by Alex Bell
Naturally, the junior explorers did no such thing; instead they turned and fled down the corridor as fast as they could. Stella had no idea where she was going – she just ran blindly, the guards close behind them, until they came to a door. Shay threw it open and they all tumbled out into the snow, blinking in the sudden bright sunlight.
‘They’re going to catch us!’ Ethan gasped.
Stella feared he was right. The guards were practically upon them; they didn’t have enough of a head start. Even if they made it out of the club grounds, what then? They could hardly run all the way through Coldgate without getting caught. Their attempt to rescue Felix would be over before it had even begun. Stella could feel her heart beating so hard in her chest it was almost physically painful. Then her eyes landed on the massive dirigible they had spied from outside the gates, and a plan formed perfectly in her mind.
‘The dirigible!’ she cried. ‘It’s our only chance!’
She set off at a run towards it, the others close behind her.
‘You want to steal the dirigible belonging to the president of the Jungle Cat Explorers’ Club?’ Ethan gasped. ‘You’ve got to be kidding!’’
‘Have you got a better idea?’ she replied.
The explorers raced across the snow and reached the dirigible at the same moment that the guards caught up with them. One grabbed the back of Shay’s cloak and the other grabbed Beanie. Stella’s heart sank.
‘Just go!’ Shay yelled at her.
But then, all of a sudden, Koa appeared, charging towards the guards, hackles raised and snarling ferociously. The two men cried out in alarm, let go of the junior explorers and fell back. Making the most of the momentary advantage, Shay and Beanie rushed forwards, and the four explorers shot up the ladder and tumbled into the dirigible.
‘The ropes!’ Stella cried. ‘We’ve got to release the anchors!’
The explorers raced towards each of the four ropes that held the dirigible down. They unhooked them and let them fall to the mooring blocks on the ground.
‘Get back!’ one of the guards yelled at Koa. ‘Get back, you devilish creature!’
He threw his truncheon at her but, of course, Koa had no physical substance, and the truncheon simply passed straight through her, landing in the snow with a thud.
The two guards stared for a moment. ‘It’s a blasted shadow wolf!’ the first guard exclaimed. ‘One of those dratted kids must be a wolf whisperer!’
Realising that the wolf couldn’t hurt them, both guards immediately started forwards. Koa melted away like smoke and reappeared on the deck of the dirigible beside Shay.
‘Good girl, Koa,’ he said, as she wagged her tail at him.
One of the guards leapt for the ladder, but the dirigible had already risen too high and his fingers only just brushed the bottom rung before he fell back down into the snow.
The four young explorers rushed to the wooden side, peering over as the guards – and the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club itself – rapidly fell further and further away. Nobody could quite believe what had just happened.
They had managed to escape – but now, as the dirigible ascended higher and higher into the sky, an icy wind whipped around them tugging at their explorers’ cloaks and stirring their hair. Stella wondered whether any of them had any idea how to fly a dirigible. Frost showered down from the gasbag as it rippled in the wind, and frozen ropes creaked in the background. Then it started to snow – great, white flurries that swirled and drifted all around them.
In all the panic and excitement and desperation of the escape, it hadn’t really occurred to any of them that the dirigible might not be empty. So it came as rather a surprise when there was a sudden thump behind them and a shocked voice said, ‘Good gad, who are you people? What’s going on here?’
The four explorers spun around to see a boy of about fifteen sprawled on the wooden deck. It looked as though he had just fallen out of the hammock swinging to and fro above him. He had glossy chestnut hair, hazel eyes and a handsome, angular face. He was wearing the green robe, with jungle cat insignia, that marked him, unmistakably, as a junior member of the Jungle Cat Explorers’ Club.
‘Oh, shoot!’ Stella said, staring at him. ‘There wasn’t supposed to be anyone else on board.’
‘Just toss him over the side,’ Ethan suggested.
The boy scrambled to his feet and started to back away, only to end up getting tangled in the hammock behind him.
‘Too late,’ Shay said with a sigh, glancing over the side. ‘We’re too high, and he doesn’t look like he’d bounce.’
‘Worth a try, though?’ Ethan suggested hopefully.
‘Nope.’ Shay shook his head. ‘Can’t do it.’ He looked at the boy and said, ‘Sorry, mate but it looks like you’re coming with us.’
‘Who are you people?’ the boy cried, finally managing to disentangle himself from the hammock. ‘What is this? Am I being kidnapped?’’
‘Settle down,’ Shay said, doing his best to sound friendly. ‘No one’s being kidnapped. We’re just—’
‘I knew this would happen!’ the boy said. ‘I knew it!’ He pointed a finger at Stella and said, ‘Don’t think I don’t know who you are, you awful witch! I told Father you’d come after us if he complained about you! I told him that—’
‘Hey!’ Shay said sharply, all trace of friendliness gone from his voice. ‘That’s quite enough. Perhaps if you’d shut up for a moment you’d get a better handle on what’s going on. First things first, no one calls Stella a witch. Not in front of me.’
‘Or me,’ Ethan said, glaring at the Jungle Cat explorer.
‘She’s not a witch anyway,’ Beanie said, looking rather confused by the whole exchange. ‘She’s an ice princess.’
‘I know what she is,’ the boy spat. He looked at Stella again and said, ‘You’re a villain. Dad says you’re dangerous! And a disgrace to the clubs! And that you’re probably going to end up killing us all besides!’
Normally, Stella had no problem speaking up for herself, but the memory of those snow queen profiles she’d seen on Felix’s desk came flooding back to her, and her tongue seemed to get all twisted up inside her mouth so that she couldn’t say a word.
‘Sounds like your dad’s got his facts a bit mixed up,’ Beanie said, frowning. ‘Stella isn’t any of those things. Maybe he’s drunk too much fizzy tiger punch on those expedition picnics you’re all so keen on? That can make you go a little bonkers, you know. In the last ten years, twenty-three Jungle Cat explorers have gone bonkers from overindulging in tiger punch.’
‘My dad is not bonkers!’ the boy said. His nostrils flared alarmingly. ‘How dare you!’
‘Or perhaps it was the jungle mosquitoes?’ Beanie offered. ‘They can make you delusional. Captain Horatio Jordan Jones went completely delusional after suffering a mosquito bite in the Tikki Takki Jungle. He tried to make himself a suit and hat and matching parasol out of banana skins, but then his elephant got a bit confused and, unfortunately, he ended up getting—’
‘My father is the president of the Jungle Cat Explorers’ Club, as you must already know. I suppose that’s why you decided to kidnap me,’ the boy said, looking at Stella. ‘But he will never give in to your demands, whatever they are.’
‘I haven’t got any demands,’ Stella said, finding her tongue at last. ‘Really, I haven’t.’
‘He’ll never pay you a ransom,’ the boy went on.
‘Why would anyone pay a ransom for you?’ Ethan asked, curling his lip in distaste. ‘I’d pay to be shot of you, quite frankly.’
‘I knew it would be me who suffered if Dad stood up to the evil ice princess,’ the boy said, running a hand through his glossy hair. ‘I just knew it.’
‘This has got nothing whatsoever to do with you, you brat!’ Shay exclaimed. ‘Stella isn’t evil and, for the last time, this is not a kidnapping. This is a daring escape that you’ve unfortunately managed to get mixed up in simply because you were in the wrong place at the wron
g time. Isn’t there a magic carpet somewhere on board that you can just float away on?’
‘Magic carpets belong to the Desert Jackal Explorers’ Club! At Jungle Cat, we use elephants for getting about.’ The boy gave a sniff. ‘Far more reliable.’
‘And far less easy to transport.’ Ethan sighed. ‘Fat lot of good an elephant would be in this situation.’
‘Perhaps we can set him down someplace en route?’ Shay said, glancing at Stella.
She sighed. ‘It’ll mean a delay in getting to Felix, but I suppose it wouldn’t be fair to take him with us to Witch Mountain.’ The snow had stopped but a wisp of cloud floated past, and Stella glanced out over the side to see they’d floated up so high they were surrounded by clouds. ‘Speaking of which,’ she said. ‘Does anyone know how to steer this thing?’
‘I want to be dropped off somewhere civilised,’ the boy said. ‘Not left for dead in the Icelands.’
‘If you don’t want to be left for dead then perhaps you’d better learn some manners, and quickly,’ Ethan snapped. ‘Do you have a name, or shall we just call you Snot?’
‘Ethan, don’t be rude,’ Stella said, even though she didn’t particularly feel like defending the Jungle Cat boy. But perhaps they had just got off on the wrong foot. She hadn’t liked Ethan all that much when she’d first met him, after all. Perhaps if she was really friendly, and nice to him, then he would realise she wasn’t the evil villain some people seemed to think she was. Then he could report this back to his father, and he might drop his complaint against her.
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 cheek 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 rose 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 garden back home. They had green skin and wore tunics fashioned from leaves, with catapults 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 whilst chanting the same thing over and over again: ‘Huh-yah-yah-yah, huh-yah-yah-yah, huh-yah-yah-yah!’
‘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 catapults? They live on the dirigible and accompany Father on all his expeditions.’
‘Well, do they say anything other than huh-yah-yah-yah?’ 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 catapults out and start pelting us with stink-berries.’
Stella sighed. She felt homesick for the pretty dancing fairies in her own garden 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 help
ful 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 in a similar way 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 labelled. ‘The ballonets are like a sub’s ballast tanks, I think.’
‘When travelling 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 onboard a dirigible most frequently result in fire, disaster and catastrophic crash-landings.’
The explorers looked at each other.
‘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?’
‘Jolly 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 got 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.