Balto and the Race Against Time Read online

  The girl opened her eyes. Her breathing was calmer now. She reached out and hugged me tight. I nuzzled her hand, trying to hide the soggy bit of quilt I’d chewed on in my sleep.

  Trevor pulled at my tail. “You’ll have to skip the long goodbyes, Baxter. A man chased us down the street. He thinks we’re strays.”

  “Me? A stray!” Maia spluttered. One of the humans had tied new ribbons in her fur. “I’m wearing a designer collar.”

  I slid down from the bed. I’d heard stories about dogcatchers from Titch. They never ended well.

  We crept downstairs, our claws clicking on the wooden steps. A big man with a beard was at the door, talking to the lady with the broom. His voice was loud and angry, and I recognized the word dogs.

  The man pushed his way into the house.

  He was carrying a cage.

  19

  NO TIME FOR FEELINGS

  Trevor charged at the dogcatcher, snapping at his ankles.

  The man was reaching for Trevor’s collar when, with a flash of pink polka dots and a ferocious growl, something leaped on him from behind. The cage clattered to the floor as the dogcatcher clutched at the seat of his pants. “Aggh! That dog bit me!” he screamed. Titch lunged again. This time the man stumbled, tripping over the broom and falling flat on his face.

  “Run for it!” yelled Titch. One by one, Trevor, Newton, Maia, and I leaped over the dogcatcher. We shot out the door and raced down the street back to the barn. The sled dogs were still curled in the hay. “We have to go now!” I panted.

  Jet rolled over and stretched. “What’s the big hurry?”

  Jack yawned. “At least stay for brunch.”

  “The dogcatcher’s out to get us,” said Newton.

  The sled dogs all sat up with a start.

  Titch flopped down in the hay. “I reckon I’ll stay and hang out with the wolves a while. I don’t have pet humans to get back to like you guys. I’m a free spirit.”

  Maia snorted. “You won’t be a free anything for long if you stay here. Every dogcatcher in Alaska will be looking for you, now that you’ve bitten one of them.”

  “I didn’t bite him! I just gave him a shove. It’s not my fault that the man whimpered like a kitten.”

  “And you won’t exactly be hard to find,” Newton pointed out. “There can’t be many three-legged dogs in polka-dot vests in Nome.”

  Titch sighed and got up. “Yeah, I guess…”

  Balto touched my forehead with his. “Safe journey, Baxter. Thank you for your help.”

  “And thank you for keeping my secret,” Fox whispered. “For a puppy, you are wise as well as brave. You have an old head on young shoulders.”

  I wanted to say something, too. How I felt proud to have helped with the serum mission. Sad to be leaving our new friends. Happy to be going home. But there was no time for feelings. Instead, I just wagged my tail. Then I bolted out of the barn after Trevor and the pack.

  Only when we were sure the dogcatcher wasn’t following did we slow to a trot.

  The blizzard was over. The sun blazed down from a clear sky and warmed my fur. Without the swirling snow and the howling wind, we had no trouble following the trail this time. Before nightfall we arrived at the van.

  Or rather, where the van should have been.

  20

  ON THE ROAD AGAIN

  The van had disappeared.

  My heart sank like a stone. It must have fallen through the ice into the river below. How would we get home without it?

  “Over here!” Trevor called. He was sniffing at a big, snowy rock. An old raven perched on top, its black feathers fluffed out against the cold. We all rushed to join him. Metal. Rubber. Gasoline. Roads. Those were not rock smells. And when I looked closer, there was a shimmer around the rock, like the air above a campfire.

  Newton sat back, his head tilted to one side. “Aha! I get it now. The van is using camouflage. You know, the way a lizard changes color to blend in with the background.”

  I wasn’t so sure. When lizards change color, they’re still lizards. They’re not trees or rocks. But inventions play by different rules, I guess.

  There was a soft pop and the rock was a van again.

  The raven flapped away with an angry caw.

  I was about to climb into the van with the others when I spotted my tennis ball in the snow. I turned back to fetch it. “Hurry up,” Trevor called. “Never leave…”

  “… a dog behind!” the rest of us joined in, laughing.

  Inside the van, tools and clothes lay in heaps. The lights on the shiny box were making the pattern:

  1925

  The air smelled of thunderstorms. Other than a few more Titch-shaped dents in the refrigerator door, nothing had changed.

  Newton hopped up into the driver’s seat and frowned at the shiny box. Maia, meanwhile, had picked up a wrench in her mouth and was sliding it into the join between the door and the refrigerator. “I’ve seen Ayesha open things this way when they get stuck,” she mumbled. “I’m not sure how it works, though.”

  That’s when I had my first-ever brainstorm. Perhaps I was getting smarter, as well as braver, now that I was a puppy again. “It’s like the runner on the sled!” I barked. I tried to remember the words Newton had used. Apply an opposing load. I pushed on the end of the wrench with my paw. The refrigerator door popped open.

  “Way to go!” Titch cheered. She put her head into the refrigerator and came out with a yogurt cup in her mouth.

  “Hey, Baxter,” Newton called. “Now that you’re so smart, maybe you can help figure out this control panel.”

  I climbed up next to him and waited for another brainstorm. I tilted my head to the side to see if that would help. It didn’t. All I knew was that shiny box gave me the creeps. I shivered and shook melting snow from my fur.

  The shiny box beeped. The lights began to flash. With a lurch and a whistle, the van began to rise off the ground.

  “Hold on to your tails!” barked Titch. “We’re on the road again!”

  “How do we know where we’re going?” I asked.

  Newton shook his head. “We don’t.”

  I thought of Lucy. I knew Trevor was thinking about Old Jim. Maia was thinking about Ayesha. Newton was thinking about the mom and the new baby. We were all thinking about our humans.

  All but Titch.

  She was just thinking about how to get her teeth into that yogurt cup.

  I closed my eyes and wished for home.

  21

  GOOD TO BE HOME

  Rattle, scrape, thud.

  The van bumped onto the ground. We all rushed to the window and peeped out. Through a fluttering swirl of snowflakes, we saw the barn, the trees, the yard, and the farmhouse, all dusted in white.

  We were back at Happy Paws Farm.

  Maia opened the door. I grabbed my tennis ball and hopped out. It was much warmer than Alaska. Familiar smells—wood, oil, straw, horses, rabbits, mud, concrete, ducks—rushed into my nose. It was noisier than Alaska, too. Birds twittered. A rooster crowed. A truck rumbled in the distance. And there was Grandma’s voice, shouting from the barn, just as when we left. “Baxter! Stay away from the van! It’s not safe.”

  “Quick march, pack!” said Trevor. “Back to the house before she sees us.”

  Titch shook her head. “I’m out of here. I smell trouble. So long, old-timers.”

  Old-timers? Titch was right. We were no longer puppies. My legs creaked, just the way they used to, as we dashed across the yard and up the steps to the porch. We flopped down in a heap and pretended to be sleeping. But I was so tired; as soon as I closed my eyes, I fell asleep for real. I dreamed I was running with the sled team, flying over the snow, strong and wild and free.

  I woke with a start to the sound of human footsteps clattering on the porch. It was Lucy and Grandma! “Aw, Baxter’s legs are twitching in his sleep!” said Lucy.

  “Newton’s too,” said Grandma. “I wonder what they were dreaming about.”


  Lucy sat down to take off her boots. I helped by pulling them from her feet. She laughed and hugged me. I breathed in her scent. Apples. Marshmallows. Pencils. My tail wagged, and my heart jumped with happiness. I’d missed her so much. I licked her ears and she giggled.

  Grandma was speaking again. “I can’t figure it out. I’m sure I heard the dogs over by the van just now.”

  Lucy patted Newton, Trevor, and Maia, too. “You must have been seeing things, Grandma. Look at them. They’ve been snoozing here on the porch all afternoon.”

  Grandma frowned as she took off her hat and scarf. I could tell that they were talking about us. “Hmm, I guess. Maybe it was just that stray, Titch. I saw her hightailing it off down the lane.”

  “I think we got away with it,” whispered Maia. “She doesn’t sound mad at us.”

  Lucy looked up at Grandma. “Do you think we’ll ever get the time machine working?”

  “Oh yes, honey. The control panel is almost ready. I just have to figure out how to activate it.” Grandma was looking back toward the van as she spoke. I wished I was better at understanding human words. “Strange,” she said. “There are four sets of doggy paw prints across the yard. They go to the van and back.” She walked back down the steps. Then she knelt down and rubbed her fingers over our prints in the snow. “Must be fresh prints,” she murmured. “It’s only been snowing a few minutes.” Grandma shook her head and then gave me a long, puzzled look. “Baxter, what have you guys been up to?”

  I knew she was trying her best to communicate, so I pricked up one ear to show I was listening. Then my other ear pricked up, too. Behind us, through the open door, I heard Lucy taking down the dog food from the shelf.

  Newton, Maia, and Trevor ran inside.

  I fetched the Frisbee, followed them into the kitchen, and dropped it at Lucy’s feet.

  It was good to be home.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Trevor, Baxter, Maia, Newton, and Titch are fictional characters. But the dogs they meet on their travels through time really existed. Their adventures together are my invention, but they are inspired by actual events, events in which the real dogs played a crucial part.

  In January 1925, there was an outbreak of the deadly disease diphtheria in the remote western Alaskan town of Nome. Children were especially at risk. It was vital to deliver the antitoxin serum that could save their lives without delay. But in 1925, airplanes could not fly there in freezing conditions, and roads were not accessible in winter.

  Supplies of the serum were taken by train to Nenana, almost seven hundred miles to the east. A dogsled relay was organized to get the serum to Nome as quickly as possible. Many of the most experienced mushers in Alaska volunteered to take part. They all had to get into place, waiting at the small towns along the route, ready to pick up the valuable cargo.

  Gunnar Kaasen and Balto’s team completed the last leg of the relay and arrived in Nome on February 2, 1925. The serum was still effective despite the freezing conditions, and it saved many lives.

  Kaasen’s original lead dog really was called Fox (although he was a male dog, not a female). Billy, Slim, and Tillie were also real members of the team. The names of the other dogs were not recorded, so I borrowed Mischa and Nutty from other teams that took part. I named the wheel dogs Jack and Jet in honor of two malamutes who ran the first leg of the race with musher Bill Shannon. Sadly, they died from lung injuries after the race.

  The dangers that the team face in my story are based on real events on the serum run. Balto and his team ran through a terrible blizzard, mostly at night. Amazingly, Balto was still able to pick up the trail. They really did accidentally run too far and miss their first handover—at a town called Solomon. They continued on toward the next handover point at Port Safety. But the musher waiting there was asleep. He had received a message that Kaasen wouldn’t arrive until the next day because of the storm. Kaasen decided to keep going to save the time it would take to wake the new team. To keep the story from getting too long, I had to leave out many important details (and the time dogs would not have understood the human messages, of course). For this reason, I combined elements of the events at Solomon and Port Safety into one incident.

  There really was a terrifying episode in which the wind flipped the sled right over and the serum fell off the sled. Luckily, Kaasen was able to find it in the snow. Extreme cold, jumble ice, and ice crystals in the dogs’ paws were all real hazards. As far as I know, Balto’s team was not attacked by a moose, but moose attacks are a real danger when sledding in Alaska.

  Because Balto was the lead dog of the team that carried the serum over the “finishing line” into Nome, he became famous. But, as Balto points out in this story, he and his team were only one part of the effort. They did not even run the longest leg of the race. That was Togo and his team, with a musher called Leonhard Seppala. They ran across the dangerous sea ice of Norton Sound. The incident in which the dogs fall through the ice and have to be pulled out of the water is based on an event that actually happened to Togo’s team rather than to Balto’s. I borrowed it for the purposes of the story.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Helen Moss is the author of many best-loved books for children. She lives near Cambridge, England, with her family—including a menagerie of dogs, hens, gerbils, and lizards. When not writing, she can be found taking the dogs for long walks, climbing trees, playing badminton, and climbing up or skiing down mountains. Visit helenmoss.org.uk, or sign up for email updates here.

  Misa Saburi was born in Sleepy Hollow, New York, and raised in Tokyo, Japan. She currently lives in Brooklyn where she illustrates children’s books, including Monster Trucks, written by Joy Keller, and Bearnard’s Book, written by Deborah Underwood. Visit misasaburi.com, or sign up for email updates here.

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  1. Suspicious Goings-On

  2. Remember the Pack Motto

  3. No Ordinary Van

  4. Calls on the Wind

  5. Watch Out!

  6. No Turning Back

  7. You Can do it!

  8. A Long Way from Home

  9. Bad News

  10. Worse Than a Bear

  11. Don’t Panic!

  12. Tougher and Rougher

  13. So Alone

  14. A Spot of Trouble

  15. A Delicate Operation

  16. Pull Together

  17. Mission Accomplished

  18. Long Goodbyes

  19. No Time for Feelings

  20. On the Road Again

  21. Good to be Home

  Author’s Note

  About the Authors

  Copyright

  Text copyright © 2019 by Helen Moss

  Illustrations copyright © 2019 by Misa Saburi

  Henry Holt and Company, Publishers since 1866

  Henry Holt® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC

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  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018955697

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  First hardcover edition, 2019

  eBook edition, June 2019

  eISBN 9781250186348

  oss, Balto and the Race Against Time