Chapter 5

What on earth is going on here?

Bed-bugs.

That was the pleasant suprise which I was greeted with the next day.

I jumped out of bed and almost screamed. I could take alot of things, but bed-bugs are not one of them. I quickly checked myself for bite-marks and fourtnately only found two. I took a long shower which was filled with lots of scrubbing. I came out feeling a little better. I got dressed in my warmest gear possible, but guessed that I would be cold no matter what I wore. I got together some money to go shopping or pay for the nessecary things that I would need. I was running pretty low on money and would have no money to get back home now. But, I couldn't worry about that now, I had to find George.

I came down-stairs and found the pub empty, save Oswald and two or three customers. I ordered a large bowl of oatmeal and a glass of water. I hurried and ate my food, so that I wouldn't be late to meet Donald. After that, I set out to find the dock. It was so cold on my way, my nose went so cold and numb, so that when I arrived in the store and saw myself in the mirror, it had gone a light blue colour.

'What can I do for you today, Ms?' Asked the lady at the desk. I walked over and the lady gasped. 'You're that poor soul who lost her husband in the lastest expedition, here aren't you? Oh, I am sorry. It was so tragic, all those fine young men excited and eager to go and find their fortune, to see the poor souls return in coffins, was more then I could bear.' The lady had tears in her eyes and I did too. The more I stayed here the more I realized just how real this all was. I had to find George. 'W-what can I do for you today, everything for you is half-price, take your pick,' I tried to say absoultely not but she looked me in the eye and said, 'If you don't take up my offer I will never be able to live with myself, I wished that there was something that I could do in any way to help those young men and now I can.'

So with the help of the sales-lady, I picked out all of the things that I needed and paid half-price. I thanked her many times but would hear nothing of it. As I was leaving I turned around remembering something. 'I don't even know your name, what is it? I'd like to remember the the name of the kind woman who helped me so much.'

The sales-lady turned around but, something was different about her. She looked years older. 'My name is Aga Hawk. I am over joyed that I could help you. Please, anything that you need, come to me.' I nodded gratefully. 'Why did you help me? You had no reason, you don't know me.' Aga looked around then whispered: 'The Idol took your Husband and I am have been sent here by the Gods to help you. You must do as he has done and die like him, then you must climb the life tree. then you must meet him half-way and follow the stars home. That's the only way home.'

After telling me this she faded into dust before my eyes. I shivered. George was dead?

And I must die too? What did she mean? What had she meant by; 'the Gods sent me here to help you'? Had this all just been a dream? I pinched myself to make sure that I was awake. I was wide awake. I softly screamed. What was I to do?! I am surrounded by craziness and Geore is gone. I must find him. I ran as fast as I could, to the dock, slipping a few times , but not caring at all. Donald was waiting for me when I arrived panting like heck. 'Whoa! You didn't have to run all the way? What's the matter?' I had tears streaming down my face, for I felt it in my bones that Aga was not crazy, and was right, and that I needed to die the sameway that George had. 'I-I'm just really upset about George.' I whispered. Not knowing whato do, Donald patted me on the back comfortingly. I tried to clean myself up as the team who were being paid to help us find George, arrived. there were five men who trusted Donald enough to come. The first ones name was Henry Blake and he was a wealthy business-man in shipping and was six-foot-seven and he ignored me and looked down his nose at me and was very snobby to Donald. I got the feeling that he was only doing it for that huge sum of money that had been offered by Donald. The next one's name was Ivan Smirov. He was Russian and his English was not very good, but I think that he was nice because he always was smiling and when he saw me, patted me on the back and said with a strong accent; 'Poor, poor! I sorry.' I smiled and in replied, 'спасибо!' 

The next one was a tough character. He was really tall and looked like he'd never seen a bar of soap in his whole life. He took one look at me and I knew what he thought of me. I did not like him one little bit. His name was Alan Morton.

The next one was a old man who could not speak and looked like a tough Santa Clause, his name was Joseph. No one knows what his last name was and he always refused to tell, whenever you asked. The last one was a teenage boy who was the son of Henry. His name was Robin Blake. He was nothing like his father and chattered happily to Donald for a long time and said hello to everyone and spoke fluent Russian and talked to him forever while we were waiting for Joseph to arrive. Then when everyone was there, Donald told us the plan; 'Hello everyone, Thank-you so much for coming here to help Mrs. Slobodkin and George. We are going to search the ice-caves in which George was lost, it's going to be a two month trip to get there and do a sufficent search and come back. You will each be given a sum of five thousand english pounds or more at the end of this. Let's get going.' I learned from Donald, as the other men were packing supplies into a boat, that we were going to sail over to the other side of the Aritic and then hike for a week inland, where we would find the ice-caves and search them. When the boat was packed I got on and Donald told Robin to show me around the ship. 'Ok Sir! Come on, Mrs. Slobodkin. We'll start at the top of the ship, you know that this is a really tough boat...' He plunged into the really long history of the it as we climbed to the top of the massive boat. She was quite rusty in lots of areas and in others falling apart. It smelled like a mouldy carrot and you had to be careful as you walked, for the entire floor was covered in a thick sheet of ice. When Robin paused for a breath, I quickly asked him a two questions that I'd been wondering for a long time. 'Um, sorry Robin, but I've been wondering a few things, I was hoping that you could answer them for me?' He beamed at the thought of answering questions. 'Sure! What were you wondering?'

'Thank-you, I was wondering how Donald could have got a hold of such a big ship in such a short amount of time and who is running this huge ship.'

'Well, I can tell you that easy. This ship is my Fathers. 'Cause this ship was going there anyway and Father got real excited when he heard about how Mr. Slobodkin got lost and said that he would happily give the company a lift on his ship for free and not only that, he would come with us and help buy supplies. Donald'd knowen my Father from useing his shipping to get other places before and thought that he might be interested in helping him. He got lucky, he was. Does that answer your questions?'

'Yes, thank-you very much Robin, those really did answer all my questions. Oh and you can call me Jenny. It's shorter.' He beamed at me. 'Ok, would you like to hear more about the ship? This one is my faveorite out of all the ones Father owns.'

I nodded smiling.

But as he chattered happily, I could only hear the alarm-bells going off in my head.

I could not believe Donald, how could he not see this? This Henry Blake was obiviously only in this because he wanted to find the Idol. That meant that the rest of the company were probably fortune hunters too. This plan had so many holes. They wouldn't be looking for my George they would be looking for the Idol and we would all die like that others. I needed to talk to Donald as soon as possible.