Crossing the Black Ice Bridge

by Alex Bell

  They traveled on down the bridge for another couple of hours and then stopped to make camp.

  Stella asked the gargoyles if they’d like to come into the magic fort with them, but the stone creatures seemed to prefer to stay on the snow-boat. Night had crept in and colored the fog a dusty gray. And the thicker it grew, the wetter their clothes became.

  One of the winged gargoyles pointed at Stella’s bracelet again, jabbing at the dragon charm.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what you want me to do. Is it to use the charm? I’m afraid I can’t risk it—it’s too dangerous,” she added, remembering how Jezzybella had puzzled over the dragon charm at first, then suddenly realized it summoned a huge ice dragon.

  “Quite perilous if you’re not experienced,” the old witch had said. “The dragon is born wild, you see. There’ve been plenty of snow queens who’ve lost control and been gobbled up by their own dragon. Perhaps that charm is best left for when you’re a bit older, dear.”

  “Come on,” Ethan said, as the gargoyles flew up onto the deck of the snow-boat. “They’re made from stone, so they probably don’t feel the cold. Whereas I feel like there’s a frosty trying to chew all my fingers off.” The magic fort blanket was already in his hands, and he didn’t waste any more time before saying the magic words to open it. “Rattlesnake ragtime!”

  The magic fort was one of their best acquisitions from their expedition to Witch Mountain. It looked like any other ordinary blanket, but say the right magic words and it immediately sprang up around them into a wonderful tent. The explorers found it every bit as warm and inviting and comfortable as they remembered, full of silk curtains and overstuffed poufs and gilded ottomans. Stella practically melted at the sight of the fire pit crackling away in the middle of the room, a pot of delicious-smelling stew bubbling on top.

  “Good gracious me, where in the blazes are we?” an indignant voice said.

  Ruprekt the genie had materialized from his bottle and was wearing his usual colorful robe and cozy slippers. His mustache, Stella noticed, was just as impressive as ever. His eyes, however, had a fearful look in them. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this place, wherever it is,” he said.

  “We’re on the Black Ice Bridge,” Stella told him.

  The genie’s mouth fell open, and even his mustache seemed to droop. “You’re joking with me,” he finally said, a little pleadingly.

  Stella shook her head.

  “Well, I knew it was somewhere cold and forsaken and dangerous, but never in my wildest dreams…” He shook his head. “You lot are even more foolhardy than Lord Rupert Benedict Arnold, but far be it from me to try to talk any sense into you. I’m only an expedition genie, after all.” He huffed. Ruprekt was somewhat prone to sulking. “I took the liberty of getting your baths ready—”

  He didn’t get any further, because to the astonishment of the others, Ethan threw his arms around the genie in a hug.

  “Oh gods, a bath!” The magician groaned. “A bath is just about the most wonderful thing I can think of in the whole world right now! Thank you, Ruprekt, thank you!”

  The genie spluttered a little, looking rather taken aback by the sudden display of affection. “It is my pleasure, Master Rook,” he said, disentangling himself from the magician. “Your bath is just through there.”

  He pointed into the bedroom, and Ethan went straight in.

  “I can’t think what’s come over the boy!” the genie exclaimed, straightening his robe.

  Normally, Ethan was quite reserved and didn’t care for hugs any more than Beanie did.

  “He’s had a long day,” Stella said.

  In fact, they all had, and everyone was glad to take a hot bath and then change into the clean, warm pajamas Ruprekt had laid out for them. They were sand-colored and embossed with the Desert Jackal Explorers’ Club crest. The magic fort blanket had once belonged to explorers from that club and a lot of their stuff was still scattered about, from the desert maps pinned on the walls to the pith helmet balanced on top of a snarling stuffed hyena in the corner. There were even some spare telescopes, and Stella selected one to put in her bag for later.

  “I don’t remember seeing that before,” Stella said, waving over at the hyena.

  “I found it in the supply cupboard,” Ruprekt said, gesturing over to the cupboard in question. “I thought it would spruce the place up a bit.”

  It was rather a mangy old thing, but Stella patted it on the shoulder anyway. “Ruprekt, I hope you don’t mind coming to the Black Ice Bridge,” she said, glancing at him. “I know we ought to have asked you first, but you see it all happened in rather a rush and—”

  “Nonsense, Miss Stella,” Ruprekt replied. He drew himself up to his full height and said, “I’m an expedition genie. Where the adventure goes, I go.”

  “Well, that’s a relief, at least,” said Stella.

  The genie glanced at the canvas wall of the tent and said, “I’m sure you have your reasons for coming here, but this is a bad place, miss. A bad place indeed. I hear strange voices on the wind, and unnatural echoes, and twisted, tormented things that shouldn’t be.”

  Stella nodded. “I know. But it’s our only hope of saving Shay.”

  The others came out of the bedroom just then, dressed in their pajamas, and the explorers sat down around the fire pit in the main living area to have their stew. Stella recalled how the jungle fairies had sat on the edge of the cooking pot last time, bickering over their one top hat and dipping their toes in the stew. She couldn’t help missing their noisy, boisterous company. The thought of them reminded her that Felix and Joss were stuck in the cave beneath Queen Portia’s castle, and she hoped they were all right.

  Seeing that everyone looked a little glum, Ruprekt cleared away their stew bowls and then brought everyone a steaming mug of hot chocolate with extra marshmallows. Stella thought that hot chocolate could make anyone feel better, no matter what the circumstances, and felt herself relax as the warmth of the drink seeped into her fingers and down to her toes.

  “You know, I’ve been thinking—maybe the bridge isn’t as bad as everyone believes,” Shay said, blowing froth from the top of his hot chocolate. “Perhaps that screaming squid is responsible for all the explorers who’ve gone missing. And if people heard the squid and the tree screaming and didn’t know what they were, maybe that’s how the ghost stories first started.”

  “Maybe,” Stella said, although she didn’t really think so. After all, it didn’t explain the bad feeling she had on the bridge.

  “This is a curious atlas,” Beanie piped up.

  Stella looked over and saw that her elfin friend had taken out another one of the books that he’d snatched up on their way through Queen Portia’s library. It was a large, leather-bound tome, with pleasingly yellowed pages. It looked terribly old, and Stella was sure that it must smell absolutely wonderful.

  “Look,” Beanie said, holding up the book at an open page to show them the map within.

  They all peered closer to get a better look and saw that it was a map of the Jelly Blue Sea.

  “There are islands here that I’ve never heard of,” Beanie said, pointing them out. “Like Bobcat Island and Sandy Pearl Archipelago and the Islet of Gentleman Flamingos—”

  “Oh, everyone’s heard of the Islet of Gentleman Flamingos,” Ethan said in a dismissive voice. “It’s some balderdash place people used to believe in before they started exploring properly. It doesn’t exist.”

  “But it’s right here on the map,” Beanie said, peering at the page. “There’s even a sketch of a little flamingo wearing a bowler hat and—”

  “That atlas looks like it’s hundreds of years old,” Ethan cut him off. “It won’t be accurate. Old maps like that are littered with phantom places that never really existed. I think there’s been enough talk today of ghosts and monsters and gentleman flamingos. Who wants to see a magic trick? It’s one I’ve been practicing and I think I’ve finally got it.”

&n
bsp; Everybody did, so they put the atlas to one side and Ethan started looking around for a hat.

  Beanie tried to offer him his woolly pom-pom hat, but Ethan shook his head.

  “No, no, don’t be ridiculous. I can’t pull a rabbit out of that. It really ought to be a top hat.” His eye fell on the hyena over in the corner and he said, “But perhaps that will work.”

  He took the pith helmet from the snarling stuffed hyena and returned to the others by the fire.

  “For ages and ages I kept getting those dratted mongooses,” he said. “And they’re the most savage things you ever saw—”

  “Actually, you know, savage mini-cats are the most savage animals in the world,” Beanie said. “And quite dangerous, too, because people often mistake them for kittens on account of their size and—”

  “Have you ever seen a savage mini-cat?” Ethan demanded.

  “Not personally,” Beanie replied.

  “Then what I said was accurate.”

  “Perhaps it’s not the best idea to try this trick right now,” Shay said. “Not with all this talk about savage mini-cats. It might cause you to create one by accident. Remember that time everyone was talking about the Scorpion Desert and then when you tried to create a polar bean you actually magicked up a scorpion that started scuttling about, clicking its pincers and—”

  “Thank you,” Ethan snapped. “A reminder of my past failures—that’s not the sort of encouragement I need right now. So will you all just shut up and watch before I change my mind?”

  Everyone looked as Ethan gazed down at the hat in his hands. Then he drew a deep breath and said, “One, two, three, alakazam!”

  There was a little burst of light and a small puff of smoke, which caused everyone to ooh and aah and also squeak in alarm because they were half expecting a savage mini-cat to climb out of that hat, if they were honest, and Stella noticed Ruprekt even had a butterfly net ready to capture it with.

  And then, before their eyes, an animal climbed out of the hat. Only it wasn’t a savage mini-cat, or a rabbit, or even a mongoose. It was a bright pink flamingo, and what’s more, it was quite clearly a gentleman. They could tell from the fact that it wore a little bowler hat, a smart jacket, and a bow tie, and carried a handsome striped umbrella tucked under one plump wing.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THEY SAW THE FLAMINGO for only a brief moment before Ruprekt brought the net down on top of it with a cry of alarm, still believing they had a savage mini-cat problem on their hands.

  “Don’t worry, Miss Stella!” the genie cried. “I won’t let the ferocious beast harm you!”

  “Ferocious beast!” a deep, rich, rather refined voice exclaimed from inside the net. “Good heavens, where?”

  “He can talk!” Beanie exclaimed. A thought occurred to him, and he looked up at the others in sudden excitement. “Did you all hear that? Or am I a gentleman-flamingo whisperer? Gosh, I do hope it’s that!”

  “Well, I heard it, sure enough,” Shay said.

  “And me,” Stella agreed. “Ruprekt, it’s okay; he’s not a savage mini-cat. Let him out of that net.”

  The genie reluctantly lifted the net, and everyone stared at the pink flamingo. It was much smaller than an ordinary one—no more than a foot high—with bright, intelligent yellow eyes that blinked up at them in alarm, one of which was magnified in quite a startling way by a monocle.

  “Where is this ferocious beast?” the flamingo asked, staring up at them. “I will drive it back.” He brandished his striped umbrella, clearly intending to use it as a weapon. “Never fear, madam,” he said, to no one in particular. “You’re quite safe now. Melville is here.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Ethan exclaimed, staring at the flamingo in disgust. Then he glared at Beanie and said, “This is your fault. You made me get the spell wrong with all your nonsense babble about gentleman flamingos!”

  “It’s all right,” Stella said gently to the flamingo. “There’s no ferocious beast here. It was all just a misunderstanding.”

  The flamingo lowered his umbrella. “Oh, well, in that case, allow me to properly introduce myself. I am Melville Montgomery—of the Bayside Montgomerys, you know.” He raised one wing to straighten his bowler hat and adjust the sleeve of his dinner jacket. “Delighted to make your acquaintance. Now, please tell me who I have to thank for saving my life with such bravery and selflessness?”

  “Well, Ethan here pulled you out of a hat,” Shay said. “Although it was a pith helmet, actually.”

  “A magician!” Melville exclaimed, staring up at Ethan. “Well, my dear sir, you must be an inordinately talented magician indeed!”

  “I am not!” Ethan exclaimed. Unfortunately, he had no idea what “inordinately” meant and assumed he had been told he was an absolutely rubbish magician, since that was how he felt after the rabbit failure. It was a spell he’d been practicing for weeks and weeks, and it was extremely embarrassing to have it all go wrong in front of his friends, even if it was Beanie’s fault for bringing up gentleman flamingos in the first place.

  Fortunately, Stella had a very wide vocabulary, thanks to her lessons with Felix, and quickly put him straight.

  “He’s paying you a compliment,” she said. “ ‘Inordinately’ means tremendously.”

  “Quite right,” Melville said. “Yes, you must be tremendously talented to have rescued me the way you did. My dear fellow, I really can’t thank you enough. I, and all my people, are forever in your debt.”

  Ethan stared at the tiny flamingo. “But where did you come from?” he demanded.

  “Oh.” Melville’s face fell. “Don’t you know?”

  “None of the animals I’ve ever pulled from a hat has been able to talk,” Ethan said. “A mongoose will try to take your eyes out and then shoot off looking shifty and hunting about for something—anything, really—to tear to pieces. And a fluffy bunny will just hop around trying to eat the furniture.”

  “Oh, well, that’s a little disappointing,” Melville said. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, you understand. It’s just that our islet vanished, you see. First it happened to the Island of Lady Swans. One day it was there, and the next it was just gone.” He stabbed the tip of his umbrella into the floor for emphasis. “Vanished! Just like that. We searched the surrounding ocean high and low. In little canoes, you know. My dear sweet Clementine was on that island—my darling lady swan, the great light of my life and one true love of my soul. We searched and searched, but there was no sign of the island. It had just… disappeared.”

  “I saw the Island of Lady Swans!” Beanie exclaimed, reaching for the atlas again. “It was right there on the page next to the Islet of Gentleman Flamingos.”

  “But there’s no such place,” Shay said, reaching over for the atlas. “I’ve studied maps of the Jelly Blue Sea with Father, and I’ve never heard of either of these islands. There’s just ocean there.”

  “That may be so now,” Melville said. “But the islands were there. I’d hoped you’d know where they’d gone.”

  “But… but if you’ve been wherever it is yourself, then don’t you know?” Stella asked, confused.

  The flamingo shook his head. “One day we woke up and looked out the windows of our manor houses only to find that the sea and sky were gone.”

  “What do you mean?” Shay asked, staring.

  “There was just a sort of whiteness over everything. We know when it happened. Three minutes past eleven o’clock. We know because all the clocks stopped, you see, even my own dear grandfather clock, which has been passed down through my family for generations and has never missed a single tick or tock. And my pocket watch stopped too, look—oh!”

  The flamingo broke off. He’d taken a smart gold pocket watch from his pocket and flipped open the lid. Now he stared down at it and said, “It’s started again. It must have happened minutes ago, when I got here.” He looked up at them. “I don’t know where my home is—all I know is that it vanished without a trace and time seem
ed to stand still. When we all went down to the pebble beach, there were no waves lapping at the shore anymore. There was just that strange whiteness covering everything like mist. My brother, Burroughs, set off into that mist with a search party to try to find a way out. We all feared we’d never see them again, but they reappeared from the mist barely five minutes later. If you try to leave the island, you just come back to it, you see. So imagine my surprise when I opened my front door this morning to go and fetch some strawberries for breakfast, only to find myself climbing out of a hat to be here with you fine people. And now there’s no time to lose. We must find my home and rescue the rest of my people at once.” He blinked up at them with a hopeful, earnest expression. “And there’s the Island of Lady Swans to be rescued too, of course. Will you help me?”

  Stella glanced at the others. “I’m afraid that when it comes to rescuing, we have our hands rather full at the moment,” she said apologetically. “You see, we’re traveling across the Black Ice Bridge.”

  She expected Melville to exclaim in horror, as most people did, but perhaps the bridge’s notoriety hadn’t quite reached the Jelly Blue Sea because he just stared up at her politely.

  “It’s a cursed bridge,” she explained. “No one seems to be able to cross it and live to tell the tale. We’re in search of a spell that will save my friend here. And once we’ve done that, we have to go back to rescue two of our parents who are trapped with an ice dragon in a cave beneath a snow queen’s castle.”

  And that wasn’t even the half of it. Even if they managed all that, Stella was still wanted for arrest, and Felix was still expelled from the club. It was hard not to feel a bit overwhelmed by it all.

  The gentleman flamingo looked suitably impressed and said, “Gracious me, you have taken on rather a lot, haven’t you?” He looked at Ethan and said warmly, “And to think you took time out from all of that to rescue me. I’m beyond grateful, sir.”

  Ethan puffed out his chest and said, “It was nothing.”

  “Perhaps you could pull the other gentleman flamingos out of the hat?” Shay suggested. “At least then they’d all be free and we could worry about finding their islet later.”