‘Sounds like a fine woman,’ Felix said.
Professor Smith scowled. ‘A deluded woman, more like. Aside from all his quirks, Benjamin is far too shy to be an explorer.’
‘Being shy is a personality trait,’ Felix replied with a touch of reproach. ‘Not a fault.’
‘Did you ever hear of a shy man being an explorer, Pearl?’ Professor Smith boomed. ‘Of course you didn’t. The very idea! Shy men twiddle their thumbs indoors.’
‘Thumb twiddling!’ Felix exclaimed. ‘That’s number 135 for the list!’
‘List?’ Professor Smith snapped. ‘What list?’
‘I’m drawing up a numbered list of ways I would rather choose to spend my time than moustache grooming and beard oiling—’ Felix began to explain.
But Professor Smith shook his head impatiently and said, ‘Felix, please keep to the matter at hand! As I was saying, an explorer must be bold, brave, courageous, redoubtable—’
‘Brave and courageous mean the same thing,’ Felix had said with a sigh. ‘And most of the redoubtable people I’ve met have also been insufferable. Quite insufferable, I’m afraid. No, I’m sorry, Benedict, but you’re talking absolute balderdash, you know. A fearless man is far more likely to meet his death on an expedition than a thoughtful, careful one. Beanie is perfectly fine just as he is.’
Back on the ship, Stella came up on deck to find Beanie stood at the side of the railings, overlooking the icy ocean and holding a butterfly net. He was the same height as Stella, with dark hair that tended to stick out in all directions, as Beanie simply couldn’t stand to have his hair combed. He didn’t like having it cut, either, and was wont to make the most gigantic fuss whenever his uncle dragged him to the barber’s, even when there were jellybean bribes involved. His hair was always clean, though. Beanie rated personal hygiene very highly.
As Benedict Boscombe Smith had said, there was, indeed, elven blood in Beanie’s family, and you could see this in his slender build, the way that the tips of his ears were slightly pointed, and the fact that his black hair had the odd fleck of blue in it if you looked really closely.
There were three or four sea butterflies in Beanie’s net, and it seemed as if they had been there for some time, because they all lay forlornly on their sides, their wings trembling slightly. As Stella watched, Beanie raised his free hand, and a glittery golden glow seemed to flow out of his fingertips, surrounding the butterflies. The next moment, they were fluttering about, their salt-tipped green wings sparkling in the sunshine. Beanie opened the net and released them, watching as they flew out across the water, dancing amongst the flecks of foam and sea spray.
Stella had first become aware of Beanie’s healing ability when they’d attempted to climb the bagel tree in the garden (as the poppy seed ones only grew right at the very top), only for Stella to fall and scrape her elbow. The sight of blood instantly made her feel a little queasy, but Beanie dropped out of the tree beside her, took her arm gently in his hand – the first time he’d ever touched her – and made that warm golden light shine from his fingers. Stella had gasped, delighted by her friend’s magical power and, the next moment, there was no cut on her arm at all.
‘Hi, Beanie,’ Stella said, joining him at the rails. She gestured at the butterfly net still clutched in his hand. ‘Will your uncle be terribly cross when he finds them gone?’
‘I expect so. But he got the killing jar out this morning,’ her friend replied. ‘I had to do something.’
Stella was glad that Beanie had saved the butterflies, and she would have liked to give him a hug, only she knew that he would hate it, so instead she gave him a gentle pat on the back and suggested that they build a family of snow penguins up on deck. The sea was as flat as a millpond today, but it had snowed during the night and there was plenty to spare for sculpting penguins.
‘I’m glad you’re here,’ Beanie said as they walked across the frozen deck. ‘It’s bound to make the expedition easier.’
Stella noticed that he’d taken a little wooden carving of a narwhal from his pocket and was fiddling with it anxiously. ‘Oh, you brought Aubrey,’ she said. She wasn’t surprised. Beanie’s father had carved him the narwhal after seeing the strange animals – half seal, half unicorn – on his final expedition to the Black Ice Bridge. The bridge itself was a monstrously huge structure that stretched out over the sea and disappeared into freezing fog. No one knew how it came to be there, or where it led to, although many explorers had attempted to cross it.
Eight years ago, Beanie’s father had set off on an expedition over the bridge and had not come back. They had never found out what had happened to him, and Stella understood that the not knowing haunted Beanie more than anything. His father had just … gone. And so had the rest of his team. Perhaps they’d frozen on the ice, or run out of food and starved, or been gobbled up by an enormous snow monster, or reached the end of the bridge and found something terrible on the other side.
The rescue party that went after them discovered the remains of their camp, the tents frozen and abandoned. There was no sign of any of the explorers, although they had found Beanie’s father’s bag, which included the carved narwhal and also his journal. Several of the entries mentioned the fact that he was carving the animal as a gift for his son, Benjamin. It had quickly become Beanie’s most precious possession, and he fiddled with it whenever he was feeling anxious – which was most of the time.
It probably didn’t help that he knew far too much about the various ways explorers
