Stella had always thought of him as a special person, and the fact that he was a fairyologist proved it beyond doubt. There weren’t many humans that fairies would speak to, but they had always liked Felix. He could hardly leave the house in the summer months without one of them perching on the brim of his hat or landing on his shoulder to whisper into his ear. So if he forgot to brush his hair sometimes, or put on odd socks, or did the buttons of his shirt up wrong, none of that mattered one jot to Stella. Besides which, Felix knew how to ride a penny farthing, perform card tricks and make little flying birds out of paper – and if that wasn’t enough to make someone a favourite person, Stella didn’t know what was.
‘It’s twilight present time,’ he announced, holding up a white box wrapped with a wonky pink bow.
It took all Stella’s discipline to say, ‘I don’t want it.’ She turned her head to stare out the window.
‘I cannot believe you are serious,’ said Felix. He tried to nudge Gruff – who had laid down next to the window seat – out of the way, but nudging a polar bear is a bit like nudging a mountain, and really wasn’t any use at all, so Felix climbed over the bear instead, and sat on the seat opposite Stella.
‘I’d take you in a heartbeat,’ Felix said quietly. ‘If girls were allowed on expeditions then you know I would take you.’
‘It’s not fair that girls can’t be explorers!’ Stella said. ‘It’s stupid and it doesn’t make sense!’
The injustice of it made her whole body tremble. Stella had grown up listening to Felix’s stories whenever he returned home from an expedition, and had always loved them, but there comes a time when a girl gets tired of hearing about other people’s adventures, and wants to start having a few of her own.
Plenty of explorers took their sons with them on expeditions. Even Stella’s friend, Beanie, was going on this next one with his uncle, the renowned entomologist, Benedict Boscombe Smith. Beanie was the same age as Stella and he was part elf. He had a long list of dislikes that, so far, included small talk, sarcasm, handshakes, hugs and haircuts. Basically anything that involved physical contact was a definite no.
‘You’re absolutely right,’ Felix replied. ‘It is stupid, and it does not make sense. I’m sure it will be different one day. But the world doesn’t always change as quickly as we’d like it to.’
Stella continued to look out the window, preferring to stare at the snow than meet Felix’s eye. ‘I thought rules didn’t matter to you,’ she said, biting her lip.
Felix had always said that some rules were okay to break, and, in fact, some should be broken regularly for one’s health. When Aunt Agatha said that Stella needed a woman in the house to bring her up properly, Felix was always on her side about stuff like being allowed to gallop around the grounds on her unicorn, or build a fort out of books in the library, or learn how to make balloon animals rather than sew ugly embroidery.
‘There are some rules that absolutely cannot be broken,’ he’d say. ‘Like being kind and treating others as you’d like to be treated yourself. But whether or not people laugh at you, or think you peculiar, or different from them, doesn’t much matter in the grand scheme of things.’
‘It’s not like it would hurt anyone if I went on the expedition, is it?’ Stella asked, trying to use Felix’s own logic against him. ‘And if people think it’s strange for a girl to be an explorer then that’s their problem. Not mine.’
Felix sighed and put the present down on the seat between them. ‘My dear thing, I wish it were that simple. But I don’t make the rules at the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club.’ He nudged the present along the seat towards her. ‘Let’s not let it ruin your birthday. Why don’t you open your present?’
‘Take it away. I don’t want it,’ Stella said in her coldest voice. But she felt awful as soon as she spoke, and she hated herself for being cruel, and she hated being angry with Felix too. It felt so unnatural not to be friends – it made her stomach feel all twisted up and wrong.
‘I’m sorry,’ she blurted quickly. ‘That was mean.’
Felix picked up the present and pressed it into her hands. ‘Open it,’ he said again. ‘The poor things will be getting terribly stuffy in there by now.’
That piqued Stella’s curiosity, so she tugged off the bow, removed the lid from the box and stared down at a tiny igloo, nestled in a bed of pink tissue paper. Exclaiming in delight, she lifted it free of the box and realised it was made from actual ice. Each minute brick felt freezing against her fingers, and frost sparkled along the curved surface like dozens of tiny diamonds.
‘It’s enchanted,’ Felix said. ‘That’s why it doesn’t melt. I got it from a magician I met on my travels through Snuffleville. Look inside.’
Stella lifted it to peer through the open doorway and gasped at the sight of a family of tiny penguins happily slapping about on the ice inside.
‘They’re Polar Pets,’ Felix told her. ‘They’re part of the magic trick so they don’t require feeding or anything, although the magician said they like to be sung to every once in a while. One of the other igloos had polar bears in it and another had seals, but I thought you’d like the penguins best.’
‘I love
