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Sarah Sues Santa – P.J. Leonard

Chapter Nineteen: Explorers

If she thought she'd been cold before, it was nothing compared to this. It sunk into the deepest parts
of her, making her shiver to the core. She opened her eyes. The trees and postbox had disappeared.
The snow remained, stretching as far as she could see in every direction under a pale blue sky. The
sun hung low in the sky. Was it rising or setting? Sarah couldn't tell. Turning around, she saw what
looked like a shed, shaped like someone had cut a giant barrel in half and laid it down flat in the
snow. That looks warm.
Shivering furiously, she was about to make a dash for the shed when she saw something that made
her stop dead. There, about twenty steps away, was a thin pole, about twice as tall as her, sticking
out straight in the flat snow field. I know that pole...
Forgetting how cold she felt, she walked up to the pole. As she drew closer, she could make out the
pattern: a swirling pattern of red, white and blue, with a silver ball on the top. The North Pole.
Sarah felt a strange tingle run through her. THE North Pole? The most northern point in the world?
This...this was it? No, it couldn't be. She had to be imagining things. She pulled off a glove, reached
out with a shaking hand and touched the pole. It was like she'd dipped her fingers into a bucket of
ice, it was so cold, and she immediately pulled her fingers away before they stuck to the pole. That
had felt real enough. And she couldn't think of anywhere else in the world where the snow and ice
stretched out in every direction with nothing else to see but a pole and a barrel-shaped shed. This
had to be it.
A blast of wind ran through her, and she gasped as the freezing air made her eyes sting. I need to
get inside, get warm...
She ran for the shed, and pulled at the door. To her surprise, it opened straightaway. She stumbled
backwards and slid across the ice as the door swung out, but she kept a hold of the handle. She
pulled herself inside the shed and slammed the door shut. The noise echoed across the round metal
ceiling, and she looked around.
It looked like some kind of explorer or a group of explorers used this place. Clothes hung from
strings on the ceiling. A large metal table stood in the middle covered in rolls of paper and maps,
surrounded by metal fold up chairs. A standing furnace was propped up nearby, a fire crackling
away within. Sarah shuffled closer and held her hands over it, suddenly feeling very cold again. If
this fire is here, then somebody is here.
"Hello?" She called. No answer. Maybe they were out? But then again, she hadn't seen anyone out
there...
She looked around, walking towards the back of the big shed. If the metal table was the place where
the explorers worked, then here was where they relaxed. A thick rug lay in the middle of some old
but cozy sofas, another furnace burning away nearby. In the left corner were what looked like a line
of sleeping bags, and the far right corner was the toilet: a hole in the ice surrounded by slabs of
wood for temporary walls. Being an explorer must be hard, Sarah thought.
She turned and looked out of the window. The sun hadn't moved up or down: it just seemed to roll
along the horizon like a ball. The North Pole cast a long shadow, stretching all the way to the shed.
Sarah felt a shiver run through her. Was she excited? Scared? A bit of both? This is it! I’m going to
meet Santa at last! Despite everything he’d done, despite being furious at Mr. Claus for all of the
bad things he’d done and all of the good people he’d ignored, Sarah couldn’t help but feel excited.
She’d never met a celebrity in real life before. Was he going to be shorter than she imagined?
Maybe he wasn’t as fat as all of the pictures and cartoons made him out to be?
Slowly, ever so slowly, the sun dipped below the horizon, and the sun flushed pink, then a darker
blue. Sarah had read a lot of stories and seen a lot of movies about how to find Santa’s Workshop,

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