Giant slabs of ice floated on the surface of the sea, and Stella could hear them bumping up against the ship and crashing into each other with such force that if anyone happened to fall into the water and get caught between two colliding pieces, they would surely be crushed into a messy pulp.
The snow-coated landscape ahead of them seemed to glow with a pale blue light all of its own, and Stella wondered whether it was something to do with the great mass of stars twinkling above them. She could just make out the looming outlines of sharp, peaked mountains piercing the air like monstrous snow shark teeth. Something seemed to stir within her as she gazed at that view – some tingle of recognition as if a deep-down part of her remembered the place where she had come from. For a moment, a memory felt within her grasp, but even as Stella reached for it, it drifted away like smoke.
There was a still, cold silence whilst the explorers stared at the vast, unknown landscape, dreaming of the adventures they might have and the stories – and yeti heads, in the hunter’s case – that they would bring back with them.
Stella was the first to spot movement on land. The object was so big that to begin with she thought she was looking at a mountain. But then her eyes focused on an arm and a leg, and the full force of what she was seeing hit her. There was a great, humungous yeti lumbering across the ice.
‘Yeti!’ she cried, her voice cracking the frozen air as she pointed out across the ocean. ‘There’s a yeti there!’
There were general cries of ‘Where?’ and ‘I don’t see it!’, and then ‘Great Scott!’ and ‘Extraordinary!’ and ‘Behold the creature!’ Then the explorers were all fumbling in their robes for a telescope to get a closer look. Stella quickly reached for her own telescope, which was made from solid brass and bound in soft, worn leather. Her hands were trembling with excitement as she focused the lens like Felix had taught her.
She gasped as she caught her first glimpse of the yeti’s face, with its snow-crusted fur and white shining canines curved over its lips. The head alone must have been ten times Stella’s height, and each one of those monstrous teeth was easily as tall as she was. She lowered the telescope – the brass surface freezing against her fingers – and gazed at the beast, hardly able to comprehend its size. It was a giant – far larger than any building Stella had ever seen, including the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club itself.
The next moment, the yeti disappeared from sight as it passed beyond the cliff. It was too cold to stay out on deck for any longer without their snow cloaks anyway, so the explorers returned to the warmth of the gramophone room, which was soon thick with the smell of brandy, and the fug of cigar smoke, and the thrill of excitement.
CHAPTER NINE
Stella watched from the deck the next day as some of the crew took a lifeboat over to the Icelands and proceeded to drive huge spikes into the snow. Sailors from the ship then threw across coils of rope as thick as Stella’s arm, which were wound around the spikes to moor the ship.
It took the better part of an hour to unload the supplies, including the unicorns, wolves and yaks. Stella checked and re-checked her pockets and her explorer’s bag (which had since been emptied of moustache wax and beard oil) to make sure she had her telescope, compass, magnifying glass, pocket map, emergency mint cake, matches and ball of string. Felix said you never knew when a ball of string might come in handy, and Stella had carried one almost for as long as she could remember. She’d also decided to keep the folding pocket moustache comb, because she’d discovered it made an excellent backscratcher.
There was a time and a place for dresses and petticoats, and exploring the Icelands definitely wasn’t it, so Stella had changed into the same type of outfit that Felix and the other explorers all wore. This consisted of trousers tucked into a sturdy pair of snow boots, and a multi-layer of vests, woolly jumpers stitched with polar bear emblems, and waterproof sweaters piled on beneath her explorer’s cloak. Much as she loved skirts, Stella was rather fond of trousers too and often wore them at home when she wanted to go out riding on her unicorn. Finally, she’d tied her white hair back into a long plait to keep it out of her way, and fastened it with a sparkly violet ribbon.
An hour after their arrival, the supplies had all been unloaded and it was the explorers’ turn to walk down the gangplank, their snow boots crunching over the frost that had already formed into a fine sparkling coat across the thick wooden boards. The ship’s captain came down to see them off, and one of the ship’s flags was staked into the ice to mark the spot where the Bold Adventurer would return for them in two weeks’ time, after enjoying a spot of whaling out on the open sea. Then the photographer set up the camera on its tripod, and the two teams gathered around the flag to have their picture taken.
The camera needed them to stand still for quite a long time for it to work. Stella wasn’t very good at standing still and so she scratched her nose at just the wrong moment, causing her face to come out blurred in the black and white photo the camera printed out. She couldn’t help thinking that the adult explorers
