location, safely tucked away with my first love. If I’m not back soon, please come find me.

  Hank started drumming his long fingers on his chin.

  Ava turned to him. “So, how do we find this map? What does she mean by her first love? Was that you?”

  “What? First love? No! We never . . . I mean, there were fleeting moments . . . maybe during the cocktail hour at that biology conference in Paris, but I don’t recall that particular . . . emotion ever surfacing . . .”

  “Is it possible?”

  “No.”

  “So she definitely wasn’t your girlfriend?” Ava asked. “Like Min isn’t your girlfriend?”

  “No! No now, and no again tomorrow, okay?”

  There was a knock at the door. Someone we hadn’t met leaned through: a woman with short graying hair and a sun-wrinkled face. “Dr. Witherspoon? You’re supposed to be at the Clutterbuck Prize meeting.”

  “Right, right. When does it start?”

  “Eleven minutes ago. As you know, several of the contestants will be videoconferencing in, since they could not make the trip, but a few others just arrive
d this morning. One of our own engineers is competing as well.”

  “Yes, the Australian fellow,” Hank said. He glanced down at his watch. “We’ll have to talk about this later, guys.”

  “But Anna’s out there all alone,” I protested.

  Hank turned to our visitor. “Could you give us thirty seconds? I’ll be right along.” The door closed. He gestured at the computer screen. “She’s out there by choice, Jack! The e-mail makes that clear.”

  “Yes, but someone’s definitely after her,” I said. “Why else would she be so sneaky? Why would she hide the map?”

  “She knows what she’s doing,” Hank insisted. “And we’ll find her. We’ll find a way. We can talk about everything when I get out of this meeting.”

  “But you keep saying—”

  “I promise. Okay? Later. We’ll come up with a plan later.”

  The door closed behind him, then opened again. “I forgot,” he said. “You’re in my room. All three of you, out.”

  We followed orders, and out in the hall Ava was already on the move. “Let’s get our coats,” she said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Maybe she’s like me. Her first love, I mean.”

  The image of a kid from our old neighborhood popped into my mind. He was tall and skinny, and his glasses were square and small. He could recite pi to a hundred decimal places, and Ava thought he was dreamy. “What does Stephen Famigletti have to do with anything?” I asked.

  “Ew, gross,” she said. “I’m not talking about him.”

  Matt laughed. “Her first love was science, you Neanderthal.”

  “Before engineering won my heart.”

  “Oh, right. So then you’re thinking . . .”

  Ava gave me her I’ll-slow-it-down-just-this-once look—a dramatically prolonged roll of the eyes. “If her first love was science, and she hid the map with her first love, then the logical place to look would be . . .”

  I needed way too long to figure it out. She started to answer for me, but I shushed her. “The science lab?”

  “See?” she said, patting me on the back. “You’re not completely hopeless.”

  The Albert P. Crary Science and Engineering Center was a short, cold walk down a hard dirt road. Matt, Ava, and I grabbed our Big Reds from our room and braved the bright blue night. Our breath kicked out thick clouds as we hurried along the road to the center’s three connected buildings, or pods. I was still fighting my cold, and wrapped my arms around my chest to keep away the chill. From our tour during the Happy Camper classes, we knew the first and largest of the pods housed labs, offices, and special equipment, and I pushed inside ahead of the others.

  “What happened to ‘ladies first’?” Ava asked.

  “You’re not a lady. You’re my sister.”

  We hurried down an enclosed hallway to reach the second pod, where a different set of scientists had their labs, and then descended another long, narrow hallway to reach the third and final building. That’s where they kept the aquatic life, and where Anna would have her work space. At McMurdo they called it the aquarium. But to me an aquarium is a dark, musty space filled with screaming kids and parents who want to look at the fish, which don’t care at all about the visiting humans unless one of us is swimming past with food. This place was more like a workshop. It housed several small labs, an electronics shop, and a large space lined with workbenches, computer stations, and tanks that held all sorts of wonderful, exotic, aquatic creatures.

  The polished cement floor was stained dark in places. The air had a slightly metallic taste. A tall man in a blue lab coat was picking apart some kind of filter in the middle of the room. I recognized him. But I couldn’t remember where I’d seen him before. He caught me staring and grunted.

  I turned away. “So, where do we start?”

  “Maybe we just look around,” Ava suggested.

  “Back already? How was Happy Camper?” Danno had snuck up behind us like some kind of oversize Australian ninja.

  “You scared me,” Ava said.

  “Not me,” I lied.

  “Pretty neat place, right?” Danno said. “There are organisms in here that don’t exist anywhere else in the world. You ever seen one of these?” he asked, leading us over to a large rectangular aquarium. Reddish creatures that looked like starfish mixed with alien DNA crawled across the stones on the bottom of the tank.

  A laminated form was attached to the base of the aquarium. Matt pointed to the name in block letters. “This is Dr. Golding’s workbench?” he asked.

  “Guess so, mate,” Danno said. “Every scientist down here gets assigned their own work space. Kind of like how you’re given a desk in school.”

  “We don’t go to school,” Ava noted.

  “Is Golding here?” Matt asked.

  “No, he’s out in the field,” Danno said. “He should be back soon enough, though. He wouldn’t miss the karaoke competition Saturday night.”

  “Didn’t you just have a contest?” I asked.

  “Yes, but Saturday night is the big one. The grand championship. He’s the favorite to win again this year.”

  “You sure do love your karaoke down here,” Ava noted.

  “Where’s Anna’s workstation?” Matt asked.

  He nodded to the man in the blue lab coat. “Walter’s the one who assigns everyone their lab bench. He’d know, but he’s as prickly as a cactus, so I’m sure not going to ask him.” Danno pointed to a small workbench against the farthest wall. “I think I saw her name on that one, though.”

  We wandered over. Danno was right about the name, but the table was empty except for a square tank the size of several milk cartons. “There’s nothing in here,” I said.

  Matt stood next to me and swept a finger across the aluminum surface, clearing a path through a thin layer of dust. “No one has worked here for a while.”

  The radio clipped to Danno’s belt buzzed. “What are you looking for, anyway?”

  Behind us, the doors to the lab opened. A few researchers walked through, talking and smiling. One of them waved to Danno. “How’s the luck? You feeling like a Clutterbuck winner?”

  “I believe they’re known as Clutterbuckians,” one of the others said.

  That definitely wasn’t true.

  “Just don’t forget us when you pocket that million, okay?” said the first man.

  “Never, Mark,” Danno said. “I’ll never forget I’ve stood on the shoulders of donkeys.”

  The three researchers laughed.

  Danno’s radio started buzzing again. A muffled voice was saying something about the Clutterbuck meeting. Finally he yanked the radio off his belt and held it to the side of his face. “Sorry! I’ll be there in a minute,” he said. Then he turned back to us and smiled. “Let me know if you need help with anything.”

  Matt pulled up a stool and leaned against the dust-covered table. “She had to work somewhere, right? So if not here, then where?” He lifted his chin toward the man in the blue lab coat. “Should we ask him?”

  Ava crossed her arms on her chest. “I’m not doing it.”

  “Me, neither,” Matt said.

  And so the job was mine. I plastered on my most charming smile, walked over to Walter, and introduced myself.

  Walter practically barked at me. “What do you want?”

  “We’re hoping to find out where Dr. Donatelli worked.” Walter started to point to the dusty table. “No, I don’t mean her official space. I’m talking about where she really worked.”

  Walter set down his wrench. He leaned over and looked back at Matt and Ava. Then he breathed in slowly through his nose, crossed his hairy forearms on his wide chest, and stared at me through half-closed eyes. “I might know something.”

  “You might know something?”

  Walter nodded. “I might.”

  Our eyes locked in a deadly serious stare. Something told me he’d give me the information if I gave him something in return. But what did he want? Money? A nose vacuum? M
aybe a pair of self-drying boxers? We studied each other in silence, and then I remembered where I’d seen him before. At dinner the first night he was sitting at the table next to us. He was the one who’d spat out his coffee.

  “And I might have something that would interest you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Some very rare and delicious civet coffee beans.”

  His hardened frown faded. He bit his lower lip. “Really? Civet beans? Show me.”

  I zipped up my Big Red, told my siblings I’d be right back, and raced to the room to fetch the coffee beans. When I returned, Matt and Ava were perched on stools across from Walter. They were both trying not to smile. I put the bag of beans down in front of Walter. He inhaled the scent of the contents with his eyes closed.

  “What? Why are you two smiling?”

  “Tell you later,” Ava said.

  Walter removed a tarnished silver key from a drawer and slid it across the desk to me. “The basketball court. The equipment closet on the left side, as you enter. I helped her set up a work space in there because she wanted privacy, and, well, we don’t get too many basketball junkies down here at the Pole. I swore I wouldn’t tell anyone,” he added, “but I’m desperate for good coffee.”

  Matt and Ava gave in to their laughter. I ignored them. “Thank you, Walter. We appreciate it.”

  As we hurried out of the pod, I asked, “What was that all about?”

  They giggled again. “Do you know where civet beans come from?”

  I’d planned to read about them but there was never any time. “No. Why?”

  “You go,” Ava said to Matt.

  He could barely get out the words. “The civet is a catlike mammal that lives in Southeast Asia, only it looks more like a rodent.”

  “So?”

  “So, civet coffee is made of beans that the civet has eaten and partially digested and then—”

  Ava couldn’t resist. “They’re poop beans!”

  I closed my eyes. This was horribly disappointing and disgusting news, but I tried to pretend I didn’t care. At least now I understood why Jen, our hostess on Clutterbuck’s jet, was smiling so strangely when she gave me the gift. “Well,” I said, “those critter droppings make delicious coffee.”