Explorers on Witch Mountain

by Alex Bell

  ‘Felix!’ she shouted. ‘Do not leave me here!’

  ‘Don’t worry, my dear one,’ he called back. ‘I travelled with a witch hunter in Cauldron Gorge for a time. She taught me all the tricks of the trade. I know what I’m doing.’

  And, with that, he hopped back onto the vulture’s back and they took off into the sky, growing smaller and smaller, until Stella could no longer see them at all.

  *

  It took everyone some while to persuade the president of the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club that the vulture had gone and it was safe to come out from beneath the table. When he finally emerged, he’d gone white to the lips, and his moustache was rather all over the place – the previously pointy tips bushing out quite alarmingly.

  ‘It’s an outrage!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ve never experienced such a dinner in all my life, never!’

  ‘Felix didn’t exactly invite the vulture,’ Stella pointed out.

  ‘I will never dine here again,’ the president said, and Stella was pleased because that meant Gruff wouldn’t have to be banished to the kitchens with Mrs Sap. Indeed, if the president hadn’t objected to the polar bear’s presence in the first place then Gruff would have been in the dining room with them and probably would have seen the vulture off like last time. Stella couldn’t help blaming the president, at least a little bit, for the fact that Felix had gone.

  ‘Sir,’ she said, trying to make her voice grown-up and reasonable. ‘I would like to formally request that the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club mount a rescue expedition for Felix.’

  ‘Request denied,’ the president snapped, brushing crumbs and bits of floor fluff from his clothes. ‘If Pearl wants to tear off to Witch Mountain that’s his own affair. Anyone who goes after him will only perish as well. The Polar Bear Explorers’ Club will have nothing to do with this madness.’

  ‘Well, can I have my tiara back, at least?’ Stella asked.

  She didn’t know quite how she was going to do it yet, but she knew that one way or another she had to get herself to Witch Mountain to help Felix, and if she was going to face a dangerous witch then she would rather have her magical tiara with her, even if it was risky for her to use it too much.

  ‘The tiara is on display at the club,’ the president replied.

  ‘The tiara is on loan to the club,’ Stella said. ‘It belongs to me and I have every right to have it returned.’

  President Fogg heaved a great sigh. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘You must contact the Secretary who will provide you with the necessary forms. Once they have been completed, stamped and verified, the tiara will be released to you.’

  ‘And how long will that take?’ Stella asked.

  ‘About six weeks.’

  ‘That’s too long,’ Stella said coldly. ‘You know that. I need it now.’

  ‘There are procedures to be followed, girl,’ the president said, not meeting her eye. ‘The Polar Bear Explorers’ Club has rules and regulations for a reason.’

  Stella shook her head impatiently. She was getting nowhere, and they were wasting time. If nobody would help her then she would just have to work it out by herself.

  The president said he wasn’t prepared to linger in a place where giant birds of prey were wont to come bursting through windows at any moment, and Stella was glad to see him go. Before he went, though, he slipped an envelope with a note attached to it onto the letter rack on Felix’s desk. As his sleigh pulled away, with a jingling of harness, Stella hurried into the study and picked up the note. It read: For the attention of Mister Felix Evelyn Pearl. Be warned and take heed, for the sake of your own safety.

  Stella wrinkled her nose. Be warned and take heed? That didn’t sound very good. Perhaps it was some kind of warning about the witch? Thinking there might be some useful information in there, Stella picked up the envelope – which was fat with papers – and tipped its contents out onto the desk, only to gasp with dismay. The papers were not about witches; they were about snow queens.

  There were profiles of snow queens going back more than a hundred years. Some had lived in the Icelands, while others dwelt in the snow deserts of the east, or the snow canyons in the west. The profiles were pieced together from first-hand accounts, photographs snapped from afar, arrest warrants and newspaper reports. But wherever and whenever they’d lived, there was one thing that the snow queens all seemed to have in common. They were cold, murderous and wicked.

  A letter from Wendell Winterton Smythe, the president of the Jungle Cat Explorers’ Club, accompanied them. The paper was headed with elephants and parrots and smelled faintly of expedition-strength mosquito spray. Stella’s heart seemed to turn to stone as she read it. It was an official complaint from the Jungle Cat Explorers’ Club, in which the president went on at great length about what a travesty it was to have allowed an ice princess to become a junior member of an explorers’ club, that it was an affront to all the other clubs, and dangerous to other explorers besides.

  Stella wanted to deny it all, to insist that she would never do anything to hurt anyone, but then she remembered how she had almost let Ethan fall to his death during the last expedition after using the tiara had chilled her heart, and a creeping doubt settled around her.

  She shuddered as she read about Queen Veronica, who’d frozen all the members of her household staff to make a statue garden; Queen Abigaila, who’d murdered her own husband with a poisoned apple; Queen Portia, who’d frozen an entire village in a vicious, unprovoked attack; and Queen Jessamine – Stella’s own mother – who had tortured countless people with the red-hot iron slippers that forced the wearer to dance for her amusement.

  The papers fell from Stella’s trembling fingers. Hadn’t there been any good snow queens? Surely they couldn’t all have been villains – surely one of them, at some point, must have been nice, or at least not completely wicked? But then she thought of the enchanted castle that had been her parents’ home, with its poisoned apples, deadly spinning wheels and ghastly iron slippers; she remembered what the magic mirror had told her about how snow queens were supposed to have frozen hearts and that it would happen to her one day too …

  Stella shook her head and thrust all the papers into a drawer. She couldn’t worry about this right now. She needed to work out how on earth she was going to go after Felix.

  The door to the study opened just then and Ethan walked in, adjusting his collar with one hand and smoothing back his white-blond hair with the other.

  ‘Father has left,’ the magician announced. ‘He has an engagement with another explorer and it will take him a week to travel to his home, at least. He says to give you his regards, as well as his regrets that he allowed Felix to talk him into purchasing the magic cuff.’ He sighed. ‘He says he never would have let him have it if he had known about the poisonous rabbits.’

  ‘What poisonous rabbits?’ Stella demanded, rather afraid that the situation was about to get even worse.

  Ethan rubbed the back of his neck. ‘There’s been reports from some local trader that Jezzybella has been paying a pirate to bring them to the mountain for her. And, apparently, if you so much as touch a poisonous rabbit, that’s it.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘You’ve had it. I heard President Fogg tell father before he left, but he says he never got the chance to tell Felix.’

  Stella stared at him, appalled. ‘But this is terrible!’ she exclaimed. ‘Felix adores rabbits. He simply adores them. If one of these poisonous rabbits comes hopping up to him then the first thing he’ll do is get down on his knees and try to stroke it!’

  Felix would be well aware that Jezzybella herself was dangerous, of course, but no one expected a little fluffy bunny to be able to kill them, even on Witch Mountain.

  ‘It’s a rotten business,’ Ethan said. ‘Now, look, I convinced Father to let me stay to keep you company while Felix is away—’

  Stella scowled. ‘I don’t need you to keep me company because I’m not staying here! I’m going after Felix.’

  Ethan opened hi
s mouth to reply but Stella held up her hand. ‘It’s no use trying to talk me out of it,’ she said. ‘That witch killed my parents. I won’t sit back and do nothing while she kills Felix too, I just won’t. Besides, Felix doesn’t know anything about the poisonous rabbits. And I’m sick of cowering indoors.’ She lifted her chin a little higher and said, ‘Ice princesses don’t cower indoors and explorers definitely don’t cower indoors. I’m going to Witch Mountain to rescue Felix and there’s nothing you, or anyone else, can say or do to stop me.’

  Ethan raised an eyebrow. ‘Have you quite finished?’ he asked with a sniff. ‘That was a completely unnecessary speech.’ He lifted his own chin and said, ‘Nobody lectures a magician about cowering indoors – not even an ice princess. Of course we’re going after Felix, you ninny. But I could hardly say that to Father, could I? He wouldn’t have let me stay then; I’d have been dragged off to this other explorer’s house with him.’

  ‘Oh,’ Stella blinked, momentarily taken aback. Then she beamed at the magician. ‘Oh, good. It’ll be much easier with help.’

  ‘Of course it will,’ Ethan said. ‘You should send word to the others too. They came in useful last time, even if the small one is a bit of an oddball.’

  ‘Shay and Beanie, you mean?’ Stella asked. ‘Good idea. Yes.’

  A plan started to formulate in her mind. ‘I’ll telegraph them to meet us at the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club as soon as they can get there.’

  ‘The club?’ Ethan said, surprised. ‘But the president has refused to help.’

  ‘Yes, he has, but I’m still going there to get my tiara. We also need to find a map of Witch Mountain. The Map Room must have one, even if it’s incomplete.’

  ‘So you want to break into the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club and steal their maps and magic tiara?’ Ethan asked, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘It’s my tiara, which means I have every right to take it, and I’m only going to steal one map,’ Stella replied. ‘It’ll be okay. We’ll figure it out as we go.’

  Ethan sighed. ‘Oh, perfect – a figure-it-out-as-we-go kind of plan. My favourite. Nothing ever goes wrong with those.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  As it was late already, Stella and Ethan decided to sleep at the house and then leave for the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club first thing in the morning.

  Stella had sent telegrams to Shay and Beanie and then taken out her explorer’s bag, which had the club’s polar bear motif stamped on it, and a large rucksack, and packed everything that might come in handy for breaking into the club and then setting off on a dangerous and unauthorised expedition to Witch Mountain.

  She kissed Gruff, who was snoozing by the fire in her bedroom, and was just about to go to bed when she heard a soft tap-tap at her window. She turned to see a fairy stood hesitantly on the ledge. Stella was surprised because fairies were famously reclusive creatures and usually very nervous around humans. It was only the rare person – like Felix – with whom they would have a conversation.

  Stella went to the window and opened it slowly, so as not to startle the fairy, and watched entranced as she tiptoed in over the threshold. Fairies always had the prettiest clothes and this one was no exception. Her gown was a deep cobalt blue, puffed up over layers and layers of lace petticoats. The hem and sleeves sparkled like starlight, and dozens of tiny blue flowers were woven into her coal-black hair. She had a pretty, acorn-coloured face; small, pointed ears; and bright green eyes. Her wings, though, were the most dazzling thing about her. Like butterfly wings, they were patterned in green and black, with midnight-blue tips.

  Stella could tell she was a messenger fairy because of the postbag hanging from her shoulder, and the peaked messenger cap balanced on her dark hair. Felix had told her that any letter written by a messenger fairy could only be read by the person it was addressed to. If anyone else were to see the letter, it wouldn’t even look like a letter but would take the shape of a button, or a glass bead, or an old penny, or some other innocuous object that might easily have been found rolling around in a pocket.

  ‘Hello,’ Stella whispered, as the fairy set her bag down on the windowsill.

  The fairy smiled, but didn’t say anything as she took some small sheets of paper from her bag, along with a rather handsome feathered quill. She sat herself down on the window ledge (Stella noticed that her boots had glittery golden wings at the ankle), picked up the quill, hovered it over the top of the paper and then looked at Stella expectantly.

  ‘Oh,’ she breathed. ‘Are you offering to take a message for me?’

  The fairy nodded. Perhaps the fairies had seen Felix take off on the bone-eating vulture and wanted to help Stella rescue him.

  ‘Could I send two messages?’ Stella asked eagerly. These messages would arrive faster than any telegram!

  Again, the fairy nodded, so Stella proceeded to dictate a letter to both Shay and Beanie explaining what had happened, telling them about the poisonous rabbits, and asking them to meet her at the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club as soon as they could. She thought briefly of trying to send a message to Felix to warn him about the rabbits, but knew that the fairy would never be able to catch up with a giant vulture.

  Once the letters were finished, the fairy folded them neatly, slipped them into tiny envelopes and sealed them with a golden wax seal, which she stamped with a messenger stamp consisting of a pair of fairy wings. She wrote Shay’s name on one, Beanie’s on the other, and then, with a last wave at Stella, she fluttered out into the night and was gone, leaving only a smattering of sparkling fairy dust on the windowsill behind her.

  *

  The next morning, Stella slipped on her warmest dovegrey travelling dress and went downstairs to confront Mrs Sap. The housekeeper tried to convince Stella and Ethan to stay at home rather than going off after Felix, but once she saw it was useless she went and made them a packed lunch to take on the train instead.

  The junior explorers each put on their cloak – pale blue with a polar bear symbol embroidered on the front for Stella, and black with a squid symbol for Ethan. Then Mr Pash, the head groom, took them in the sleigh to catch the train. From the station they made their way to the harbour, where they were just in time to buy passage on the last ship of the day. They docked in Coldgate early the next morning. From there, they had to make their way to the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club on foot.

  At last, they arrived at the white gates with their gold-tipped spikes and majestic marble polar bear statues on each pillar. When Stella had been there with Felix the gates had opened for them automatically, but this time they remained very firmly closed.

  ‘Now what?’ Ethan asked. ‘How do we get inside?’

  Stella pushed hopefully at the gate but, of course, it was locked. She looked around until she located a golden button attached to some kind of intercom. She knew that Felix had visited the club many times: to consult the maps, or view the latest curiosities on display, or exchange ideas with other explorers. Perhaps it was simply a question of asking to be admitted? She pressed the golden button, which buzzed loudly, and, a moment later, a voice came through the grate. ‘This is the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club. How may I help you?’

  ‘I’m Stella Starflake Pearl,’ Stella said. ‘I’m a junior member of the club and I’d like to come in to consult the—’

  ‘No visitors today,’ the voice interrupted. ‘The club is closed.’

  ‘Closed?’ Stella had never heard of such a thing. ‘But why?’

  ‘The president of the Jungle Cat Explorers’ Club is here on important business,’ the voice informed her. ‘Come back next week.’

  And then the line went dead.

  ‘Well,’ Ethan said, looking affronted. ‘No one would ever speak to a member of the Ocean Squid Explorers’ Club like that. Never. By the way, did you know there’s something wriggling around in your rucksack?’

  Frowning, Stella swung the pack off her back, put it on the floor and unzipped it. Buster immediately poked his head out, and looked back and
forth between them, blinking in the sunlight.

  Ethan groaned. ‘Why on earth did you bring your pet dinosaur with you?’

  ‘I didn’t mean to,’ Stella replied. ‘He must have climbed into my bag when I wasn’t looking.’

  The T-Rex had clearly had enough of being cooped up in a rucksack because he squirmed his way out and landed in the snow with a flump. Stella reached out to grab him, but, sensing that he was about to be imprisoned again, the dinosaur charged off – straight through the bars of the gate and into the grounds of the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club.

  ‘Oh no!’ Stella cried. ‘Buster, come back!’

  But the tiny dinosaur stubbornly ignored her as it ran into the ice garden, roaring excitedly, leaving tiny T-Rex footprints in the snow, and was promptly lost from sight.

  ‘Oh, that’s just great!’ Ethan complained. ‘Now we’ve got an escaped dinosaur to contend with on top of everything else.’

  ‘Maybe I should press the buzzer again and explain that we need to come in to get Buster?’ Stella suggested, already reaching for the button.

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ Ethan said, grabbing her hand seconds before she could press the button. ‘Any animals found on club property legally belong to the club. My brother had a fluffy wobbling penguin—’

  ‘What’s a fluffy wobbling penguin?’ Stella asked eagerly.

  ‘Exactly what it sounds like. Anyway, it wandered off in the Ocean Squid Explorers’ Club once and ended up getting stuffed and put on display with the other animals.’

  Stella’s hands flew to her mouth and she stared at Ethan in dismay. ‘That’s terrible! The Polar Bear Explorers’ Club would never be so barbaric.’

  ‘Well, if you’re completely sure of that then why don’t you go ahead and press the buzzer?’ Ethan replied.

  But Stella wasn’t completely sure. After all, the club could be a bit barbaric sometimes. They’d had a display of pinned fairies in the front entrance before Felix had campaigned for their removal; they still had skinned polar bear rugs; and they had wanted to stuff Dora when she’d brought her back from the Icelands.