by Alex Bell
The boy glared at Ethan and said, “My name is Gideon Galahad Smythe.”
“Good heavens,” Ethan said. “How awful for you. So what do you do?” He took in the boy’s stylish haircut and said, “Expedition barber, I suppose?”
Gideon dusted snow from his jacket, stood a little straighter, and said, “That’s quite enough sass from you. I’m a picnic master.”
The other explorers all stared at him.
“I beg your pardon?” Ethan finally said. “What in the heck is a picnic master?”
“Someone trained in the proper rules and etiquette of expedition picnics, of course,” Gideon replied.
“Good grief.” Shay shook his head. “Is that all you know how to do? Doesn’t sound like it would be much use on an expedition.”
Gideon looked offended. “Picnics are the most important part of any expedition,” he said. “Even kids like you ought to be aware of that.”
“Well, you seem to know who I am already,” Stella said. “I’m a navigator, by the way. And this is Shay Silverton Kipling, Beanie Sampson Smith, and Ethan Edward Rook. Wolf whisperer, medic, and magician. And that’s Buster,” she said, pointing at the T. rex stomping around at their feet. “Watch out for your shoelaces when he’s about.”
But Gideon didn’t seem to be paying much attention. Instead he was staring fixedly at the mooring block in front of him. “Where,” he finally said, “is the anchor?”
“Oh, it’s back at the club,” Stella said. “We had to untie the ropes in order to escape.”
To her surprise, Gideon gaped at her with an expression of horror. “You left all the anchors behind?” He gasped.
“Of course we did,” Ethan said. “The dirigible wouldn’t have been able to float away with them on board, would it?”
Gideon glared at the magician. “You idiots! Those were magical anchors. They would have become weightless the moment you brought them on board.”
“Perhaps you were too busy snoozing in your hammock to notice, but we didn’t have time to be messing about with anchors,” Shay said.
The Jungle Cat explorer groaned. “You don’t understand. Those anchors are the only safe way to land the dirigible. Without them our goose is cooked.”
“Seems a strange time to be cooking a goose,” Beanie said. “Especially if we’re going to have to crash-land.”
Gideon stared at him. “No, no,” he said impatiently. “I mean we’re sitting ducks.”
Beanie gave him a worried look. “We’re not ducks,” he said. “Maybe you hit your head when you fell out of that hammock? Perhaps you ought to have a lie-down.”
Gideon glared at him. “Are you making fun of me, or is there something actually wrong with you?”
“Right, that’s it.” Ethan slapped Gideon on the back of the head, causing the older boy to cry out. “First you insult Stella and now Beanie. No one’s allowed to insult or make fun of Beanie except for me. So, for heaven’s sake, shut up.”
“We’re going to have to crash-land.” Gideon groaned. “And probably all perish in the process.”
“In that case I’m afraid we can’t drop you off,” Stella said apologetically. “We’ll have to head straight for Witch Mountain and hope for the best.”
Gideon buried his face in his hands once again. “Doomed,” he said. “You’ve doomed us all.”
“You’d better get out that map of Witch Mountain and start navigating,” Ethan said to Stella. “Otherwise we’re just going to float around at random.”
Stella slung the map tube off her shoulder and was just drawing out the map when suddenly the unmistakable sound of drumming floated up somewhere nearby.
“What’s that?” Shay asked, glancing around.
Gideon Galahad Smythe heaved a great sigh and then wordlessly pushed back his hammock, revealing what appeared to be four fairies underneath it. They were quite different from the fairies that inhabited Stella’s yard back home. They had green skin and wore tunics fashioned from leaves, with slingshots tucked into the waistbands. In addition, they all had deadly looking snake fangs dangling from their ears, and their dark blue hair was arranged into ferocious-looking spikes. One of the fairies was energetically beating a tiny set of drums while the remaining three performed energetic somersaults and backflips while chanting the same thing over and over again: “Fee-fi-fo-fo, fee-fi-fo-fo, fee-fi-fo-fo!”
“Good heavens—who are they?” Ethan asked, peering at them suspiciously.
“Those are jungle fairies, of course!” Gideon snapped. “Can’t you see their jungle slingshots? They live on the dirigible and accompany Father on all his expeditions.”
“Well, do they say anything other than ‘fee-fi-fo-fo’?” Ethan asked.
“That’s their chant of doom,” Gideon said glumly. “They do that whenever doom approaches.”
“Would you please stop saying ‘doom’?” Shay asked. “It’s not helping all that much, to be honest. Do the fairies have names?”
“Hermina, Harriet, Humphrey, and Mustafah.” Gideon pointed them out individually before coming back to the one on the drums. “Mustafah is the leader on account of the fact that he has the most impressive hair.”
On hearing this, Mustafah tilted his head and looked grand. The mention of hair seemed to remind Gideon of his own because he began running his hand through it again, and the next moment produced a mirror from his pocket, with which he proceeded to inspect his appearance.
“They are a great asset on expeditions, giving us forewarning of danger,” he said before tucking the mirror away. “Just don’t upset them, whatever you do, or they’ll get those slingshots out and start pelting us with stink-berries.”
Stella sighed. She felt homesick for the pretty dancing fairies in her own backyard already.
“Oh dear,” Ethan said. “I hope they won’t be upset that we’re going to Witch Mountain.”
“I doubt it,” Gideon replied. “Everyone says jungle fairies are the most intrepid explorers in the world. They’ll probably be delighted to arrive somewhere fiendishly dangerous.” The Jungle Cat explorer sighed and shook his head. “Nobody comes back alive from Witch Mountain,” he said.
“So everyone keeps saying,” Stella said. “But witch hunters go there, don’t they? And if a witch hunter can survive, then I’m sure we can too.”
CHAPTER NINE
NONE OF THE EXPLORERS had been on a dirigible before, and Gideon didn’t appear to be in a helpful mood when it came to explaining how to fly it. The Jungle Cat explorer pointedly walked off and stood with his back to them on the other side of the deck. Fortunately, though, there was quite a lengthy section about airships in Shay’s battered copy of Captain Filibuster’s Guide to Expeditions and Exploration.
“It looks like it works similarly to a submarine,” Ethan said, peering at the diagram; it was extremely detailed, with suspension cables, air scoops, nose-cone battens, and other interestingly named things, all clearly labeled. “The ballonets are like a sub’s ballast tanks, I think.”
“ ‘When traveling by dirigible,’ ” Stella read aloud, “ ‘the most vital thing of all is to ensure no gas valves are accidentally left open, as this can lead to sparks escaping. Sparks on board a dirigible most frequently result in fire, disaster, and catastrophic crash-landings.’ ”
The explorers looked at one another.
“We definitely don’t want any catastrophic crash-landings,” Shay said.
“One hundred and three Jungle Cat explorers have died in dirigible crashes since—” Beanie began, but was quickly shushed by the others. They were all feeling the pressure of trying to work out how to fly the dirigible with nothing but a few diagrams from Captain Filibuster. The last thing anyone needed was Beanie educating them about fatalities too.
Fortunately, after much passing around of Filibuster’s Guide and squinting at diagrams, the four of them thought they had a pretty good handle on the mechanics of it and didn’t think they were too likely to do anything that would
result in fire and disaster.
“I’m glad I brought the guide after all,” Shay said, tucking it back in his pocket. “It wasn’t really all that helpful last time, was it?”
“Very lucky,” Stella said, peering at the map. “So—we should be there by morning, if my calculations are correct. Then we’ll just have to figure out how to land without blowing the whole thing up.”
She wondered where Felix was at this moment and felt a flare of worry. What if they were already too late? Perhaps the witch had gotten to him and they would find him lying dead in the snow. She pushed the image away firmly. She could not afford to think such things.
The sun had set, and it quickly went dark as the dirigible sailed on through the silent night sky. As soon as the sun had gone down, a bunch of fire pixies had woken up and started zooming about inside their lanterns, causing them to glow a bright, fiery red. Stella was rather concerned that they might have been captured and put in the lanterns against their will, but when she went over to see if they needed to be freed, she saw that the pixies all wore little waistcoats with the Jungle Cat Explorers’ Club crest stamped on the front.
“The Jungle Cat Explorers’ Club is very progressive when it comes to fairies,” Felix had told her once. “They’re the only club never to have had a pinned fairy display. They’ve established a good relationship with the jungle fairies, and they even employ fire pixies, river sprites, tree goblins, and temple elves as expedition guides. Handsomely paid, they all are too. One month’s service for the club can keep their family fed for an entire year.”
So Stella said hello to the fire pixies and then left them to their own devices. It was extremely cold up on deck, especially since it had started snowing once again, and the dusky night sky was thick with falling flakes. Stella had assumed that there were cabins down below, but when Shay asked Gideon, he shook his head.
“Then where are passengers supposed to sleep?”
“The hammocks, of course.” Gideon gestured behind him to his own hammock, and then realized that the jungle fairies were all busying about tying their tiny hammocks beside it. “Oh, do you have to tie them up there?” He groaned. “How am I ever supposed to sleep with you lot drumming away next to me all night?”
The fairy with the biggest hairdo—Mustafah—responded by producing a little red berry from the pocket of his leaf tunic and firing it straight at Gideon. It landed on the handsome boy’s cheek with a quiet splat. The smell was immediate and terrible. It was even worse than polar-bear poo, moldy cheese, and hairy troll feet all wrapped up together.
Gideon shrieked, turned, and in his haste, ripped down the fairy hammocks with his foot. As he fled across the deck, Mustafah loaded up his slingshot to take a second shot.
“You can put your hammocks next to mine if you like,” Stella said hurriedly to the fairies. Really, the last thing they needed was stink-berries flying around. Hermina was thrashing about trying to get out from under the hammock that had landed on her, so Stella plucked it from her head, folded it carefully, and gave it back to her. The fairy tucked it under her arm and gave Stella a big grin. “I’ll help you put them up later,” Stella offered. “I’ve never slept in a hammock before, but it sounds like marvelous fun.”
“Oh sure,” Ethan said with a sigh. “Marvelous. And cold. And uncomfortable.”
They left the fairies to their hammocks and walked across the deck to join Gideon, who was wiping his cheek with a picnic napkin. His eyes were watering from the smell, and he’d gone quite red in the face.
“Perhaps you should have taken your own advice about not offending the jungle fairies,” Ethan remarked pleasantly as Gideon took out his pocket mirror and started smoothing back his hair. “Oh, would you stop fussing over your appearance for five minutes?” Ethan said. He glanced at the others and said, “I’m famished. Have we got enough to cobble together a meal between us?”
“I brought some jelly beans,” Beanie said. “And some cheese and bread.”
“I’ve got a cold roast chicken,” Shay said. “And a jar of barbecue sauce.”
Ethan looked at Stella and said, “We’ve got some purple jellies and sugared marzipan left over from our journey, haven’t we?”
“Not anymore, you don’t.” Gideon grunted.
They all turned to look at him. “What are you talking about?” Ethan asked. “If you’ve pinched the last of our sugared marzipan, then I’m really going to—”
“Not me.” Gideon pointed over his shoulder. “Them.”
Everyone stared at the four jungle fairies stretched out on the deck beside their hammocks, licking their lips, their bellies enormous. A few crumbs and the odd smear of barbecue sauce was all that was left of their supplies.
“Jungle fairies will eat everything and anything that isn’t nailed down or locked away,” Gideon said as the explorers frantically checked their bags and pockets. “They’ll even chew on stink-berries if there’s nothing else available. And they’re extremely sneaky thieves. Didn’t you know?”
“I don’t believe it!” Shay said, rooting through his bag. “There was an entire roast chicken in here! It was huge. Four little fairies couldn’t possibly have eaten the whole thing.”
“Never underestimate the appetite of a jungle fairy,” Gideon said smugly.
“You know, it might have been helpful if you’d told us that before they gobbled up all our supplies,” Shay said with a sigh.
Koa got up from where she’d been sitting by Shay’s side and wandered over to inspect the fairies. One of them picked up a nearby slingshot and aimed it toward her in a lazy, halfhearted sort of way, then grunted and let the catapult fall to the ground, obviously deciding it was too much effort.
“Is there anything to eat on board?” the magician asked, peering toward the ladder that led belowdecks.
“Of course,” Gideon replied, stuffing the mirror back into his pocket and then ticking the rooms off on his fingers. “Aside from a well-stocked larder, we’ve got a champagne ice-room, a scone bakery, a jams and preserves cupboard, and a clotted cream creamery.”
Ethan snorted. “What is a creamery anyway?”
“It’s where we make the cream, of course!” Gideon snapped. “For the scones. Why do you think Margaret is here?”
He waved over toward the other side of the deck, and the others noticed, for the first time, that a black-and-white spotted cow stood there, happily munching on some hay and gazing out at the passing clouds with a thoughtful expression on her face.
“You couldn’t make it up, could you? You actually could not make it up,” said Ethan incredulously.
“I think you’ll find that our food supplies are extremely useful now that the jungle fairies have demolished the scraps you brought along,” Gideon said. “I’ll get the picnic stuff. Then you can see how civilized explorers go about things.”
He disappeared down the ladder, and after a moment’s hesitation Stella followed him. Fire-pixie lamps lit the inside of the dirigible too, and Stella saw that the walls of the corridor were painted with a variety of jungle animals, from spotted leopards and watchful baboons to flying panthers and fairy giraffes. There was even a river scene depicting an expedition boat under attack from an enraged hippopotamus, as well as a tiny jungle fairy boat that looked as if it were about to be swallowed whole by a particularly savage-looking piranha. It all appeared extremely dangerous and thrilling, and Stella made a mental note to put the jungle on the list of places she wanted to explore one day.
She hurried off down the corridor and soon found Gideon in the kitchen—or the galley, as it was called on dirigibles.
“Can I do anything to help?” she asked.
The Jungle Cat explorer jumped at her voice and almost dropped the enormous picnic hamper he’d just lifted down from the top shelf of a cupboard. He gave her a quick, nervous look. “No,” he said. “I don’t need any help from an ice princess.”
Stella sighed. “Look, I’m really quite a nice person,” she said. “I kn
ow that snow queens have been pretty horrid in the past, but I’m not like them. I promise.”
“Perhaps you aren’t now,” Gideon replied. “But Father says that all ice princesses turn into evil snow queens eventually. It’s just a matter of time.”
Stella decided to try another approach. “It’s jolly nice of you to put on a picnic for us,” she said. “We really appreciate your—”
“I’m not doing it to be nice!” Gideon snapped. “I’m doing it because any Jungle Cat explorer worth his salt will produce a suitably excellent picnic for guests, even unwanted ones!”
And with that he locked the cupboard, picked up the wickerwork hamper, and barged past Stella so roughly that she was forced to jump back against the wall in order to avoid getting knocked down. She sighed and wished, more than ever, that she were just an ordinary explorer and not an ice princess. Felix wouldn’t be in danger then, and an explorer she’d never met wouldn’t have decided she was a dangerous villain before he’d even set eyes on her. She made her way back up on deck feeling rather low and wandered over to say hello to Margaret. The cow was extremely friendly, and her big brown eyes and soft nose made Stella feel a little better.
“Hey, Sparky,” Shay said, joining her. “Everything okay?”
Stella shrugged and ran her hand along Margaret’s smooth coat.
“You’re not paying any mind to that idiot, are you?” Shay asked, jerking his thumb over his shoulder to where Gideon was clattering around with teacups and arranging napkins into rather complicated hippopotamus shapes.
“He’s not the only one who thinks that way,” Stella said in a quiet voice. “And the worst part of it is that he’s right. You saw what happened on the last expedition. If I use the tiara too much, it does make me cruel. I am dangerous.”