Antarctica, Here we come!

Monday morning, A day which... normally people hate but I was super excited today! Why? It was my debut club cricket match! Things could not get any better. The team entered the stadium, We batted first and got 345 runs on the board. We won the match in great style and yours truly was named player of the match for scoring 134! After returning home I found a letter lying on the floor. It read: If you are Arinjoy Chakravorty, meet us at 17 Rose street. ‘A perfectly disguised prank?’ I thought. I just ignored it because I did not others to laugh at my expense.

The next day, another letter arrived. This time it read: You may take it as a perfectly disguised prank but let me tell you. IT IS NOT! You better come and meet us today. WHAT! How come did they know this? I wanted to meet them and ask them this. I marched out of my house and boarded a bus. In my mind, I imagined that a gang of kidnappers were lying in wait for me. I jumped with fright! I was about to pull my hair but I stopped for this was a public transport.

I stood in front of a small, run down building. I hesitantly walked towards it. The picture of masked kidnappers lying in wait made me nervous. I entered the building and with some courage I spoke out, “Anybody here?”. The door behind me shut violently. My hair stood up. My legs felt week. Something bad was about to happen. I was expecting a ghost or those lying kidnappers. I closed my eyes, gearing up for the worst but then the lights turned on. A group of 5 teens stood in front of me. I looked around. “Good Morning! I hope you are Arinjoy.” one of them spoke. “u-u-um... yes... I am A-Arinjoy” I stammered. “Oh well, I am Max. Please have a seat.” he replied I sat down as Max started speaking. “We are the W.A.T aka Water Adventure Team. We try to do things which most grown-up men fear to do. We were thinking about visiting Antarctica by boat. My friend Jack told me about you that you were part of the Victorian House restoration project*, we also watched your heroics with the bat in the school club match.”

I felt faint. Antarctica by BOAT! Impossible. I wanted to scream and run but I held myself. They knew me very well and I did not want to miss an opportunity to be part of history. “We have to cover 11,835kms so we have to get going. Jack, inspect the boat carefully. There should not be a crack or dent. Aaron, check the boat engine. Samuel, get the woollens. Tom, get the supplies.” He ordered. “what should I do” I asked. “You, wait here. We have to plan and plan” he told. Max did all the planning and my job was restricted to only nod at him. We had to depart at 23.08.2021 which also meant that my will had be booked by then! “My will? What would my gravestone read then? Here lies Arinjoy Chakravorty...?” I asked. “Well yes, you will have good things written on it as long as you have done something good in life. Imagine being famous all round the world, ‘S.A.T team members dies in attempt to make history!’” Max replied, his eyes shining. I shuddered.

The day finally came! I was early though. Standing next to the building. After a while, the others came in. We slipped into our swim gears and boarded the boat. It was a hard task to drive the boat as some construction company threw boulders over our secret dock. Max was the driver and he kept on stopping before rocks. Goodness he didn’t crash on one! He was frustrated and started stamping the dock. I went towards him and calmed him down but he wasn’t calm at all. He told me to drive the boat. The sky fell on me! I never drove a car forget a boat. I hesitantly grabbed the steering wheel and pushed the accelerator. My god, that was one breezy ride! I never knew I could manoeuvre the boat so well through the boulders and gravel! As they say ‘fertile minds create fertile stuff’.

We were near Papua New Guinea and it was day 9 of our trip. I was, by then, completely seasick and had air bags beside me when I was driving. I shouldn’t have calmed Max down. They all were happily enjoying the horizon whilst I was controlling my seasickness as well as the boat! That night, I was just leaving the driver’s room when I saw a light in the distance. It looked as an SOS signal. I hurried back to the driver’s room and turned right and made sure that I didn’t lose sight of the light. Very soon I could notice icebergs floating on the sea. The scene of the Titanic sinking flashed in my eyes. The chapter’s vivid pictures flashed. I didn’t book my will, so I had Aaron to climb over the room and flash the light, which would help me see better.

We were near the light and I saw a gang of men standing there. The looked like criminals! In a flash, I turned around but it was too late. They had hooked their floating tubes to our boat and started shooting in the air. I was in a nervous state of mind. I pushed the accelerator hard and zoomed through the water. My team members were well awake and knew what was happening. To be honest, it takes 13 days to reach Australia and I drove the boat so fast that it was just dawn of day 10 and we had already arrived the 133°E (Australia)! I didn’t stop. I was looking back and forth just to see that the crooks were not boarding the boat. They soon managed to climb up and hijacked our boat. My team members did well to keep those crooks far away from the driver’s room. I had an idea! I just signalled Tom to come. I told him to push those crooks back into their floating tubes, this way I can jerk them into Antarctica. It was a stupid idea and even Tom didn’t like it but I forced him to follow it.

The crooks were well pushed back into their tubes and we kept shaking the ropes which held those tubes. I could now see Antarctica in the horizon. We were very close to it now. I thought of slowing the speed but then I recalled that if you turn the boat hard while you are at 120km/h, it creates a flinging motion and can also harm people. So I called the rest of the S.A.T members and told them to grip the railings tightly. I noticed the speedometer was well above 150km/h (I drove the boat as if it was the Formula 1!). I cautiously marked a spot where there was no icebergs else it would crash. I turned the steering wheel hard and Lo! Physics worked! The ropes broke and the tubes went flying! The men were in the air for a long long time. I docked the boat by the sea shore and WOW! It was breath-taking as well as freezing. We took pictures of us standing with the S.A.T flag. It was memorable.

After a good 5 months, we reached home. I was totally homesick. We made history and the media surrounded us, clicking pictures and asking questions. I personally was very shy and could only manage a shaky smile but Samuel and Jack spoke to the media as if they were their aunts and uncles! Our pictures were everywhere, people flocked near our houses. I wondered what those crooks were doing. Max called me the next day that our next mission was to travel to the Arctic circle and then the North Pole. I felt faint again. Good-bye folks, I hope you find me in Arctic or below your feet...