Dedicated to my sister Miriam
and my two deceased pets
Rani and Cocoa Bean

"Hannah pleeeeese." My little sister Katherine had been begging me for the last half hour to go sledding with her.

"Fine, I'll go," I sighed. Katherine jumped up and raced down stairs to get her snowsuit on.

Katherine is seven years old, three years younger than me. She has dark brown hair like mine that she wears in two pigtails and brown eyes.

As I trudged down the stairs after Katherine I met my big sister Rachel going up.

"Watch out baby, " she said. Rachel had been calling me baby since the day I told her that ice was my favorite thing to eat. She thought that sucking on ice was for babies because it was like sucking on a pacifier. Rachel is 14, she has long hair in a braid the color of mine and eyes like Katherines's. Sometimes I wish I had hair as long as Rachel's but I'm stuck with hair just long enough to put in a ponytail and brown eyes.

After meeting Rachel on the stairs, I hurriedly pulled on my snow gear and yelled to my mom, "I'm sledding with Katherine". Then, not waiting for a reply, I walked outside, grabbed an icicle off the roof and then sprinted after Katherine who was already pulling the sled to the top of the hill. Before I climbed into the sled I stuck the icicle in my pocket along with an ice pack I always carried around.

I loved the outdoors on Trinity Peninsula, Antarctica. My dad is a scientist and had to come to Antarctica for a year to study penguins. Since he was going to be away for such a long time we decided that my whole family should go with him.

I reached Katherine just as she was climbing into the sled. Quickly I leapt in after her.

It was a purple plastic sled that was almost brand new. My dad had gotten it secondhand when we first came to Antarctica and this was its first run with us. It could hold two people, had two handles for each person and a long loop in the front for pulling the sled. When my dad bought the sled he said that the shopkeeper had told him not to buy it because it was haunted. He said that he had bought it from a family whose kids had taken the sled out to play. Then the next moment, they had come back in talking about mountains, volcanoes and swamps. But my father didn't believe him and neither did I.

As I picked my feet up off the ground and let the sled go, a feeling of exhilaration swept throught me. I felt like a bird who had just lifted off the ground and was soaring through the sky. I loved sledding.

Suddenly my daydream was broken when Katherine screamed, "Hannah, thin ice!" I had been too busy imagining to notice the patch of white clear ice straight ahead of us. We were going too fast to stop and there was no way to go around the thin ice. It was way too big, and if we bailed out we would probably break our necks. So there was only one way we could go, through it.

"Get ready to swim," I yelled at Katherine, even though I wasn't sure we would be able to swim in the freezing water. I closed my eyes tight and waited for the icy water to fill the sled and numb my legs. But I never felt any water.

When I opened one eye a tiny bit I saw that the snowy landscape of Antarctica was whizzing by and changing into a sunny beach. Then the beach changed again and the cycle continued. It was like what you would see if you looked out the window of a car driving through Antarctica and then into Hawaii at 80 miles per hour.

Suddenly we landed.

As soon as the sled hit solid ground I knew something about the land was not right. When I looked around me it looked like we were standing on an island floating in a clear blue sky. That's when I noticed what was wrong. We were standing on top of a mountain. As I walked over to the edge of the peak I heard Katherine commenting on the snow. Suddenly I became aware of the fact that snow was all around us. I looked down and saw that I was standing in at least a foot of snow. As I walked over to my sister I could hear it crunching under my feet.

Together Katherine and I peered cautiously over the side of the mountain. The blood rushed to my head and I staggered back as I realized just how high up we were. When I had gathered my strength again I was able to admire the spectacular view.

Far below me, I could see the rushing water of a river that disappeared into a roaring waterfall. Beyond that was the calm sparkling water of a bay. To my left and right, mountain after mountain stretched on as far as I could see. Behind me was the swaying grasses of a vast, seemingly endless grassland and to the right of that was the beginning of a dense forest.

After I got my bearings I started to think about how we got here and how we were going to get off the top of this mountain. It would take at least an hour to get to the bottom and I doubted that Katherine would be able to walk that far.

Then out of the blue an idea hit me.

"Katherine, we're going to sled down this mountain," I told my sister. I hoped the mountain wasn't too steep. I told Katherine to climb in the sled. Then I pushed her over to the edge of the peak with shaky legs. I pushed off the ground as I leapt in after her and down we went.

It was a thrilling yet terrible ride. One moment we would be sailing down the slope and the next, swerving and narrowly missing a tree or rock.

When we reached the bottom and finally stopped moving, we were exhausted. Katherine and I tumbled out of the sled and lay breathing hard on what I thought must be the grassland I had seen from on top of the mountain. Soon I fell asleep.

I awoke to my sister shaking me and saying, "Hannah, wake up! There's a person-like thing coming toward us." Slowly I sat up and looked where Katherine was pointing. Sure enough, there was something that looked like a human coming toward us. By the time I stood up, the thing was close enough to get a good look at.

It looked like a girl, judging by the long curly brown hair on its head. She looked exactly like a regular human being except for the fact that she was as thin as paper. She looked almost like a paper doll. I took a firm grip on Katherine's hand and hesitantly walked up to the thing.

"Excuse me, could you please tell us where we are?" I asked her.

"You are on Iceberg Island in Glacier Grassland," she replied. I was surprised at how kind yet strange she sounded. It sounded like she was plugging her nose and then talking.

"If it's called Iceberg Island shouldn't it be cold?" Katherine asked as she took off her snowsuit and put it in the sled. Katherine was right. It wasn't cold. There was a bright sun in the sky and not a trace of snow on the ground.

"It's a long story," the thing said. "Sit down and I'll tell you." We all sat down and she began.

"10 years ago, the island was true to its name. The Mitten Mountains were covered in mittens and Snowball Swamp had lots of snowballs. But that was before Yugaroon the wizard came. He is a Brillie like you and unlike us Plumpies he has a body shape. All Plumpies love the cold and that is why we chose to live on Iceberg Island, but Yugaroon loves warmth. He took all the cold and anything to do with winter away from the island and locked it up in a steel ship." At this point in the story Katherine interrupted the Plumpie.

"But if he took away all cold things why was there snow on top of the mountains?"

"Because Yugaroon's magic was not powerful enough to take cold from places it would naturally be in. Now let me get on with the story," the Plumpie replied. "Luckily the island was so ancient that he could not take away the cold from here forever. But the only way to get back winter is by throwing a piece of ice or snow into Glove Geyser."

"Why don't you just take snow from the mountains to Glove Geyser?" I asked.

"Because the sun would melt it long before you got even close to the geyser. It's at least fifteen miles away from here," said the Plumpie.

Just then I remembered the icicle I had grabbed off the roof before I went sledding back on Trinity Peninsula. Would it have melted or would the ice pack have kept it cold? Slowly I reached into my pocket and felt the hard smooth lump of an icicle. My face must have lit up because Katherine looked at me strangely. Then when she saw where my had was she smiled too. Katherine knew about my habit of sucking on ice.

Quickly I told the Plumpie about the icicle and the ice pack in my pocket. When I told her, she smiled just like Katherine. Then she took a small ladybug out of her pocket, whispered something to it and then let it fly away.

"My little messenger will carry the news of our journey back to my village, Packro."

"What journey?" I asked, surprised by the sudden mention of a journey.

"Why, of course, now that we have a piece of ice that won't melt we must get that piece of ice to Glove Geyser," she replied, as though this was the most obvious thing in the world. Then she said, "Come on," and grabbed the sled. She motioned for us to follow her.

As we were walking along I realized that we had not been properly introduced yet.

I turned to the Plumpie and said, "My name is Hannah and this is my sister Katherine. Who are you?"

"I am Satel, " she replied and then tossed me a map of the island. According to the map we had arrived on the Mitten Mountain range and were now walking through the Glacier Grassland. Apparently, Glove Geyser was on Parka Peninsula and to get to it you had to go through Cold Canyon.

Carefully, I rolled the map back up and stuck it in my pocket.

Katherine and I followed Satel for a long time, seeing nothing at all. Then after a while I started to see a huge dip in the ground. Remembering the map, I thought that this must be Cold Canyon.

When we were almost at the canyon Satel turned to me and said, "You must be careful. If Yugaroon found out about your icicle, he will try to take it from you here at the canyon, because of how dangerous it is."

Suddenly there was a blinding flash of light. I felt like my skin was on fire. I immediately started to feel faint from the heat. I probably would have fainted if Satel hadn't pulled Katherine and me behind a gigantic rock near the beginning of the canyon. It was shady and cool behind the boulder. When my body temperature had returned to normal I turned to Satel, who seemed to be looking for something.

I asked, "What was that light?"

"Yugaroon," she mumbled back.

After that we just sat behind the rock until Satel exclaimed, "There it is!"

"What did you find?" I asked.

"The tunnel to Glove Geyser," she replied. "We built it a long time ago when Yugaroon first came, to keep Plumpies safe while they traveled from the village to the geyser to get drinking water." Then she beckoned for us to follow her through the trapdoor she had just uncovered. I told Katherine to go first and then dropped through the hole after her, making sure to shut the trapdoor behind me.

It was dark, damp and musty in the cave beneath the trapdoor. As my eyes adjusted to the light I could see that there were puddles of water all over the floor. Satel motioned for us to follow her down a tunnel that I had not noticed before. It was even darker in the tunnel and it was just barely wide enough for me and Katherine to walk down holding hands.

We walked for what seemed like days but was probably only an hour. Finally, I saw a patch of light in the distance. Katherine and I ran ahead of Satel and climbed out of the tunnel. What I saw took my breath away. In front of me was a geyser that was shooting water at least fifty feet into the air. But that wasn't all. The water was sparkling and shimmering as though it was made of tiny shards of glass.

Just then another bright light like the one at the canyon appeared in the sky. Immediately, I started running at the geyser.

It was only a couple of yards away but it felt like miles to me. My skin was so hot it was starting to burn. A yard away from the geyser I reached into my pocket. The ice pack was sweating from the heat but there was still a small lump of ice in the middle.

Quickly I grabbed the ice. It felt good on my burning hand but I knew that if I held it too long it would melt. My head was spinning and I could barely lift my arm up to throw the ice into the Geyser. Behind me, Katherine had already fainted. I lifted my arm up and hurled the now miniscule icicle into the water.

What happened next I will never forget. Streams of water burst from the geyser and whatever they passed over was suddenly covered in snow or frozen into ice. While this was happening, a blood-curdling shriek of rage was coming from the

now fading light. Then at the same moment, Satel came out of the tunnel and a man fell out of the light. It was Yugaroon.

Quickly, I dragged Katherine to her feet. She had been revived by the sudden cold. I was just about to run from the man when Satel threw us our sled and snowsuits that she had been lugging around. I grabbed them and sprinted to the top of a small hill that lead down to the ocean.

Yugaroon was only ten yards away and he was running fast. I jumped into the sled, pulled Katherine in after me and then pushed off. As we sledded down the hill I began to wonder why it wasn't taking us home. We were almost at the bottom of the hill and we still weren't going anywhere special.

Yugaroon was now only one yard behind us. If we landed in the ocean, he would surely catch us. Just then the front of the sled hit the water and a drop of salty water went into my eye, so I closed it. The last thing I heard as we whooshed away was Satel calling "Thank you" from the top of the hill and Yugaroon screaming, "I'll get you next time!"

When Katherine and I landed with the sled on Trinity Peninsula, I realized, to my relief, that we were at the top of the hill instead of on the thin ice. I climbed out of the sled and walked into the house. As I trudged upstairs I saw Rachel coming down.

"I thought you were going sledding, baby," Rachel said.

"I did go sledding," I replied, confused about why she thought I hadn't gone sledding. Katherine and I had been gone for at least four hours.

Then I remembered the story of the family who had owned the sled before us. Their children had come in a second after they had left. I realized that no matter how long you stayed on Iceberg Island, no time would pass in the real world.

"Some long sledding trip," Rachel said sarcastically, and then pushed past me and continued downstairs.

That night as I lay in bed I thought about everything that had happened to me that day and I realized that if that drop of saltwater hadn't hit my eye we would have been captured by Yugaroon. Then, with that thought in my mind, I rolled over and fell fast asleep.

The End