The Haunted Igloo by Bonnie Turner Page A

laughter. Nanuk said, “He thinks we want him to eat a
live fish, Chinook! How dumb can one person get? Even Inuits kill the fish
before eating it!”
    “ You have to eat some if you want to
join the club,” said Aiverk.
    Jean-Paul gave the fish
back to Chinook. “I’m not eating raw fish, Chinook! My cousins in
Quebec like it raw, but not me. My stomach hurts just thinking
about it.”
    But Chinook wouldn’t take
the fish. “You said you wanted to join the club. And eating raw
fish is one of the things you must do. The fins and scales have
been removed. But watch out for bones.”
    Jean-Paul was beginning to suspect the boys
had made special rules just for him.
    Aiverk laughed and punched
Jean-Paul lightly on the shoulder. “Wait till you hear what comes
next!”
    Jean-Paul was nervous and
scared. He didn’t care what came next. He didn’t care if he joined
their old club or not. All he wanted was to go home.
    “ Eat the fish before Sasha gets it,”
Nanuk said. “You’re the biggest baby!”
    Suddenly, Jean-Paul was
very angry. No one could call him a baby and get away with it. “I’m
not a baby, Nanuk! I’m almost as old as you and Aiverk, so you
can’t call me a baby unless you call yourselves babies,
too!”
    “ Then you’d better get busy and eat
the fish,” Chinook said. “We can’t take you home until you do. This
and the other thing.” The other two boys laughed loudly.
    Jean-Paul knew he didn’t
have a choice. He felt the fish. It was not large, and he made up
his mind to eat some, even if it choked him blue in the
face.
    He brought the fish to his
mouth once, then brought it down again. Warmth from his hand had
thawed the fish a little. His stomach groaned. Waves of sickness
rose inside his chest. A bitter, acid taste came into his throat.
He closed his eyes tightly and, before he could change his mind,
sank his teeth into the fish and ripped out a small bite. His blood
pounded inside his ears as he sat for a moment with the mouthful of
raw fish.
    “ We eat raw fish all the time,”
Chinook said. “It isn’t that bad. We eat other meat raw, too. It
helps keep us warm in this cold weather. If you want to be like us,
you have to be strong.”
    Jean-Paul could not speak with his mouth
full. For one awful moment he wanted to spit out the bite. He
tested for bones with his tongue, then began chewing. The icy flesh
came apart easily between his teeth. He swallowed. It slipped
softly down his throat. Why, there was nothing to eating raw fish.
When he had finished, he gave the rest to Sasha.
    “ You didn’t say I had to eat it all,”
he told them, wiping his mouth and pulling his mitten back on. His
fingers ached and burned from the cold.
    “ He did it!” exclaimed Nanuk. “I
didn’t think he would, but he did!”
    Chinook slapped Jean-Paul
on the back. “That’s number one! If you pass the next test, you’ll
be a member of Ice Patrol and will get to go with us when we
ice-fish or hunt. You’ll learn our secret codes and
messages.”
    “ Yes,” said Aiverk. “Only very brave
boys can be members of Ice Patrol. And you were brave to eat the
raw fish when you never did it before.”
    Jean-Paul’s whole body felt
chilled to the bone, warm clothes or not. At that moment he didn’t
care if he passed any more tests or not. But something told him
they wouldn’t let him go home yet. He thought the cold he felt was
more from fear than anything else. He was sure his new friends had
planned something much worse than raw fish.
    “ Wh–what do I have to do now?” he
asked.
    “ You’re going to do what all of us had
to do once,” came the answer from Chinook. “You must spend two
hours alone in the haunted apudyak .”
    Jean-Paul stared at the
large, dark shape in front of him. “Is this where you have your
meetings?”
    “ No,” said Nanuk, “we just come here
sometimes to play. It’s fun sliding down the side of the apudyak on our
bellies.”
    “ But you have to sit inside the