An Arctic ice cave.

by Tyler Fish

I looked over to see the beast on top of John and then it looked at me. But something wasn't quiet right, I could tell. It's teeth were huge, and it's eyes were bulging but it's mouth couldn't really move which actually is pretty lucky. Thank goodness.

Before either John or I could say anything, it exclaimed in perfect English, "Thank you finding me. I was suppose to be brought to the island of misfit toys but I fell out of the sleigh. I've been living in this blue ice cave ever since.

And it seems to take me more than a few seconds for me to realize that I was talking to a small, excited hand puppet. It said, "I was a misfit because my huge teeth and my mouth won't close. So I'm neither scary nor funny, so no one would want me. That's why I'm a misfit.

Both John and I were near speechless.

Unless you know someone that I could leave this cave." I thought about it for a little bit and then I told the excited puppet, which had scared both John and me, "Well it just so happens that I know of a six month old boy who would likely love you. I can bring you to Norway to meet him. But you'll have to go to the North Pole first and ride in the pulk.

Well, the puppet was pretty excited and decided that that was a fine thing to do. And we learned that it's name is simply "Monster". So, we now have a small puppet, no longer a misfit toy on our expedition.

We should mention that we did see some fox tracks today. So that was exciting, we saw some tracks way out here. I am not sure where that fox is going. Take care.

Daily Expedition Data
Date: April 2, 2009
Location: N85° 49.895' W074 42.583'
Time Traveled: 10 hours
Distance Traveled: 9.4 nautical miles
AM Temperature: -30°F
PM Temperature: -24°F
clear and sunny, SW breeze 3-4 knots