“THIS IS JUST LIKE MOBY DICK!” Nudge exclaimed happily, bouncing on her tiny bunk. “They were on a fishing boat, and we’re on a fishing boat too! Only this one doesn’t have sails. And isn’t made of wood. And we have radar and computers and stuff. Still. We have little bunks, like old-fashioned sailors, and we eat in the mess, and the bathroom is called the head, and it’s all boat stuff, everywhere!”

“Dr. Dwyer and Dr. Papa seem nice,” said Angel. She peered through the small porthole above her bed. If we punched out the glass, we could probably escape through it. Just a thought. “They’re really sincere and mean everything they say.”

The rumbling of the ship’s engines made the floor vibrate beneath our feet.

“We’re headed for the South Pole!” Gazzy jumped over the low threshold into our room from the boys’ room next door. “And it’s, like, so far south that it’s the bottom of the whole world.”

I tried to keep from groaning out loud. I really, really hate cold weather. I hate bundling up. I’m more of a beach-and-sun kind of girl.

“But you know, if the world is round,” said Nudge, “then there’s no real top or bottom to it. The South Pole could just as easily be at the top of the world. We could be thinking of everything completely upside down.”

“You’re making my head hurt,” Total complained.

Fang and Iggy came in. Iggy was running his fingers gently along every surface, memorizing his surroundings, how many steps to here and there, where furniture was.

“It’s small in here,” he complained. “I feel like we’re inside a submarine. Can’t we sleep in hammocks on the deck?”

“It’s really cold out there,” I reminded him, trying not to sound too bitter.

“Frankly, I’d rather be in Hawaii,” Total griped, and I silently agreed with him. “Can your Voice send us there? We could be lying on a beach on Kauai, with drinks with little umbrellas in them. Instead we’re literally at the end of the world, doing God knows what. And what’s the food gonna be like on this boat?” He shook his head. “I am not into this plan, I can tell you —”

Suddenly he stopped, and his eyes widened. “Well, alo-ha,” he breathed.

Dr. Papa — that name still cracked me up — was standing in our doorway. At his side, a snow-white Malamute was sizing us up with the practiced eye of a guard dog. Total stared at it, speechless.