I ignored him and kept reading. “—You'll receive a map and a dog team. From there, drive your dog sled out to the marked location on the map. Individual challenges will follow.” I squinted up at the snow-covered mountains nearby. “A dog sled, huh? Should be interesting."
"Should be fun," Brodie said, with a huge grin on his face. "Come on!"
We didn't see a taxi waiting for us, so we hiked into town. It wasn't far from the airport, though the ground was rocky and covered with snow. The village spread out before us like something from a movie, and I was fascinated. This was really damn cool.
"Come on, Katy," Brodie yelled back at me, trotting a good distance ahead. "This is a race!"
I gritted my teeth. Okay. Brodie kind of sucked as a partner. He acted like I was a liability instead of his sister. I knew my brother was competitive, but this was getting annoying. "I'm coming," I yelled back at him.
When we found the dog sled place, we didn't see any other teams. Oh no. That was a bad sign. There were only two sleds left, which meant Myrna and Fred were the only ones behind us. I tried not to worry as an attendant led us to our dogsled and began to explain how to sit on it and how to drive, and how to control the dogs. He'd be riding with us, he explained, but both Brodie and I would have to drive the sled for a distance.
I sat on the sled first, while Brodie volunteered to drive us out of town.
"How far are we behind the other teams?" Brodie asked immediately.
"Bout a half hour," the man told us. "Some of them had trouble with their dogs."
I tried not to look excited at that. Brodie didn't even try. "Hold on," he called out, getting in the musher's spot on the sled as I clung to the blankets piled onto me. "We're going to try and make up some time." He turned to face the dogs. "MUSH!"
The sled leapt to life and I clung to my seat, praying Brodie wouldn’t get us killed.
We passed two teams on the way to the next location.
One had stopped to look at their map, and the other was struggling with the sled itself. Brodie whooped and hollered at the sight, drawing their attention with his loud cheers. I cringed again at my brother's thoughtlessness. The way he was acting was totally going to bite us in the ass if he wasn't careful.
We switched out drivers at the halfway point, and I clung to the sled as the dogs leapt to action. The other teams were now behind us - following us, Brodie told me - but it didn't matter as long as they were behind. I mushed the hell out of the dogs, leaning in to the sled to give us as much advantage as possible. The cold wind whipped at my face, chapping it underneath the goggles the race had given us, but I didn't care. We were catching up!
In the distance, I spotted a splash of color - The World Races flag. I drove toward it, then began to apply the brakes on my sled, slowing the dogs down. As we approached, I saw an encampment. Ten igloos were set up in a line, and cameramen dotted the area. I saw another flag and mat, and then two areas that had been roped off for challenges.
We were here, and we weren’t in last place. Things were looking up. “This must be where we’re doing the individual challenges,” I shouted into the wind, leaning forward.
"Brake," Brodie called, pumping his arm with excitement. "Brake! I see the flag!"
The sled stopped, and we leapt off, handing control over to our guide. As we struggled to put our backpacks on, we sprinted for the check-in point. Waiting under The World Races flag was an Inuit man dressed in traditional clothing, and he looked a heck of a lot warmer than we were. He held our next World Games disk out for us.
Brodie automatically snatched it and began to read, and I was left to try and peek around my brother’s shoulder once more.
"Two challenges," he read aloud even as I tugged his arm out of my way. "Both are traditional Thule tasks. One team member must show their strength on the water, and the other must demonstrate strength in the belly. Choose your task and good luck."
The Inuit man moved to one side and gestured at the sign he was standing in front of. Two arrows pointed in opposite directions, a crossroads of sorts. One bright green arrow said 'Thule Meal' and the other said 'Thule Craft.'
Brodie peered at the water in the distance. "Thule Craft looks like a kayak of some kind."
I took the disk from him, studying it. "And the other one's clearly a gross food challenge. Which one do you want to do?"
He turned and looked behind us. "I see two more teams on the horizon. Whatever we do, we need to do it sooner rather than later."
"All the others ahead of us must be here," I told him. "So they might still be doing the other challenges. We have a chance to catch up." In the distance, I could see a long wall of snow that had been packed high, preventing anyone from looking around it. A cameraman hovered nearby, obviously filming something.