Sometimes you should let sleeping polar bears lie …
Stella thought that the same general rule probably applied here. Poking the Eye of a storm on her very first voyage seemed like a rather foolhardy thing to do, plus it would have been very rude. Stella had always liked storms and had no wish to offend this one.
‘Goodbye, storm,’ she whispered instead, as Shay tugged on the ropes above and the lifeboat rose steadily up towards the deck.
‘Well, you’re a sparky thing, aren’t you?’ Shay said with a grin when she finally drew level. ‘Exactly what I’d expect from Felix’s daughter, really.’ He gave her his hand and helped her scramble out before scooping out the wolf. Then he turned back to Stella and, to her surprise, threw his arms around her and squeezed her tight in a great big hug. ‘You wonderful girl – thank you, thank you, thank you!’ he said. ‘Kayko would have been lost if it weren’t for you.’ He let her go, glanced out towards the horizon and said, ‘The calm won’t last. Let’s batten down the hatches while we still can.’
Stella cast one last look down at the Eye before following Shay to the wolf pen. They just about had time to get inside and tie the wall firmly down before the Eye of the storm closed, and the gale started up around them once again.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘How come you’re looking after the wolves, anyway?’ Stella asked Shay as the two of them set about properly securing the canvas walls of the kennel.
‘Dad says a proper explorer should always see to his animals before seeing to himself,’ he replied. ‘Seems only fair. Besides, it’s easier for me because I speak their language.’
He pulled the silver wolf pendant free of his shirt, and Stella realised that this was no ordinary pendant at all, but a whisperer’s wolf – a magical clockwork creature.
‘You’re a wolf whisperer!’ she said.
Felix had told her about whisperers: amazing people who could speak to animals, but who were quite rare, and hardly anyone was born with the gift these days. Felix had once met a man who claimed to be a frog whisperer, and carried a small frog around with him in a box, telling anyone who would listen that it was a genius who could solve all the problems of the civilized world. But the frog seemed very uninterested in whatever conversation the man was trying to have with it, and Felix wasn’t convinced that he was really a frog whisperer at all.
‘Can I see the wolf?’ Stella asked, a little breathlessly. The ship gave another rolling lurch and she grabbed hold of a rope to steady herself.
‘Sure.’ Shay slipped the pendant from around his neck and dropped it into Stella’s palm. The animal had been sitting up with its eyes closed but as soon as it touched her skin it lay down on her hand in one quick movement, its nose between its paws. The silver was warm and Stella could feel the soft thump of a tiny heartbeat deep within it. Animals like these were only given to whisperers who’d been rigorously tested and vetted and verified by the Royal Guild of Whisperers. Otherwise there was nothing to stop any old person from putting a frog in a box and claiming he could speak to it.
‘How does being a whisperer work?’ Stella asked.
‘I just think whatever I want to say in my mind, and the wolves hear me,’ Shay said with a shrug. ‘And then they speak back to me inside my head too. Like this, look.’
Shay turned his head towards the nearest wolf pen and, although he didn’t speak out loud, Stella could tell that he was talking to one of the wolves because the wolf pendant in her hand moved. The silver wolf opened its eyes, which were revealed to be tiny red jewels that gleamed in the lamplight. Stella saw a nearby wolf – the reddish one she had saved earlier – suddenly prick up its ears, raise its head and look straight at Shay.
‘She says thanks a bunch for helping her earlier,’ Shay said, turning to Stella. ‘She thought you were very brave. I did too.’
Stella shrugged, although she couldn’t help being pleased by the compliment. ‘I wish I was a wolf whisperer,’ she said, handing the pendant back. ‘Or any kind of whisperer, really.’
A polar bear whisperer would definitely be her first choice. She could have proper conversations with Gruff then, and she was quite sure he would have plenty of fascinating opinions to share and interesting things to say.
The ship was rolling hard enough to send her sprawling so Stella sat down on the nearest haystack. ‘Have you ever been to the Royal Guild of Whisperers?’ she asked.
Shay nodded as he replaced the whisperer’s wolf around his neck and joined her on the haystack. ‘Yep. Mum took me. When I was tested,’ he said, settling into a cross-legged position. ‘They had an entire cabinet there with pendants for different animals. Some of them were pretty unusual, like the duckbilled platypus. And there was a sheep, and a sloth, and a mole,’ he went on, counting them off on his fingers. ‘And a ferret, and a duck. I don’t think duck whispering would be very useful, though,
