The Forbidden Expedition

by Alex Bell

  “We’ve arrived at Witch Mountain,” Shay said from the railing. “If there was ever a time for the chant of doom, I guess it’s now.”

  Stella jerked upright in her hammock so fast that she almost fell out of it. She scrambled off and hurried over to join Shay at the railing. The others were close behind her, and for a moment the four of them stood and stared in a kind of horrified silence. Hundreds of evil faces stared back at them. They had arrived just before dawn, and the mountain was covered in jack-o’-lanterns that were lit up orange against the dark sky, the candlelight flickering and shifting ominously. Some were grinning, some were snarling, and others had their carved mouths open wide in a gaping, ghoulish scream. It didn’t exactly present itself as an ideal spot for an expedition.

  The sky turned pink as the sun began to rise, and the glow of candlelight disappeared as daylight broke. Brooding and foreboding, Witch Mountain was enormous. Covered in snow and frosted pumpkins, the jagged peaks looked like teeth piercing the sky. Sinister dark clouds swirled at the top, and jagged forks of lightning flashed through them at regular intervals. It was not a welcoming sight at all. Everything about the mountain shouted at them to go away and leave it alone—including the giant sign hanging from a floating black hot-air balloon tethered at the top that actually read: BE GONE! WITCHES ONLY!

  Now that it was daylight they could also see that Witch Mountain was, in fact, an island, surrounded on all sides by a dark, cold sea. A single galleon was anchored just offshore, bobbing on the choppy surface.

  “Oh dear. I hope that isn’t a pirate ship,” Beanie said, peering down at it. “If it is, they’ll probably start firing cannons at us any minute now and we’ll be shot down for sure.”

  Stella took her telescope from her bag and trained it on the ship below. “It’s not pirates,” she said, causing everyone to breathe a sigh of relief. “They’re flying the hunters’ flag. That’s a hunter’s ship.”

  “Well, good. We know we’re definitely in the right place, then,” Shay said.

  “I suppose now all we have to do is crash-land the dirigible.” Stella glanced at Ethan and said, “Where’s Gideon?”

  “In my pocket still,” the magician replied.

  “You should take him out,” Stella said. “Make sure he’s okay.”

  “He’s fine,” Ethan replied. “I can feel him squirming around.”

  Nonetheless, he unzipped his pocket and held the wriggling frog up for inspection. “See?” he said.

  The frog rapidly blinked its enormous eyes at them. Stella didn’t think she’d ever seen a more miserable-looking creature in her whole life.

  “Okay, you’ve made your point,” Shay said. “Now turn him back.”

  “But I prefer him this way,” Ethan said.

  “Turn him back, Prawn,” Shay repeated through clenched teeth.

  Ethan sighed but flicked his spare hand toward the frog. A burst of magic shot from his fingertip, but Gideon remained, very definitely, a frog. Everyone stared at him expectantly, hoping for some kind of delayed reaction.

  “Ribbit!” Gideon croaked.

  “Oh.” Ethan frowned. “That’s strange. That should have worked.”

  “Don’t tell us you’ve forgotten the spell!” Stella exclaimed.

  Ethan scratched his head. “Perhaps I wasn’t concentrating enough.”

  He tried several more times, but nothing whatsoever happened. The others all started to berate him.

  “Oh, settle down!” Ethan snapped. “You know, I’ve probably done him a favor anyway.”

  “Stop squeezing him so hard,” Stella said. The way the frog’s eyes were bulging was starting to make her rather anxious. “You’re going to hurt him.”

  Ethan gave her a withering look. “Of course I’m not going to hurt him,” he said. “Haven’t you ever heard of a wonky squish-squish frog before? They’re super squishy. Why do you think I chose this particular type? You can stretch and smoosh them as much as you like and they’ll be absolutely fine.” To Stella’s horror, he proceeded to squish Gideon into a little frog-shaped lump. “In fact, they’re like rubber,” Ethan went on. “You can even bounce him like a ball. Look.”

  Before anyone could stop him, Ethan bounced the hapless frog on the wooden boards of the deck. Unfortunately, he somewhat underestimated just how bouncy a wonky squish-squish frog could be. The little round frog ball flew straight up in the air and went zooming toward the railing at startling speed. Stella had the terrible image of the little frog sailing right out of their sight and into the clouds, never to be seen or heard from again, but fortunately, Shay shot out his hand and the frog flew straight into his palm with a smack.

  “That’s quite enough,” the wolf whisperer said. He pointed at Ethan with his free hand. “Stop showing off. There’ll be no more bouncing the president of the Jungle Cat Explorers’ Club’s son up and down on the deck. It’s impolite. And undignified. Plus, we all know that the only reason you chose this particular type of frog is most likely because it’s the only one you know how to do, not because of some clever strategy.”

  Stella took the frog from Shay and began carefully unsquishing him back into a frog shape as best she could.

  “He ought to be thanking me,” Ethan insisted stubbornly. “My spell has probably saved his life. When we crash-land this dirigible and all go up in flames, he’s likely to be the only one crawling from the wreckage and hopping away to freedom. Wonky squish-squish frogs are pretty much indestructible.”

  “And you’re talking absolute nonsense,” Shay replied.

  Ethan pointed a righteous finger at Gideon. “You could set that frog on fire,” he said. “And it would be absolutely fine.”

  Shay clutched his head with both hands. “Do not set the frog on fire!” he said. “We will have a very terrible argument if you do.” He dropped his hands. “And stop saying things like that out loud. You’re giving the jungle fairies ideas.”

  Stella looked down and saw that Mustafah had produced a match from somewhere and was holding it up to her. Perhaps he was still miffed about getting knocked from his ladder the day before. He looked up at her hopefully.

  “No, Mustafah,” Stella said, tightening her grip on the squirming frog. “No one is setting anyone else on fire. Even if they are mean and horrible.”

  Shay took Gideon from her hand and zipped him up in his own cloak pocket. “I’ll take care of him for now,” he said. “We could continue arguing about this for hours and, meanwhile, Felix could be with the witch already. We need to work out how we’re going to crash this dirigible.”

  “We could puncture the gas balloon,” Ethan suggested. “It’ll sink fast enough then.”

  “I’ve got a better idea,” Beanie said. “One that doesn’t involve crashing.”

  A short while later, the four junior explorers had dug out every single picnic blanket they could find on board the dirigible and had finally succeeded in tying them all together in one long coil.

  “Do you think it’ll be long enough?” Stella asked, gazing down at the blankets winding their way all over the deck. “And hold our weight?”

  “There’s one way to find out,” Shay said, and with that he gathered up the blankets in a big pile and threw them over the side of the dirigible. The explorers peered over. As far as they could tell, the blanket rope went almost all the way down.

  “Close enough,” Shay said. “It’s worth a try, at least. If we crash-land, then we’ll have no way of making our escape once we have Felix.”

  The jungle fairies had collected all the napkins and tied these together in imitation of the junior explorers. Stella had tried explaining to them that they really didn’t need to bother since, having wings, they could flutter down easily enough under their own steam, but they seemed eager to join in, so the explorers decided to leave them to it. When the fairies threw their own rope over the side, it barely reached a fraction of the length, but they were very excited to climb down it anyway.

  Stella stuffed Bu
ster into the inside pocket of her cloak. She didn’t trust him not to squirm his way out of it, so she zipped him in up to the neck, leaving only his indignant face peering over the top.

  “It’s for your own good,” she said, tapping him on the snout. “T. rexes don’t bounce either.”

  The four junior explorers hoisted their bags onto their backs, and then Ethan insisted on taking charge of Aubrey, Beanie’s wooden narwhal. His father had carved it for him before he went missing on his final expedition across the Black Ice Bridge, and Beanie was extremely attached to it. Unfortunately, the last time they had climbed something high, he’d nearly dropped Aubrey and had dragged Ethan right off the ladder in his attempts to save him.

  Beanie handed the narwhal over reluctantly, and then the four of them began the treacherous descent. Climbing down a rope was not as easy as it looked, and the muscles in Stella’s arms burned with the effort. It seemed to go on and on forever, not helped by the fact that the rope blew about in the wind, and every time it moved, they feared one of the knots would give out and the whole thing would unravel.

  Soon enough, the jungle fairies ran out of napkins and fluttered free of the rope. They decided to perch on Stella’s shoulders, casually swinging their heels and reaching up to give her an encouraging pat on the head from time to time.

  A moment later there was the sound of a long, low, plaintive moo from above. When Stella looked up she saw that Margaret had wandered to the railing and was staring at them over the side with a heartbroken expression in her big brown eyes.

  “We forgot about Margaret!” Stella called down to the boys.

  “Who’s Margaret?” Ethan replied.

  “The cow.”

  “Oh, who cares about a cow?” the magician replied. “This is hard enough as it is. We can’t exactly climb down a rope with a cow strapped to our backs, can we? And it’s not as if any of us intend to stay on Witch Mountain for longer than we need to. She’ll be fine.”

  “Uh-oh,” Shay suddenly said. He had finally reached the end of the rope.

  “What?” Stella called.

  “We’ve run out of rope and, um, we’re still a bit high,” he called back.

  The others looked down. Stella’s breath caught in her throat, Ethan made a strangled sort of noise, and Beanie groaned. “A bit high” was an understatement. The end of the rope dangled some fifty feet from the snowy ground below, far too high for any of them to let go without injuring themselves, except for Gideon, who would no doubt bounce harmlessly in his wonky squish-squish frog form.

  “Whose stupid idea was this anyway?” Ethan demanded.

  “It was worth a try,” Beanie said glumly.

  “Now what?” Shay said.

  “We’re going to have to climb back up,” Beanie replied.

  Stella felt a cold feeling of dread. It had taken all her strength to climb down, and she was already exhausted. Climbing back up would be even more difficult, and she worried she might not have the strength to physically do it. Besides which, the blankets were starting to strain under their weight. More than once she had felt something slip. The knots had held out up until now, but it would take only one to unravel and they would all drop to the ground like stones.

  Going back to the dirigible seemed to be the only option available. Stella remembered the explorer’s pledge she’d taken when she’d first been initiated back at the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club: I shall keep a stiff upper lip, keep calm, and carry on regardless … even when experiencing those narrow escapes and close shaves that are the unavoidable experience of intrepid gentlemen explorers across the globe.

  She gritted her teeth against the icy air. Explorers didn’t dangle helplessly from ropes and admit defeat—they continued on and did what needed to be done. So, slowly but surely, hand over hand, Stella began the long, hard climb back up to the dirigible. Her arms felt like they were on fire, and it took all her willpower not to groan aloud. When she looked up, hoping she was almost there, she saw that she wasn’t even halfway, especially when another blanket’s knot loosened beneath her grip and lengthened the rope. Margaret’s face gazed patiently back at her from a significant distance away.

  A particularly savage gust of air blew the rope around wildly, and Stella heard Ethan’s sharp intake of breath below her as they all held on for dear life.

  “It’s no good,” the magician called. “We’re never going to make it. The rope is unraveling. I say our best bet is if I turn us all into wonky squish-squish frogs and we take our chances.”

  This suggestion was met with a chorus of loud protests.

  “Well, it’s better than dying, isn’t it?” Ethan demanded.

  “Is it?” Beanie asked. “Our lives as people would be over because there’d be no one to turn us back into humans again.”

  “Perhaps we could find a witch to do it,” Ethan said. “We are at Witch Mountain, after all.”

  “If five frogs go hopping into a witch’s cave, I don’t think her first thought will be about how she can help them,” Shay said. “More likely she’d chuck the lot of us straight into a bubbling cauldron.”

  “Wonky squish-squish frogs can actually be set on fire without getting hurt, you know,” Beanie said. “Ethan was right about that. So they can probably survive boiling water too. If she threw us into a cauldron we’d be able to hop right back out again quite unharmed.”

  “But still frogs,” Shay pointed out.

  Another gust of wind blew the rope, and Stella tightened her grip desperately. Her hands were going so numb in the cold that she could barely feel her fingers. Between her frozen hands and all this talk of turning themselves into frogs, she was starting to feel a little panicked. But then, quite suddenly, out of nowhere, something incredible appeared before her—something so marvelous that for a moment she thought she must be imagining it.

  It was a magic carpet, floating serenely, so close that she could have reached out and touched it with her fingers had she taken her hand off the rope. It was woven in a hundred different shades of purple, from lilac to indigo to plum, along with jewel-bright teal and turquoise. Intricate drawings of camels and genie lamps were stitched across its surface, and there was a shiny gold trim at the edges, along with tassels in each of the four corners. It jiggled these at her now in a way that was somehow unmistakably friendly.

  Below her the boys were still squabbling about the pros and cons of the wonky squish-squish frog plan, so Stella called down to get their attention.

  “Hey!” she shouted. “Look what’s just appeared. Right when we needed it!”

  The other explorers stopped their argument and looked up. Shay and Beanie were immediately delighted, but Ethan narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Nothing just turns up right when you need it,” he said. “Expeditions don’t work like that. This could be a trap.”

  “Well, we haven’t got much choice,” Stella said, making up her mind. “We can’t stay dangling from the end of this rope forever.”

  She was just about to release one hand and reach out for the carpet when the jungle fairies all fluttered from her shoulders and settled themselves on the edge of it. Unfortunately, one of the fairies had unzipped Buster’s pocket, and the little dinosaur lunged after them. T. rex legs aren’t really made for jumping, though, and he certainly would have plunged to his death if Mustafah hadn’t fluttered forward to grab him.

  He set the dinosaur down on the rug and then, before anyone could stop them, Harriet and Humphrey each grabbed a corner of the magic carpet, turned it upward, and shot away back to the dirigible.

  “Hey!” Ethan shouted after them. “Come back here! Blasted things—what are they doing now?”

  The explorers watched, dismayed, as the flying carpet sailed right over the side of the dirigible and disappeared from sight, along with Margaret.

  “I’m going to wring their scrawny necks!” Ethan exclaimed.

  “Stella, why don’t you try calling them?” Shay suggested. “They seem to listen to you.”

>   Stella was just about to do so when the magic carpet burst straight through the side of the dirigible with such force that splinters of wood came raining down on the four explorers. The carpet went sailing past them carrying Buster, the four jungle fairies, and rather precariously, Margaret. The cow only just managed to fit on the carpet and didn’t seem too happy about the arrangement. Her panic-stricken moos carried back to them all the way down to the ground.

  “I don’t believe it!” Ethan exclaimed. “This is turning out to be the most ill-fated expedition in the history of exploration. A wonderful, miraculous magic carpet appears, only to rescue a cow and a bunch of fairies!”

  “Five seconds ago you were saying that the carpet was probably a trap,” Stella replied.

  It was hard not to feel frustrated as the magic carpet flew down and out of their sight on the other side of the dirigible, though. Less than a minute later, however, it was back, minus the cow, fairies, and dinosaur.

  “They’ve probably been gobbled up by whatever awful monster is lurking below,” Ethan said. “Is there blood on the carpet? Blood is a sure sign of treachery.”

  Stella ignored him and grabbed the magic carpet with both hands, dragging herself onto it in one smooth motion. Her gray skirt puffed out around her as she sat down, and she felt the magic carpet shift a little under her weight, but it seemed able to carry her perfectly easily. It moved down so they could pick up the others—Stella noticed that Ethan climbed onto it quickly enough, despite his complaints and suspicions. Shay was next, and finally, Beanie. He stepped on not a moment too soon. Seconds later one of the knots in the rope finally gave out and the entire thing fluttered to the ground in one long coil.

  Once they were all aboard, the magic carpet swooped down so fast that Stella’s long white hair was lifted right off her neck, and they all had to grab on to one of the edges for support. Soon enough the magic carpet deposited them on solid ground, right beside the rest of their party. Margaret, the jungle fairies, and Buster all stood in a row, waiting for them patiently.

  “Oh good,” Stella said. “We’re all still here.” She glanced at Ethan and said, “See? I told you it wasn’t a trap.”