minutes of landing, the plane was empty and the other passengers had disappeared faster than ice cream on a hot day.
I stood outside the terminal, waiting for my ride. Mom said someone named Robbie was coming for me. She didn’t know if Robbie was a girl or a guy or what kind of vehicle to look for. But the moment I heard rattling and then saw a smoking Datsun come billowing through the gates I had a feeling I would soon find out.
“Hey, are you Peggy?” asked a girl wearing a Viking helmet with horns and tattoos all down her arms. “’Cause if you are, I’m Robbie and I’m here to get you.”
I remembered what Mom had said about the ride to L’Anse aux Meadows being five hours long and wondered if Robbie’s old beater would really get us there. “Yes, I’m Peggy.”
“Great. Well, come on, kid. We’ll grab some burgers from McMoodles down the road and then get going. If we don’t run down a deer or moose, then there’s a good chance we’ll be at field camp by two-thirty or so in the morning, but lights will be out ’cause they shut off the generator at ten-thirty.” While I was trying to get a sideways look at Robbie’s tattoos, she was studying me, too. “It’s kinda unusual for a kid to want to come all the way across the country like this. You like cooking, do you? Are you some kind of Martha Stewart wannabe?”
“Martha who? Is that the cook’s name?”
Robbie snickered at my question. “No, Bertha is camp cook. She’s a fantastic cook, too — just a little rough around the edges, if you know what I mean.”
I wasn’t sure I did know what she meant, but I wasn’t planning to be around much, anyway. I figured I’d put in an hour or two stirring soup, peeling potatoes, or serving up food, then I’d take off to see if I could get in on the excavation part of field school. It was perfect, really. I’d miss all the boring lectures and go straight over to the dig. That was where I’d show those university students I wasn’t really a cook’s help, but an experienced archaeologist — well, amateur archaeologist.
We rattled down Viking Trail Highway. When I glanced in the side rearview mirror, I saw white clouds puffing out our rear end like smoke signals. And after the first fifty kilometres, Robbie was more interested in singing than talking.
“You like Guns N’ Roses?” she shouted over the music blasting from the speakers. “This is my favourite number — ‘Dust N’ Bones.’”
I didn’t know Robbie well enough to tell her that her rowdy old-school rock music was giving me a headache. But after three albums of it I finally stuck my fingers in my ears and tried to focus on the scenery — what I could see of it in the gloom.
A few hours later we stopped for gas in a place called Gunners Cove. Out on the water, floating mountains of ice glistened in the moonlight. I’d seen pictures of icebergs but never knew just how powerful and huge they were in real life.
“Somethin’, eh?” Robbie said when we got back into the car. “Some people call this coastline Iceberg Alley.”
“Yah, I knew that. I also know that 90 percent of an iceberg’s mass is actually below the water.”
“Sure. But I bet you didn’t know that icebergs aren’t salty —”
“Of course, they aren’t salty. They’re glaciers and were formed from snow,” I said. She looked annoyed, maybe because I was smarter than she thought. “I also know that the Vikings reached North America five hundred years before Columbus and that they never wore horned helmets.”
Robbie gave a nasty smile and knocked her helmet with her fist. “You’re kind of a little know-it-all, eh?”
My cheeks suddenly burned. “What? I was only sharing information I got from Eddy, geez.”
“Of course, I knew Vikings didn’t have horned helmets. It just so happens I love touristy junk and couldn’t resist owning one of these puppies — all part of the fun of being at Viking field school. So who’s Eddy? Your boyfriend?”
I snorted. “My boyfriend? No! Eddy’s one of the field school instructors.”
“Are you talking about Dr. McKay? You know her?”
“Know her? I’m like her assistant. Everything I know about archaeology — which is considerable — I learned from her. In fact, I’ve been on several important real-life excavations and —”
“Yay! We’re finally here,” Robbie interrupted. “Phew. Don’t think I could have handled another minute. It sure was getting stuffy in here.” She looked at me and fanned herself.
There were no lights — even the moon had vanished — so the night sky was inky black as we drove up to the meadows. While I couldn’t see the ocean, I did hear the waves lapping on the shore in the distance. After we parked, Robbie took out a flashlight and shone it in my eyes. “Like I warned you, lights go out by ten-thirty. C’mon, I’ll show you where you’ll be bunking.”
Robbie pulled out my bag from the trunk of the car and dragged it to the nearest tent. “You’ll want to be real quiet,” she whispered. “From the sound of it, Bertha is asleep. And trust me, you don’t want to wake her up.”
“What? I’m supposed to sleep in a tent with someone I’ve never even met?” I whispered back. “Maybe we should find Eddy —”
“Shh! Those are the orders, kid. Straight from Professor Brant. He’s the chief around here, and you do what he says if you want things to go well.” Robbie shone the flashlight across the tent. “That’s your cot over there. Probably best to just crawl in and get some sleep while you can. You’ve got an early start in the morning.” After I’d stumbled to my bed, Robbie waved and then whispered, “Good luck.”
I heard her giggling on her way out. Good luck? Why would I need good luck?
An hour later, still not able to fall asleep, I figured out why. Bertha snored like a hound dog with a head cold. And if that wasn’t bad enough, she burped and then there was the thunder coming from under her blanket. Soon after, the air in the tent was toxic, too. She was some kind of noise machine: Snuzzz, blurp, craccck, snuzzz, blurp, craccck. If there was a way out, I would have taken it, but it was too dark. And besides, if this was how noisy she could be in her sleep, what would she be like if I woke her?
Sometime after three in the morning I must have been so tired that even the human generator next to me couldn’t keep me awake.
“Sigrid Thorbjornsdottir, put down your uncle’s sword and get back to your work,” scolds Gudrid. “When you’re finished with gutting and cleaning the fish for our evening meal, I need you to come and watch Snorri while I help Thorfinn in the wood shop.”
Sigrid struggles to raise the heavy sword and waves it in the air just once before setting it down by Thorfinn’s chair. She admires the way the firelight glints off its shiny blade, and imagines how many times it has been used to strike down an enemy.
“Come now, my dear, you need to get your mind straight. How many times have I told you that each of us was made to fulfill a certain role? You, my girl, are not a warrior, no matter how brave you may be.”
“That’s ridiculous, Aunt Gudrid, and a waste. I’m every bit as strong, fierce, and capable as any boy — and much more clever.”
Her
