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frankly bored, Kat currently hated him for it.
    “When are we going to find somewhere to stop? I’m freezing.”
    “Are you through?” Jack asked. Kat felt the last vestiges of her temper evaporate.
    “What’s that supposed to mean? Of course I’m freezing. We’re stuck out in the snow. We’re both freezing. People wil probably find us out here, looking like giant ice-lol ies,” Kat said in her British accent.
    Jack gave her a blank look.
    “What you’d cal Popsicles.”
    “Oh.” The boy shook his head. “Kat, I’m not even cold, and I don’t think you are either. You’re not even cold, and I don’t think you are either. You’re not shivering. Think about it.”
    As if to validate his point, Jack stuck one hand in the snow, made a snowbal , and threw it at her.
    “Hey! That’s cold!” Kat was just about to grab a snowbal of her own to back up the rebuke with some punitive action when it occurred to her that actual y, it wasn’t that cold. “Al right, so maybe it wasn’t, which is weird, but that was a real y puerile way to prove a point.”
    “Effective though,” Jack pointed out. This time Kat did throw a snowbal . Jack dodged it. “You’re right though, it is a quandary . How can we be out in the snow this long without even being cold?” Kat shrugged. As far as she was concerned, as long as they weren’t freezing to death, it didn’t real y matter. Of course, it didn’t help them with other problems, such as working out where they were or finding their way to anywhere that wasn’t just an endless field of snow.
    “You know,” she grumbled, “I bet the others are having a fine time of it, stuck back in the castle while we do al the tedious work finding Henry Word.”
    “We don’t know that they were left behind,” Jack pointed out. “They probably might not have arrived where we did.”
    “Where else would they be? Anyway, wherever they are, they aren’t hiking through al this snow.”
    “You just don’t like being bored.”
    Wel , that was probably true, but it wasn’t like Jack had to point it out. Vexed now, Kat threw another snowbal at him. This one hit, but since he couldn’t feel the cold it didn’t make much difference.
    “Oh, come on,” Jack said. “If we keep moving, we’re bound to run into something eventual y.”
    “Knowing our luck,” Kat pointed out, “it wil probably be something that wants to eat us. It usual y is.”
    Jack ignored that and trudged on stoically through the snow. With a sigh, Kat set off in his wake. She wasn’t sure if she preferred this new, decisive version of Jack, but at least he was good at clearing the snow out of the way.

Chapter 5

    Gradual y, the snowstorm spent its energy, dissipating the way Jack had known it would. After al , back home in Alaska, he saw them often enough, though the idea of not being so much as chil ed by one as he walked through it wasn’t exactly normal.
    Unfortunately, now that there wasn’t a barrage of snowflakes in the way, Jack could see something move in the distance. A white dot on the horizon formed a familiar shape against the desolate backdrop, and it seemed to be coming closer.
    “Kat?”
    “What?”
    “I think there might be a polar bear stalking us.”
    The girl gave him an angry look.
    “Jack, that isn’t funny.”
    “It’s not meant to be. Look.”
    He pointed to where the bear was closing on them. Closer now, Jack could see that it was huge, even by the standards of its kind. The thick fur of the creature looked nearly impregnable , and its claws looked like they could tear and kil with ease. It sped towards them inexorably .
    Jack grabbed Kat’s arm and dragged her into a run, knowing even as he did that it was too late. Bears were faster than humans. Although these bears were twice as large as normal bears, they appeared to be just as fast.
    “ Surreptitious ,” he said as they ran, hoping that the ruler word would have its usual effect of making them hard to spot. Kat did the