The Icarus Project (4 page)

“Very.” Tilda jabbed the button on the phone for Dad’s office line with her sparkly red fingernail. Red was a vibrant color, exciting and full of energy. “Jason, your daughter and her friend are here. May I send them in?”

She nodded her head toward Dad’s office while scribbling whatever he was saying down on a pad of paper.

The office was the size of a rich person’s closet, so it was small as offices went but gigantic for a closet. Dad said that academics didn’t need a lot of space—it was the ideas that were big. I pushed on the door, which didn’t open all the way because of the stack of books behind it.

Dad hung up the phone and waved us in. Zoey and I squeezed into the cluttered space. Though the office was small, the ceilings were high, and all the stuff was stacked upward. The shelves were filled with books, and replicas of bones seemed to go up and up into the fluorescent sky.

Dad’s face lit up when he saw us. His ear was bright red
from having been pressed to the phone. “Did Tilda tell you about the mammoth?”

“Not much. Just that there was a big find.” I wanted to hear the news from him.

“A major find in Canada. Do you know how lucky we are? The site is close. Really close.” Words spooled from his mouth. “Plus, an ecotourism company discovered it—Clark Expeditions.” He read off his notepad.

“What did they find?” I asked.

“Mammoth bones.” He lowered his voice even though it was just the three of us shoehorned into the office. “And maybe …
more
.”

“More what?” I asked in the same hushed, quiet voice.

“Organic material.” He used a loud stage whisper for dramatic effect.

When Dad talked about organic material, he meant the good stuff, the meaty stuff—like animal flesh, which wasn’t gross if you thought about it scientifically.

“Like a mammoth
body
? Do they think they found a frozen one?” He beamed.

If there was a real frozen mammoth buried in the ice up in Canada, this was huge. Mammoth bones were not rare. In fact, though always an important find, the bones were nothing new. There was an entire creepy mammoth graveyard filled with hundreds of bones in Siberia. Russia
had cornered the market as far as mammoth finds went. But a body was entirely different. No wonder Dad was so excited.

“Is it a baby? Like the ones found before?” Three baby mammoths had been retrieved from the Siberian steppe, in various stages of preservation.

“Not sure. Let’s not get overly excited,” he cautioned. “We’re not sure what exactly was found—it could be nothing.”

“But it’s serious.” I looked at Zoey, and she gave me the thumbs-up sign.

“Yes. We’re taking this very seriously. A team will be assembled and sent to investigate the find.”

“Wow. That’s colossal.” Zoey’s smile showed off her shiny braces. “So are you going to Canada or what?” Zoey always got to the point.

“What’s this mean, Dad?” I was starting to get a little nervous, the thrill of discovery ebbing away. “Are we going? Wait, who gets to go? I get to go, too. Right?”

Dad’s mouth hung open. He sighed, clearly not knowing what to say. “We’ll talk when I get home. I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Panic washed over me. “You can’t leave me at home,” I snapped, and dropped my backpack on the floor.

“Don’t get excited. We’ll discuss it later tonight when I have more details.”

Which really meant
Don’t embarrass me in public with a hysterical outburst.
Sensing trouble, Zoey ducked out of the office.

I suddenly felt hot and claustrophobic. I couldn’t let another one of my parents jet off on an expedition without me.

Dad stood and gave me a quick hug and pat on the back.

But I wasn’t going to let it go. “Come on, Dad. Please.”
Please
was the last refuge of the desperate, but begging was not beneath me. I
had
to go with him.

At that moment, the phone rang, and he snatched it up. He turned his back to me and spoke hurriedly into the receiver. With a glance over his shoulder, he said, “I have to take this call. It’s Randal Clark. Can you get a ride home with Zoey’s mom? Thanks. You’re a trouper, Maya.”

Then he pushed me. Not hard, but enough.

Dad had never pushed me before. He pushed me right out of the office and shut the door. I stood in the hallway and stared at the carpet. It was the color of ground-up corn. The color of broken chips left at the bottom of the bag after all the good chips had been eaten. I felt chewed up. Left over. That ugly carpet was me, stepped on and ignored. Was Dad going to suddenly up and leave because some cool mammoth was found in the Arctic?

I was getting ditched for another discovery.

“That was weird,” Zoey said.

“Not like Dad at all.”

“He’ll come around.”

“I don’t know.”

“Want to have dinner at my house? You could use some pizza therapy right now.”

I didn’t know what to think, but at least Zoey was there with me. We headed out of the office. Tilda’s head was down and she was writing furiously on a piece of paper, her glittery red nails sparkling in the halo of light from the desk lamp.

Words I never thought I would utter sprang from my mouth. “I’m
going
to Canada,” I declared. “I’m going to the Arctic.”

I purposely stayed late at Zoey’s house. I went
on her computer after dinner, my fingers flying across the keys as I searched for information online about the mysterious benefactor who had called my dad. I clicked on a link that took me to a recent article about Randal Clark. A photo of a dashing businessman with his hair windblown and his eyes sparkling came up on the screen.

I scanned the column. “It says Randal was a daredevil in his youth with the heart of an explorer.”

“It looks like Mr. Clark comes from old money, like from back in the days when railroads were being built,” Zoey said, pulling a bag of gummy bears out of her top desk drawer.

“He’s driven, that’s for sure.” The article said that Randal had taken his family fortune and turned it into a bigger fortune. He could have hung out all day and counted his money if he wanted to, but he worked really hard instead.

Green gummy-bear parts were stuck in Zoey’s braces. “It says Clark Expeditions is part scientific exploration and part ecotourism. It sounds cool. Your dad is lucky.”

“We’re both lucky,” I said. “Because I’m going with him.”

Zoey leaned back into a pile of clothes, stretching her arms out and flapping them up and down like she was trying to make a snow angel. “You’d better text me. I want to be the first to hear about the mammoth when you find it.”

I plopped down on the bed, and from my backpack I pulled out one of Mom’s old cameras. I tended to get the hand-me-down electronics. “I’ve got my camera with the video recorder, so I’ll take some video messages for you and post them.”

“Great. And I want to see a live polar bear and a dead mammoth up close and personal. Oh, and don’t forget the tusks. Get a shot of the tusks.” She picked a gummy bear out of her teeth and proceeded to eat it.

“I’ll make a mental note. ‘Zoey wants to see some tusks.’”

Zoey’s mom had come in about three times, prompting me to get ready to go home. Finally, she stood in the doorway in all her Germanness, with her hands on her hips and a look that needed no explanation. The car was in the driveway with the engine running. No more avoiding it.

Even though I wanted to hear about what happened after I left Dad’s office, I was still mad at him for
the push.
Once I was through the front door, I headed straight for my bedroom.

“Maya, is that you?” Dad called from the family room.

He must have literally jumped up from the sofa and run to intercept me, because I didn’t even make it to the hall before he was standing right in front of me. I stared at the floor, the wall, and the gigantic dust bunny that was collecting in a corner. I examined every inch of the hallway, looking everywhere but at Dad. Silent as a mollusk, lips pursed shut in defiance. Let Dad do all the talking. Let him try to talk his way out of leaving me behind.

“Did you have fun at Zoey’s house? I was about to send out the cavalry.”

I glanced up momentarily. He had a big goofy smile on his face. He probably didn’t even remember
the push.

I shrugged. Technically, a shrug could be considered a silent response. It was body language.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

I did a mental eye roll. A physical eye roll was beneath me.

“Come into the family room. We need to talk.”

I followed him and plopped down on the sofa. I hugged a throw pillow and pulled at the fringe. I had no plans to talk, but if he wanted to chat, that was fine by me. Dad sat on the arm of a worn leather chair.

“About today at the office. I know you were a little shocked with all the excitement.” He took his glasses off and cleaned them with his T-shirt. “I’m sure you’re bursting with questions. I know I was.”

I punched at the pillow’s soft insides. Maybe I was bursting with questions, just a little. But he wasn’t getting
the mad part. I wasn’t in shock. I was angry. I was red, and not hungry red or sparkly red. I was old-fashioned angry red.

“It’s just that nothing like this has ever happened to me before. You know how hard it’s been.”

I looked up at him. I remembered the envelope with the latest rejection letter, the one I had been sure was filled with good news. But it hadn’t been. He was right—I did know how hard it had been. The anger started to drain away.

“No one ever thinks of me when they need a mammoth expert. Oh, sure I get called to give speeches and give tours, but the real stuff, the fieldwork, always goes to some other guy with more experience or more degrees. Not me—I never get the real work that matters.”

I felt terrible. He had worked for this for years—no, decades—ever since he was in college. And finally he was so close to having his dreams come true, and all I was thinking about was myself.

I made myself smile. “Well, what happened? What’s different this time?” I asked.

His face brightened. “Randal Clark needs someone fast. He was out with a group of ecotourists and stumbled upon some mammoth tusks up in the Canadian Arctic. Mr. Clark owns the operation and runs the business. He decided to check out the discovery with his nephew, who is an amateur filmmaker.”

“That sounds cool.”

“They took video of the tusks, and while they were trying to dig them up, something stuck, and it looks like there may be something buried in the permafrost.”

“Can’t they just dig it up and see what it is?”

“Thankfully, they didn’t. Mr. Clark didn’t want to ruin the find in case it’s worth a lot of money. Which is actually smart of him, even though he’s only thinking of his bottom line. If it
is
mammoth remains and they dig it up, the carcass could thaw and be attacked and eaten by animals, or poachers could steal the ivory.”

“It has tusks?”

“Yes!” Dad jumped to his feet. “Can you believe it? That’s why they called us! The tusks breached the ice.”

“This is big. And they want you to come to the Arctic to check it out.”

“Basically, yes. Mr. Clark is willing to fund the whole expedition. And it won’t even cost him that much since he already has camps established. Apparently, the guy is a real Arctic buff and lives year-round in the compound.”

“That’s great! When do we leave?” The Arctic wasn’t my top choice for my first real expedition. But luck was a funny thing, and this mammoth had just fallen in our laps. I would brave the snow and ice for science’s sake.

“About that…” Now it was Dad’s turn to stare at the floor. He eased down on the sofa next to me and put his hand on my shoulder. “You’ll have to skip this one. I was
thinking you could stay at Zoey’s house. I was hoping to speak with her parents tomorrow after we talked. Won’t that be fun, a whole month just the two of you?”

“A month! And you’re just going to leave me here?” My emotions flared. I was sick of being left behind.

“I’m not
leaving
you. The time will go by in a flash.” He squeezed my shoulder, but I shrugged him off.

“Mom leaves all the time and I have to deal with it. I have to be mature and do my homework and pretend that it’s fine. But it’s not fair.”

“I know it’s not fair. But you’ll hardly know that I’m gone. This is a big opportunity that I can’t pass up.”

“I know it’s your big chance. That’s why I’m going with you. It’s
our
big chance.”

Dad shook his head. “You have school. And should stay home.”

I had to think fast. “The expedition will be educational. What kid gets to go to the Arctic to watch real fieldwork in action?” I crossed my arms over my chest and raised an eyebrow. “Plus, spring break is coming up.”

“No, Maya. It’s too dangerous,” he said.

The danger card was the last play of a parent on the edge of caving in. I knew I was close. “I can handle it,” I said. “I’m not afraid. And you’ll be there.”

“The Arctic can be treacherous, and I won’t be able to watch you all the time.”

“Watch me!” I scoffed. “I’m old enough to
babysit
myself. Thirteen is not a kid. And you said that the mammoth was found by
tourists,
so how dangerous can it be if people are traveling there for vacation?”