by Alex Bell
“These are definitely submarines,” Shay said, peering down at the nearest one. “This one even has the word ‘submarine’ painted on its side.”
“Well, it’s not a functional one,” Ethan pointed out. “There’s a great big hole in it.”
There must have been twenty of the little submarines scattered around the bridge. Each one was extremely small—barely large enough for a single adult human to fit into. It looked as if they had all once been green in color, but the paint was rusting and peeling away. They were also, Stella noticed, slightly different designs. Some were round and bubble-shaped, while others were long and sleek, like the nose of a swordfish.
“They must have belonged to an Ocean Squid Explorers’ Club expedition,” Stella said.
“I tell you, there’s never been a submarine like this in our club,” Ethan replied. “Our subs are all large enough to carry an entire expedition, for a start. Plus they all have the Ocean Squid Explorers’ Club crest stamped on the side and a waterproof flag flying from them somewhere. These look as if they’ve been designed to carry just one person and nothing else.” He gave a derisive snort. “You wouldn’t get far in that. Submarines need to have a galley for storing food, and bathroom facilities, and harpoon cannons to ward off kraken. These things are useless. No wonder they’re all damaged.”
Stella had to admit he had a point. It certainly didn’t look as if these submarines were designed for traveling long distances. Most of them seemed to consist only of a seat for the pilot to sit in.
“There’s something written here, though,” Shay said, rubbing frost from the side of the nearest sub.
“Perhaps it’s something else from the Sky Phoenix Explorers’ Club?” Beanie suggested as they gathered around.
But the image on the submarine wasn’t a crest at all. Instead it was an image of the world, with four words curving around it.
“The Phantom Atlas Society,” Stella read. She frowned and looked at the others. “Has anyone ever heard of that?”
But the others all shook their heads.
“There’s no such thing as a phantom atlas,” Ethan said with a shrug. “Perhaps they belong to some half-crazy maverick explorer. He obviously wasn’t a member of any of the clubs or there’d be a crest and a flag. And he clearly didn’t know anything about geography because the world in that crest is a globe. He probably got snatched up by the snow queen.”
“Hmm.” Stella frowned at the submarines. “But then why are there so many of them?”
No one had an answer to that.
But before anyone could comment upon it further, there was the startling sound of a long, loud, extremely smelly burp from inside one of the nearby submarines.
The junior explorers all spun around on the spot in time to see a small creature, about the size of a large cat, crawl from the wreckage of the submarine. It was pale blue in color, with webbed feet and hands, bat-shaped ears, and large golf-ball-size eyes that seemed to bulge right out of its head. Its skin was lumpy and bumpy, with a leathery sort of texture, and it had sharp pointed teeth that poked down over its lip.
Stella had never seen anything like it before, but Ethan recognized the creature immediately.
“Good heavens, it’s a sea-gremlin!” he cried. Moving quickly, he snatched it up by its skinny ankle and held it firmly at arm’s length. The gremlin didn’t like this much and thrashed around in Ethan’s grip, but it was a bony thing without much muscle and didn’t seem able to free itself.
“Don’t hurt it!” Stella said, immediately concerned for the creature, which she couldn’t help thinking was rather sweet in a crooked sort of way.
Ethan rolled his eyes. “Stella, I know you’re probably thinking it’s cute and that you’d like to cuddle it or knit it a hat or something, but sea-gremlins are a terrible menace. They get into the inner workings of submarines and meddle with the machinery—cutting wires and biting through cables and poking things into the propellers and goodness knows what else. They’re responsible for dozens of Ocean Squid explorer deaths every year.”
“He’s right, you know,” Beanie said. “It’s estimated that two hundred and thirty-nine deaths of explorers from the Ocean Squid Explorers’ Club are attributable to sea-gremlins meddling with the machinery inside submarines. They’re even more dangerous than frosties.”
“Normally they’re extremely fast,” Ethan said. “This one must be old or I wouldn’t have been able to catch it so easily.”
Now that Stella looked more closely, she saw that the gremlin did indeed have tufts of white hair sticking out of its ears and a rather wrinkled look about its face and body, as if its skin were a little bit too big for it. It curled its hand into a knobbly fist and shook it angrily at Ethan.
The magician ignored it and said, “I bet gremlins were responsible for all these damaged submarines.”
“Can they talk?” Stella asked.
“When it suits them,” Ethan replied. “But then it’s normally just to swear at you.”
Stella moved a little closer to the gremlin, but Ethan drew it away. “Careful,” he warned. “They go for the eyes and, trust me, you really don’t want it poking at your eyeballs with its dirty fingernails. Julian got a terrible eye infection that way when he tried to remove a sea-gremlin from a submarine engine once.”
Stella didn’t want an eye infection, so she kept a careful distance and said to the gremlin, “Hello, I’m Stella Starflake Pearl. What’s your name?”
Ethan rolled his eyes at her polite tone. The gremlin blinked up at Stella, then opened its mouth. For a moment she thought it was about to reply, but instead it gave a great yawn before sticking its bony finger straight up its nostril and extracting a blue booger which it deftly rolled up into a ball and flicked at her.
The slimy lump was flying straight toward her face, but with lightning-fast speed Shay shot out his hand and the booger landed in his palm with a splat.
“I say, that was well done, old man!” Melville said. He looked up at Stella and said, “You know you’ve got a true friend when they catch gremlin boogers for you. Probably the most effective test for true friendship there is.”
Stella couldn’t help thinking the gentleman flamingo was right about that and gave Shay a grateful look. The wolf whisperer grinned back at her and shrugged. “You touch far worse things looking after wolves,” he said, before leaning down to wipe the snot off in the snow.
The gargoyles had all clearly decided they were in the line of fire and had moved back a little distance, taking the snow-boat with them.
“Don’t be so disgusting!” Ethan said to the gremlin, giving it a shake.
“Let me go!” the gremlin said, speaking for the first time in a croaky voice. “Or it’ll be boogers to the face for you!”
“Ethan, just let him go,” Stella said. “We don’t have any submarines or machinery, so he isn’t a threat to us.”
“Don’t call me a he!” the gremlin spluttered. “You wanted to know my name? Well, it’s Daphne!”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Stella said. “But really it’s your own fault. If you’d introduced yourself nicely rather than throwing a booger at me, then I wouldn’t have made that mistake.”
“Fortunately, I know a thing or two about sea-gremlins,” Ethan said. He glanced at Stella and said, “Including the fact that if you question one while dangling it by its ankle, it has to answer your questions truthfully.” He looked down at the gremlin. “So, where did you come from?”
The gremlin scowled up at him. “If you must know, I came with Harkam Peewee Lewis.”
Stella frowned, recalling the name she’d seen written on the bag in the wreckage of the balloons. “From the Sky Phoenix Explorers’ Club?” she asked.
“Duh!” Still dangling upside down, the gremlin crossed her arms over her bony chest and said, “I don’t know of any other Harkam Peewee Lewises around here—do you?”
“But no one has had contact with that club for years and years,” Shay said. “H
ow old are you?”
“It’s rude to ask a lady that question!” Daphne snarled. Her large nostrils flared. “But it was my two hundred and fourth birthday yesterday.”
“Happy birthday for yesterday,” Beanie immediately said.
“Two hundred and four!” Ethan exclaimed. “Good grief, no wonder you’re as wrinkly as an old prune!”
“Ethan,” Stella said in a warning voice.
“What?” the magician demanded. “She is.” He glanced back down at the gremlin. “I thought sea-gremlins only traveled in submarines.”
“Harkam Peewee Lewis came from his home by submarine and set a trap for us in the engine room. He was going to take us back to the Sky Phoenix Explorers’ Club and present us as curiosities to be stuffed. But then my brother, Bobby, got free. First he bit a hole in that horrid explorer’s trousers—right on the bum!—and then he bit a hole in the balloon.”
“Causing them to crash-land here?”
“Yep.”
“Do you know what’s on the other side of this bridge?” Ethan asked.
The gremlin exposed her teeth in a grin. “Yes,” she said. “But you won’t get the chance to ask me what it is.”
Ethan frowned at her. “Why not?”
The gremlin snarled up at him. “Because, while you’ve been jabbering away, my friends have got you surrounded!”
Ethan narrowed his eyes. “What friends?”
But before anyone could say another word, about fifty sea-gremlins erupted from beneath the snow.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE SEA-GREMLINS WERE, AS Ethan had said, extremely fast. They showered snow everywhere as they flew at the explorers, landing on their heads, and backs, and legs. One of them even tucked Melville under his arm and tried to run off with him, but Ethan lunged after them, snatching the flamingo back and stuffing him down his cloak. The action forced him to drop Daphne, who scampered off to a safe distance and perched on top of one of the wrecked submarines. The gremlin plonked her bony bottom down on the roof, dangled her webbed feet over the edge, and then proceeded to let loose a volley of swear words at them.
“Hey, that’s my hat!” Beanie cried as one of the gremlins snatched his pom-pom hat and ran off with it, snickering.
Meanwhile, Stella had to fight off a pair who seemed determined to rip her charm bracelet straight from her wrist. Shay was having the same problem with his whisperer’s wolf pendant, and Ethan was having to keep a tight grip on Melville.
“They’re scavengers!” the magician called out as he batted another gremlin away. “Watch your pockets, or they’ll empty them!”
The gremlins seemed quite determined to go after their clothes, too, and had already started dragging Beanie’s cloak off him.
There were too many of them and they seemed to be swarming everywhere.
“How do we stop them?” Stella cried as three more gremlins scrambled up the back of her dress.
“I don’t know!” Ethan groaned. “They don’t like bright light. Has anyone got a flashlight? They’ll scurry off if you shine a light on them.”
Unfortunately, no one had a flashlight with them.
“How many of you did Harkam Peewee Lewis capture?” Ethan exclaimed.
“Just me and Bobby,” Daphne said, pointing at another wrinkled old gremlin who was in the process of sticking his bony arm down Shay’s boot. “The others are here for the school.”
“What school?”
Daphne snapped her fingers, and all the gremlins fell off the explorers and turned toward her, waiting to see what she would do.
“Didn’t you see the sign?” Daphne demanded, glaring at the explorers.
She waved her skinny arm at one of the signs behind them. They’d walked straight past it, assuming it was another sign warning of the Land End Giant, but now Stella saw that it read DAPHNE’S GREMLIN SCHOOL.
“Gremlins come here to learn how to be gremlins,” she said with a nasty grin. “I teach ’em, using these old subs.”
“But where did the submarines come from in the first place?” Stella asked. “And why do you want to sabotage us? What have explorers ever done to you?”
“Explorers poke their noses in where they have no right to be poking,” Daphne said. “They’d ruin the world if we let them.”
“What are you talking about?” said Stella.
“Nosy explorers poking in their nosy noses!” Daphne replied. “Just like now. You’re not allowed on this bridge. Can’t you read? Didn’t you see the signs about the giant? You’ve got to turn back.”
“We can’t turn back,” Stella replied. “We’re looking for someone who lives on the other side of the bridge. He’s known as the Collector. Do you know anything about him?”
Daphne was silent for a moment. Then she said, “The Collector doesn’t want to see you. The Collector doesn’t want to see anyone.”
“So, he does exist, then?” Stella said, excited.
“You go back,” Daphne insisted, pointing at the bridge stretching out behind them. “Or else these gremlins will poke their bony fingers into your eyeballs. Eye infections for everybody. And then we’ll flick you with more boogers.”
“We’re not turning back,” Stella said. “So please get out of our way.”
Daphne turned around, shaking her head. She raised her hand into the air and snapped her fingers. The gremlins sprang into action once again, tearing and clawing at the explorers’ clothes and lunging at their eyes with their long fingers. It was pandemonium and they were completely outnumbered, making it very difficult to keep the gremlins at bay. One of them succeeded in climbing up onto Stella’s shoulder, where it raked its nails across her face hard enough to draw blood, just narrowly missing her eye.
She was aware that Ethan was throwing magic arrows at the gremlins, but the little creatures were so fast they just snatched them straight out of the air and threw them right back at the magician. The first time Shay threw his boomerang, a gremlin grabbed it and ran off with it. And when Beanie chased after the one who’d taken his hat, he got ambushed by seven other gremlins who all fell on him at once.
Feeling desperate, Stella reached her hand down toward the sleigh charm, hoping she might be able to summon it once again and that the two wild polar bears might frighten away the gremlins. But one of the little creatures yanked at her bracelet at the last moment, causing Stella’s fingers to close around a different charm instead—the unicorn.
Sparkling light immediately burst from the charm, and the gremlin hanging on to Stella’s wrist let go with a howl of pain, shielding its large eyes from the sudden blazing brightness. The other gremlins stopped what they were doing and dropped back too.
Out of thin air a unicorn appeared, snorting and stamping. At least, Stella thought it was a unicorn, but then it unfurled its wings and she realized it was actually a horned Pegasus. There were wings engraved upon the charm that she had overlooked, and the real Pegasus now spread these out wide against the sky, light gleaming from every feather.
The creature seemed to be made entirely from starlight, flashing diamond twinkles with every movement. It had a half-wild look, with an untamed mane and sparking eyes and nostrils that flared as it tossed its head. From the very tip of its horn there shone a beam of white light so bright that it was hard for even the humans to look directly at it.
The gremlins howled, shielding their eyes and faces, and staggered over themselves in their attempts to get away. Before long, they had all turned and bolted for the edge of the bridge, leaping over the side and tucking their knobbly knees up to their chins to make little cannonball shapes, plunging down into the water with a splash.
Even Daphne fled when the starlight Pegasus cantered toward her. Squealing, the gremlin leapt up onto the railings and looked back at the explorers just long enough to shriek, “No one’s allowed on the bridge! I’m telling on you!”
“There’s nobody out here,” Ethan pointed out. “Who are you going to tell?”
The gremlin gr
inned. “The boss,” she said.
Then, without another word, she leapt from the side and cannonballed down to the water with a splash, leaving the explorers alone.
The Pegasus was trotting around in agitated circles, so Stella stepped forward and put her hand out. The Pegasus stopped, snorting puffs of frosty breath into the air as Stella gently brushed her fingers over its neck. Stella had thought that perhaps the Pegasus might not have any substance and that her hand would pass through it, just like with Koa, but in fact she was able to touch the creature, who felt as cold and smooth as glass.
“It’s okay,” Stella said quietly. “The gremlins have all gone. You frightened them away. Well done.”
“Wow,” Ethan said. “That bracelet comes in handy, doesn’t it?”
He scooped up Beanie’s pom-pom hat, which the gremlin had dropped in its haste to get into the sea. Beanie immediately put it back on his head so that he could tug at it in consternation.
“How marvelous,” Shay said, joining Stella beside the Pegasus.
It was such a beautiful, magical creature that Stella would have liked to keep it there, especially as its light pushed away the sea mist and made it easier for them to see what was coming up ahead. But she could already start to feel a slight itch behind her eyes and recalled how exhausted the polar-bear sleigh had made her feel. The gremlins had left, so it seemed sensible to save the magic for when it was really needed.
Stella, therefore, said good-bye to the Pegasus, released her concentration on the spell, and let the magical creature fade away into the fog.
“Will the gremlins come back?” Beanie asked, gazing around in concern.
But Ethan shook his head. “Not quickly,” he said. “They can’t fly, so they’ll need to fashion some kind of seaweed rope or something to—oh!”
He had leaned out over the side of the bridge as he spoke but now quickly drew back.
“They’re all sitting down there,” he whispered, gesturing back toward the bridge. “There’s a little floating platform attached to a rope ladder. I suppose Daphne’s students need some way to get up to the bridge from the ocean. They can come back up here anytime they want. I guess they haven’t realized the Pegasus has gone.”
