The Last Hunter: Collected Edition (Antarktos Saga #1-5)

I wrap my arms around her in a burst of emotion and say, “Thank you.”


My father is standing in the bathroom door. I launch at him, hugging him around the neck, feet dangling above the floor.

When he puts me down, I sniff and wipe my eyes, feeling no embarrassment over the tears. “When are we going?”

“Summer in Antarctica begins in about seven weeks.”

The tears well again, as a single thought repeats in my head.

I’m going home.





2



I can’t sleep. Like the owl that hunts at night, I’ve gone nocturnal. My imagination is in overdrive—Justin would say, “It’s gone plaid.” But it’s actually an improvement. I normally lose sleep to thoughts of awful things. Those frightening images don’t have a chance to manifest tonight. My mind is on Antarctica. What will I see? Penguins? Weddell seals? The South Pole? Where will we go? Can I explore? Who will I meet?

It suddenly occurs to me that Merrill Clark himself might be there. My father has kept in loose contact with him since I was born. They worked together at Clark Station for three summers in a row. I’ve heard my mother tease Dad about Dr. Clark being my real father. She says the same thing about the mailman sometimes, too. So I know she’s teasing. But it implies they’re close. Or were. Of course, it also implies they’re close to the mailman, which makes no sense, because our mailman is a mailwoman.

I also know that Dr. Clark is married. His wife’s name is Aimee. She’s black, which I’ve heard my parents talk about, too. Apparently it’s taboo for people of different skin colors to marry. And they have a daughter, Mirabelle. She’s a year younger than me.

Remembering the daughter makes me nervous. My parents stopped going to Antarctica after I was born. Said it wasn’t a safe place to raise a baby. Maybe Dr. Clark did the same. I know he’s continued publishing about Antarctica, but it could all be based on old research. I make a mental note to ask in the morning. I roll over and squint. It’s already morning. The rising sun cuts through the crack in my shade and strikes my eyes.

The nice thing about being home-schooled—at least the way my parents do it—is that I pick the subjects. I pick where, when and how I want to learn. Not only do my parents trust that I’ll get a better education this way, they feel most kids would too. Dad calls school a “good citizen factory.”

I think my parents were hippies.

But I agree with them.

The point is, I can sleep until noon if I want. And I’ll get more learning done in an hour than most kids will during a full day of school. I roll over and close my eyes. They reopen a moment later.

It’s Saturday.

I’m on my feet and scratching dried red lava from the clock face. It’s not coming off, so I pull the shade and look at the sun’s low position in the sky. It’s September third and the sun is still rising early. I place the time around 6:30, slide into my slippers and head downstairs.

I skip the third and fifth steps because they squeak. I know the sound won’t wake my parents, but I like to pretend I’m a ninja. Five minutes later I’m sitting on the floor, bowl of Cocoa Pebbles in hand. I sit at the long coffee table where my drawing paper and pencils wait.

I pick up the cable remote and remember when I had to get up to change the channel, rotate the top TV dial to U and the lower dial to channel fifty-six. I turn it on and there’s a commercial featuring a bunch of women with puffy hairdos being asked what they would do for a Klondike Bar. Tell a secret? One of the women reveals that her husband works out in his underwear, and I think I’ll never eat a Klondike Bar again. I tune out the next commercial and stuff my mouth with delicious artificially flavored chocolate cereal.

“I wouldn’t do anything for a Klondike Bar,” I say, spraying a few Pebbles on my art pad. “But I’d work out in my underwear for—”

I see something. Not on TV. In the sun room, which is separated from the living room by a large door with twelve small windows. Something inside the room moved. I swallow hard. Some of the not yet chewed, not yet mushy, cereal scratches my throat.

“Dad?” I say. He gets up early on occasion, but I hear no reply.

“Mom?” That my mother would be up this early on a Saturday is ludicrous. I usually don’t see her until ten.

The TV is showing previews of the upcoming programming lineup so I know I have about thirty seconds before Robotech starts. I push the coffee table away, stand up and tiptoe toward the door. I’m a ninja again. Defenseless, but quiet. Of course, the TV has long ago announced my presence.

Maybe there was a burglar? I think. He could have been scared by the TV coming on and fled through a window. Or maybe he’s still in there, waiting for the stupid twelve—make that thirteen-year-old—to check things out.