Explorers on Witch Mountain

by Alex Bell

  Stella struggled to find the right words to explain how she felt. The tiara made her feel like a non-person, like a drawing that was being slowly rubbed out.

  After a moment, Felix said, ‘You know, Stella, you don’t have to be an ice princess to feel that way. I’ve felt it myself.’

  ‘You have?’ she asked, doubtfully.

  ‘Many times. Most often back in those days when I was trying to fit in and be rather ordinary. And failing miserably, of course.’ He looked at her. ‘It’s a great pity that we all spend so much time trying to be exactly the same as everyone else when, in fact, we should be celebrating those things that make us different and uniquely ourselves. So I know how you feel. When you lose faith in who you are then it can feel as if bits of yourself are being chipped away, and that’s a terrible thing.’

  ‘What can I do about it?’ Stella almost whispered. She desperately wanted to feel like herself again, but the bad feeling was so big and horrible that it felt like it would crush her, and she was completely powerless to stop it.

  ‘Plenty,’ Felix replied. ‘There’s plenty you can do. First, and most importantly, you mustn’t water yourself down. You must never allow other people to make you feel worthless or small. You must hold on to what you believe in. You—’

  ‘But, Felix, that sounds really hard.’

  To her surprise, he laughed. ‘Naturally. It’s devilish hard. Most worthwhile things in life are. You just have to pick yourself up when you get knocked down. And you must allow yourself to feel sad sometimes, and lost, and perhaps a little defeated as well. And you must accept that, sometimes, you are definitely going to make an absolute mess of things. But, the only way we ever fail is if we stop trying. And, ultimately, all those mistakes and wrong turns are how we find out who we really are, deep down. It’s how we strengthen our souls.’

  ‘But what if my soul is just bad?’ Stella cried. ‘What if I’m just a horrible, unfeeling, worthless—’

  Felix dropped down to Stella’s level, took hold of both her arms and turned her around to face him.

  ‘My dear girl, you are the best and most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me,’ he said, reaching up to wipe away a tear that was trailing down Stella’s cheek. ‘You think you feel this way because of being an ice princess, but that’s not true, you know. Almost every person in the world has felt wretched and worthless at some point in their lives. But shutting yourself off from other people only leads to misery. We must allow others their flaws; accept our own imperfection; be brave enough to share our souls anyway; and always, always be kind.’

  ‘But I wasn’t kind back on Witch Mountain. I could have saved Shay—’

  ‘If it weren’t for you then Shay would probably have been turned into a witch wolf there and then,’ Felix said. ‘You did what you could at the time. And all you can control now is what you do next. How is refusing to talk to Shay going to help matters?’

  ‘I don’t want to see him because I’m afraid he’ll hate me.’

  ‘Oh, my dear one, never make decisions out of a place of fear,’ Felix replied. ‘Nothing good ever comes from that, trust me. Our bonds of love and friendship with other people are not always as simple or as straightforward as we would like them to be, but that doesn’t mean they’re not worth it in the end, warts and all. We must fight for our loved ones with everything that we have and, yes, sometimes that means pushing through the fear of being rejected, or looking foolish, or getting hurt, or having our hearts broken. You can break your own heart, you know, and that’s even worse. It’s something I wish I’d learned a little earlier in my life, Stella.’ He kissed her on the cheek. ‘Don’t lose hope just yet. There may be something that can be done for Shay. When we get home we will find out all there is to know about witch wolves. It’s not over until it’s over.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘Now, why don’t you come and get some sleep?’

  ‘I’d like to stay here just a little longer, if that’s okay?’ Stella replied.

  ‘All right, but don’t stay up too late, and come straight in if the weather turns.’ He paused, then added, ‘I was going to wait until we got home, but you might as well have this now.’ He pulled a thin silver chain out from under his collar. From the end there dangled a tiny telescope. Stella had seen this necklace before, and knew it was a fairy telescope that the fairies had given Felix. He’d worn it ever since she could remember.

  ‘We each have a star in the sky that shines only for us,’ he said. ‘We might lose track of it from time to time, but it’s still there, nevertheless. Sometimes we just have to find a way to get ourselves back on track, to be reminded of who we really are. The fairies gave me this telescope at a time when I’d lost my way a bit. I haven’t needed it for a long time, but it might be useful to you now.’ He put the chain over Stella’s neck. ‘Just search in the sky for your star and you’ll see what I mean.’

  ‘How will I know which star’s mine?’ Stella asked, picking up the telescope to examine it.

  Felix smiled. ‘You just will,’ he said. ‘Goodnight, my dear.’

  After he left, Stella stood examining the telescope, which felt cold and heavy and solid in her hands. Finally she lifted it to her eye, peered through the tiny lens at the night sky, and gasped. She could see hundreds of thousands of stars up there – far more than she’d been able to see with her own eyes – as if the sky were full of glitter. But there was one that blazed a bright, fierce, sparkling white, and Stella knew immediately that this was the star Felix had mentioned – the one that burned only for her.

  The moment she saw it, a whole flood of thoughts and feelings and images raced through Stella’s mind. She was reminded of all the things she most liked about herself: the fact that she had a polar bear who loved her; she was friends with dinosaurs; she knew how to read a map, skate on ice, make balloon unicorns and build a snow bear. She recalled all the things that brought her the greatest pleasure: things like globes, and purple macarons, and ice flowers, and penguins, and unicorns, and beautiful dresses with petticoats underneath them, and exploring unknown lands, and being with her family and friends. Her flaws and imperfections were there too, but they no longer seemed to matter so much, or even at all, really. They were just part of who she was, and it was okay that she wasn’t perfect.

  And as she looked up at her star, she no longer felt like a black and white drawing that was being rubbed out, but instead she felt like a painting created in hundreds of glorious, wonderful colours. Deep inside her soul she felt a star that was the exact twin of the one in the sky, blazing strong and fierce with all the things that made her uniquely herself, including being an ice princess, and strangely it felt okay, and she was glad that she was Stella Starflake Pearl and no one else.

  Finally, she lowered the telescope, only to find that the air around her had filled with dozens of tiny snow stars, sparkling with the same blue magic that fizzed from her fingertips. Stella smiled at the stars, glad to see something beautiful come from the magic inside her.

  Surrounded by the light of the twinkling snow stars, she stood and thought for a long time about all that Felix had said. He’d always told her that when a task seemed too big, or difficult, or impossible to even begin, then you shouldn’t think about the whole thing in its entirety, but should focus instead on doing just one thing, no matter how small, to get started.

  Stella knew what she had to do, and went down below deck to find Shay’s cabin. When he answered her knock on the door she couldn’t help flinching at the sight of the white streak in his hair, and a feeling of shame burned through her. She was afraid that he might shout, or demand an explanation, but instead he simply stepped forwards and wrapped his arms round her in a tight hug.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Stella said. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m going to do whatever I can to put this right. I hope you can forgive me.’

  ‘But, Sparky,’ Shay replied, ‘there is nothing to forgive. Nothing at all.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  TWO WEEKS LAT
ER

  Stella threw the book across the room in frustration. It hit the wall and fell to the floor with a thud, narrowly missing Gruff who was snoozing on the rug with the jungle fairies sleeping off their lunch on top of him.

  ‘It’s hopeless,’ she said to the room in general. Jezzybella was warming herself in a chair by the fire, yellow wellies stretched out towards the heat, and Felix was going through a stack of books on the other side of the room. ‘There’s nothing in here about what to do for someone who’s been bitten by a witch wolf. Everything says there’s no known cure. But there’s got to be something I can do! There just has to be!’

  Over the last two weeks, she and Felix had had much of their time taken up with complaints from both the Polar Bear and Jungle Cat Explorers’ Clubs, attending disciplinary meetings and providing explanations for their behaviour. Quite aside from the theft of the dirigible, the Jungle Cat president had been incensed by the treatment of his son – who Ethan had returned to human form as soon as they had arrived home. Despite the wheedling of the others, the magician had refused point blank to change him back into a boy during the journey, and it wasn’t until they were on the docks at Coldgate that he shot a spell at the frog, and Gideon appeared sprawled on the floor before them.

  His hair was a terrible mess, and there was some indefinable air of ‘froggishness’ that hung about him still in the way that his eyes bulged and his mouth seemed just a little wider than it had before. His fancy dressing gown was terribly crumpled and dirty too. Stella had never seen an expression of such hatred as when Gideon, still sprawled on the wooden pier, glared up at Ethan and said, ‘I’ll get you back. I don’t care when, or where, but, one day, I swear I’ll get you back for what you did to me.’

  Ethan dismissed the threat with a wave of his hand, but Stella felt a little chill of worry deep in her stomach. They didn’t have too much time to worry about Gideon just then, however. The investigation rumbled on, and Stella and Felix had both been warned that they might face expulsion from the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club.

  Cadi, meanwhile, had returned with her father to their home on Yeti Island to await the decision as to whether or not she would be allowed to join any of the explorers’ clubs. She and Stella had stayed in touch by letter, but most of Stella’s remaining time was completely consumed with feverishly researching witch wolves. They’d learned that, like snow queens, witch wolves had frozen hearts, and that their bite put a shard of ice into the bitten person that would gradually spread, until they finally became a witch wolf themselves. At least, that was how it worked with an ordinary person. No one was quite sure how a wolf whisperer would be affected. Shay had been to many kinds of doctors, but they all said the same thing – there was nothing that could be done for him. Beanie had even tried magical healing, but to no effect.

  ‘He seems like such a nice young boy,’ Jezzybella said from her chair. ‘Such a shame the Collector took the Book of Frost. That ice-melting spell would have been just the thing.’

  Stella and Felix both looked up sharply.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Stella asked. ‘Are you saying there’s a spell in the Book of Frost that could help Shay?’

  The old witch nodded. ‘Yes, didn’t I mention it? But it makes no difference because the book is long gone, dear. The Collector has it, you know. Whisked it away with him to the other side of the Black Ice Bridge.’

  Stella and Felix looked at each other. Stella could feel a smile spreading across her face for the first time in two weeks.

  ‘Felix,’ she said. ‘I have a plan. We must organise an expedition to the other side of the Black Ice Bridge. Then we must find the Collector, take back the Book of Frost, and use it to save Shay’s life, and Koa’s.’

  Felix smiled back at her. ‘Indeed, my dear,’ he said, already reaching for his hat. ‘That is exactly what we must do.’

  POLAR BEAR EXPLORERS’ CLUB RULES

  Polar Bear explorers will keep their moustaches trimmed, waxed and generally well-groomed at all times. Any explorer found with a slovenly moustache will be asked to withdraw from the club’s public rooms immediately.

  Explorers with disorderly moustaches or unkempt beards will also be refused entry to the members-only bar, the private dining room and the billiards room without exception.

  All igloos on club property must contain a flask of hot chocolate and an adequate supply of marshmallows at all times.

  Only polar-bear-shaped marshmallows are to be served on club property. Additionally, the following breakfast items will be prepared in polar-bear-shape only: pancakes, waffles, crumpets, sticky pastries, fruit jellies and doughnuts. Please do not request alternative shapes or animals from the kitchen – including penguins, walruses, woolly mammoths or yetis – as this offends the chef.

  Members are kindly reminded that when the chef is offended, insulted or peeved, there will be nothing on offer in the dining room whatsoever except for buttered toast. This toast will be bread-shaped.

  Explorers must not hunt or harm unicorns under any circumstances.

  All Polar Bear Explorers’ Club sleighs must be properly decorated with seven brass bells, and must contain the following items: five fleecy blankets, three hot-water bottles in knitted jumpers, two flasks of emergency hot chocolate and a warmed basket of buttered crumpets (polar-bear-shaped).

  Please do not take penguins into the club’s saltwater baths; they will hog the jacuzzi.

  All penguins are the property of the club and are not to be removed by explorers. The club reserves the right to search any suspiciously shaped bags. Any bag that moves by itself will automatically be deemed suspicious.

  All snowmen built on club property must have appropriately groomed moustaches. Please note that a carrot is not a suitable object to use as a moustache. Nor is an aubergine. If in doubt, the club president is always available for consultation regarding snowmen’s moustaches.

  It is considered bad form to threaten other club members with icicles, snowballs or oddly dressed snowmen.

  Whistling ducks are not permitted on club property. Any member found with a whistling duck in his possession will be asked to leave.

  UPON INITIATION, ALL POLAR BEAR EXPLORERS SHALL RECEIVE AN EXPLORER’S BAG CONTAINING THE FOLLOWING ITEMS:

  One tin of Captain Filibuster’s Expedition-Strength Moustache Wax.

  One bottle of Captain Filibuster’s Scented Beard Oil.

  One folding pocket moustache comb.

  One ivory-handled shaving brush, two pairs of grooming scissors and four individually wrapped cakes of luxurious foaming shaving soap.

  Two compact pocket mirrors.

  OCEAN SQUID EXPLORERS’ CLUB RULES

  Sea monsters, kraken and giant squid trophies are the private property of the club, and cannot be removed to adorn private homes. Explorers will be charged for any decorative tentacles that are found to be missing from their rooms.

  Explorers are not to fraternise – or join forces – with pirates or smugglers during the course of any official expedition.

  Poisonous puffer fish, barbed wire jellyfish, saltwater stingrays and electric eels are not appropriate fillings for pies and/or sandwiches. Any such requests sent to the kitchen will be politely rejected.

  Explorers are kindly asked to refrain from offering to show the club’s chef how to prepare sea snakes, sharks, crustaceans or deep-sea monsters for human consumption. This includes the creatures listed in rule number three. Please respect the expert knowledge of the chef.

  The Ocean Squid Explorers’ Club does not consider the sea cucumber to be a trophy worthy of reward or recognition. This includes the lesser-found biting cucumber, as well as the singing cucumber and the argumentative cucumber.

  Any Ocean Squid explorer who gifts the club with a tentacle from the screeching red devil squid will be rewarded with a year’s supply of Captain Ishmael’s Premium Dark Rum.

  Please do not leave docked submarines in a submerged state – it wreaks havoc with the club’s valet se
rvice.

  Explorers are kindly asked not to leave deceased sea monsters in the hallways or any of the club’s communal rooms. Unattended sea monsters are liable to be removed to the kitchens without notice.

  The South Seas Navigation Company will not accept liability for any damage caused to their submarines. This includes damage caused by giant squid attacks, whale ambushes and jellyfish plots.

  Explorers are not to use the map room to compare the length of squid tentacles or other trophies. Kindly use the marked areas within the trophy rooms to settle any private wagers or bets.

  Please note: any explorer who threatens another explorer with a harpoon cannon will be suspended from the club immediately.

  UPON INITIATION, ALL OCEAN SQUID EXPLORERS SHALL RECEIVE AN EXPLORER’S BAG CONTAINING THE FOLLOWING ITEMS:

  One tin of Captain Ishmael’s Kraken Bait.

  One kraken net.

  One engraved hip flask filled with Captain Ishmael’s Expedition-Strength Salted Rum.

  Two sharpened fishing spears and three bags of hunting barbs.

  Five tins of Captain Ishmael’s Harpoon Cannon Polish.

  DESERT JACKAL EXPLORERS’ CLUB RULES

  Magical flying carpets are to be kept tightly rolled when on club premises. Any damage caused by out-of-control flying carpets will be considered the sole responsibility of the explorer in question.

  Enchanted genie lamps must stay in their owner’s possession at all times.

  Please note: genies are strictly prohibited at the bar and at the bridge tables.

  Tents are for serious expedition use only, and are not to be used to host parties, gatherings, chinwags, or chit-chats.

  Camels must not be permitted – or encouraged – to spit at other club members.