nuts!”
“That’s because she twisted her ankle during her race yesterday,” Balto replied in a whisper.
Jenna growled. “Don’t you get it?” she snapped. “Aleu is gone. Gone, Balto. So stop feeling sorry for yourself!”
Balto reacted as if he was hit with a baseball. “I…” He lowered his head. “I’m sorry…I’m not so good at hiding my true emotions, am I?”
Jenna shook her head. “You’re better at outwitting a fox.”
Balto sighed. Then, suddenly, he jumped up. “Oh, I remember now!”
“Remember what?” Jenna asked.
“I remember my dream!” Balto exclaimed. “In my dream, I saw Aleu being led through the mountains by a mouse. It was about the wackiest thing I’ve ever seen! Could you imagine…Aleu…befriending a mouse?” He started laughing.
Jenna only stared.
Balto’s laughing slowly stopped. Embarrassed, he asked, “So, how was your night?”
Jenna smiled, glad to finally move on to a new topic. “Oh, same old same old. I dreamed about some cat chasing my tail…” She looked out to the horizon. “And so I had to chase it down. It ended up that the cat got away and I was chasing my own tail. Weird, huh?”
Balto didn’t respond. A quick look and Jenna realized it was because he had fallen back asleep.
She sighed. Maybe I should go back to chasing my tail again.

Aleu clawed her way onto the shore, gasping for breath. The stream had turned into a river not long after she surrendered herself to it, and the river quickly fed into the ocean soon afterwards. 
Once she finally reached the ocean, Aleu was able to fight the current enough to make it to dry land. Even so, she barely had enough strength to pull herself far enough in to avoid the tide, before losing control of her muscles and collapsing in a wet, furry heap.
Even though she was exhausted, she forced herself to stay conscious; if the rogue wolves found out she wasn’t dead, then they would be looking for her, and it wouldn’t take long for them to find her.
Even so, she felt she deserved a rest.
Her heart was heavy with sadness. The pack she had led for three years—and the members within that she had grown to know and love—had all of a sudden been wiped out. In a matter of minutes, they were all dead.
And I should be among them.
Tears filled her eyes, and she began to cry. I should have been the first one to die, she thought, ridden with guilt. I am—was—their leader. I should have been the one to die first, I should have insisted they kill me. It was my responsibility, and I failed.
She angrily slapped the ground with her paw, repeating I failed in her mind over and over again.
In the midst of her sadness, she found herself asking the inevitable question: Why did I survive? Why was I alone spared?
She had matured quite a bit in the past three years of her life, but even so, she could not help but feel like she had been missed by accident. That had to be it; she was positive that it was an accident she had survived. What else could there possibly be for her to do now?
Thinking about it only caused her to cry all the more.
Aleu was so busy crying, she didn’t even notice the ground beneath her break away from the shore and begin floating into the sea. It wasn’t until she was several hundred feet into the ocean that she realized something wasn’t right.
She brushed aside her tears and looked around. The ground wasn’t ground at all; it was a giant slab of ice, covered over with mud and leaves. And it wasn’t the only iceberg, either; there were dozens of others, floating together and forming a line that led out to the horizon.
Out loud, Aleu gasped, “It’s the ice bridge!”
The bridge formed every year, but usually it came much later; it was forming a full month ahead of time. And it didn’t even reach all the way to land; it stopped exactly where she was now.
She stood to her feet, unsure of how to react to the situation. Her mind ran wild, and she could only come to one logical conclusion: the bridge was now forming just for her, to lead her back to Alaska.
It almost seemed too good to be true. After all, Aleu had not been in Alaska for three years—and she had barely spent a year there before leaving. However much she had wanted to go back in the past, she had never thought it could happen. And now it seemed as if she was meant to go back.
“Aniu, what do you want for me to do?” she whispered.
And then, after another few seconds of thought, she made her decision. She ran across the ice, made a giant leap, and landed on the next piece. And again. And again.
And at long last, Aleu was going home.

 CHAPTER 3

THE SUN SHONE through the window, hurting Balto’s eyes and waking him up. He looked around the room, realizing that neither Aleu nor the mouse he dreamed about was there. He sighed, but didn’t say anything aloud. Remember what Jenna said: keep your thoughts to yourself.
A voice suddenly came from outside the window. “Ah, no! No, no, no, no, no!” After a shuffling sort of sound, the voice yelled, “Balto, help!”
Balto smiled, getting up and looking out the window. Outside, Boris was desperately trying to outrun Muk and Luk, who were desperately trying to catch up to him. Balto couldn’t help but laugh at the scene.
Boris looked at him. “What are you laughing at, hyena?” he yelled in his slight Russian accent. The distraction gave the two polar bears just enough time to catch up to him. As Muk tackled him, Luk tackled Muk.
Balto laughed all the more.
“Enough, bears!” Boris shouted in desperation. “I am dizzy and exhausted. Get off of me!” Finally, the bears obeyed. Boris sighed in relief. “That…is better,” he said, stepping a foot to the right.
…and landing in a hole in the snow.
Balto continued to chuckle, and the bears soon joined him. “Do it again, Uncle Boris!” Muk shouted. “That was funny!”
Boris pulled himself up, trying to get a grip on the dew-covered grass. “That was not funny.”
Balto stopped his laughing long enough to shout, “Hey, Boris, could you do me a favor and not be silly for at least one day in your life?”
Boris looked up, noticing Balto for the first time. “Oh, Balto! Thank goodness you’re here. Could you kindly tell the bears to…” He turned to look at the bears, his voice rising once more. “Stop stealing my stuff!”
Luk gave a chirp. Muk translated, also speaking for himself, “What stuff, Uncle Boris?” His voice was innocent.
Boris stared at them. “Where should I begin? My pinfeathers, my wings, or your attempt at my beak?”
“The beak, please!” Muk shouted, Luk joining him. “That one was the most fun, by far!”
Balto shook his head, ducking back into his boat. Some things, he realized, would never change. This was one of those things.
And then he remembered, it was the sun that had awakened him. Usually, he had a plywood board over the window to block the sun; it especially came in handy during the long summer days. But now, the plywood window wasn’t there. A quick look at the ground caused Balto to stare in horror.
On the ground, beside his boat, was the plywood board—in millions of tiny pieces. And there could only be two culprits.
Balto hopped down, landed on the soft snow, and walked over to Muk and Luk. “Okay, which one of you did this?”
Muk and Luk froze, allowing Boris to waddle away, mumbling to himself. They turned to face Balto with looks of guilt. “Balto,” Muk said, “I have a confession to make.” He quickly pointed  at Luk. “It was him!” When Luk whinnied in protest, he asked, “What do you mean, it was me?”
Balto sighed, uninterested in prolonging this debate. “Do you realize that that window was the only way to keep the sun out of my eyes? If it keeps waking me up, then I can’t stay asleep, now can I?” When he didn’t get an immediate response, he sighed again. “Okay, you win. Go and tackle your uncle Boris and do me a favor.”
The two bears—thrilled at the chance to play with the goose—ran away from Balto and toward the direction Boris had disappeared.
Balto smiled, then groaned as he turned back to face his window. How will I get a good night’s sleep if I don’t have a window cover? There’ll be lights all over, and I’ll never stay asleep with them dancing around my eyes. He sighed. Well, all good things must come to an end, I suppose. Maybe I could…make something up.
He started by looking around inside his boat—both below deck and above deck—but couldn’t find anything that would work. The closest thing was a sheet that covered only the left side of the window. That wouldn’t work for two reasons: one, the sun always appeared in the right side first, and two, the sheet was Balto’s blanket, and he was not about to give it up so easily.
He finally decided to start taking boards off his ship—the ones that weren’t necessary, such as a stair or two—and nail them onto the window’s frame. He pried the boards off their place with his claws, then using another board to hammer in nails. This he did for only a few minutes before he stopped, too exhausted to go on. Why me? he found himself wondering.
After a few more minutes, he started again, before promptly stopping and deciding it would never work, and walked outside. To his surprise, he saw Saba there.
“Good morning, Pa,” she called.
Balto looked up at the sun.