The Haunted Igloo by Bonnie Turner Page B

She glanced at Arnayak and
smiled.
    Chinook spoke to his mother
in Inuktitut .
Arnayak grinned and patted her belly while pointing to Lise.
“ Nutaralak ,” she
said, nodding.
    Lise felt her face redden
as Chinook explained Arnayak’s words.
    “ She says you will have more nutaralak . That’s Inuktitut for baby, Madame Ardoin.”
    Lise found herself
relaxing. She smiled warmly at the Inuit mother. “Tell her,
yes, enfant ! ” Lise patted her own tummy. “Ask her
if she can say it in French. Enfant ! ”
    Quick words were tossed
between the two mothers by way of Chinook’s translations. Lise had
resisted coming along on this trip. But now she was glad she
had.
    For the next half hour, the
group talked about Ice Patrol and hunting and Sasha. Jean-Paul
thanked Chinook for the bear statue and the harness.
    “ I’ll teach you to carve ivory,”
Chinook said. “And I’ll also help you train Sasha. She’s a fine
husky.”
    Jean-Paul thought for a
moment. “I’m glad she was in the igloo with me that day. I didn’t
tell you I’m afraid of the dark.”
    Chinook roared with
laughter. “And so is Nanuk! But I want to know what happened in the
haunted igloo. What did you see?”
    Jean-Paul leaned closer to
Chinook and whispered, “You would not believe ! I saw the eyes of the torngark , all slimy green
slits! No bodies, Chinook, just those terrible eyes, blinking on
and off, coming closer and closer! Then a stinky red smoke came up
from the floor. There was screaming, howling, and moaning. Then, a very old man—” He
stopped talking and opened his eyes wide at Chinook. The igloo was
filled with breathless suspense.
    “ Come on, Jean-Paul! And then what?”
Chinook was almost jumping up and down. “ What? What?”
    Jean-Paul could hardly keep
from laughing at the look on his friend’s face. “Well, the old man
was sitting on the back of the biggest, blackest, meanest-looking
wolf in the world!”
    Chinook stared open-mouthed
at Jean-Paul. His eyes had taken on the red of the fire. “But
you’re alive . How did you get away from
them?”
    Jean-Paul crossed his arms
over his chest and shivered. Chinook shivered, too. Even Cordell
and Lise shivered. Then Chinook’s mother, thinking it a game,
crossed her arms and shook her fat body and giggled. Lichen didn’t
shiver. She babbled a long chain of Inuit baby words that nobody
understood. Taguk didn’t shiver, either. He sat staring from one to
the other, wondering why everyone was cold when there was a
perfectly good fire going.
    “ It was very simple,” Jean-Paul said,
finally. “When I was scared enough to die, Sasha jumped at the
wolf! And the whole thing started flashing colors. And then it just
curled up and disappeared out the smoke hole. Poof!” He threw his
hands into the air. “Just like that, it was all gone!”
    “ Wow!” exclaimed Chinook.
    “ And the green eyes disappeared. But
after everything was gone, I could still hear that wolf howling. I
still smelled that awful smell.” He held his nose and said,
“ Phew!”
    “ Poo!” cried Lichen.
    Chinook said, “Wait till I
tell Aiverk and Nanuk!”
    Cordell laughed and said,
“That’s some story, Jean-Paul! No one would believe it in a million
years!”
    Chinook said, “We were only
teasing Jean-Paul about the apudyak being haunted, Monsieur Ardoin. But now I think it
really is. I hope it melts all the way to the South
Pole!”
    After they left the igloo,
Cordell said to Jean-Paul, “I think you stretched the truth a
little, eh?”
    “ I guess it paid him back!”
    Lise sat on the sled, ready
for the trip home. “Do you really need to pay anyone back,
Jean-Paul? Did Chinook and your other friends twist your arms to
make you stay in the igloo?”
    Jean-Paul thought about
that. “I think it was partly my own fault. I wanted to join Ice
Patrol so much that I even ate raw fish and let them trap me in the
igloo.”
    Lise gave him a big hug as
he curled up next to her on the sled. “I knew I