‘We’ll be back here in twelve days’ time at sunrise,’ Captain Fitzroy told them, once the business of the photograph was finished. ‘We’ll wait one day and one night. After that we must set sail whether you have returned or not. Whale blubber doesn’t keep for too long below decks, I’m afraid. A rescue boat will no doubt come back for any lost members of the expedition, but there’s no telling how soon that will be organised or when it will arrive. So make sure you’re here on time if you don’t want an extended stay in an igloo.’
He wished them all good luck and then returned to his ship, shaking his head as if he couldn’t understand why anyone would be mad enough to willingly set off into a frozen wilderness in the first place.
The ship unfurled its auxiliary sails and set back the way it had come, leaving the explorers alone with the ice and yetis. Stella had hoped that the two clubs would take their leave of each other at this point, but instead it was decided that they would travel together as far as the giant ice bridge someone had spotted from the ship. Once there, one club would travel across to explore the other side, whilst the second club would explore the opposite side. The Icelands ought to be big enough for two expeditions, after all, and both clubs attempting to explore the same area would only lead to brawls, squabbles, loud whining and the inevitable duels.
To save time it was decided that the sleds would set off as they had been unloaded, and they would split up their provisions and supplies once they reached the ice bridge. Which was how Stella found herself sharing a sled with Shay, Beanie and – to her disgust – Ethan, who complained loudest of all about the arrangement.
Unfortunately, it seemed the children needed to ride together in the same sled because of weight distribution, so they piled in beneath a mountain of furs, and one of the adult Ocean Squid explorers hopped on the back to control the wolves, all of whom were panting excitedly in the freezing air, eager to be off. They tethered one of the unicorns to the back of the sled, then the explorer gave the command – and they were off, moving forwards over the snow, the other sleds following on behind them in an orderly line.
Stella was so delighted that she forgot to be grouchy about Ethan sitting next to her, his elbow wedged against her ribs. She drew her furred hood up over her head to protect her ears as the cold wind whistled past them. The wolves went faster than she’d been expecting, and she felt a fluttering of excited butterflies in her stomach, like having ten birthdays all come together. As the white landscape flashed past there was no sound except for the singing of the sled’s blades over the snow, and the panting of the wolves around them.
It was just white, white, white as far as the eye could see. Stella thought it was enchanting and beautiful, but beside her Ethan grunted, ‘Ice. Absolutely nothing but ice.’
Stella ignored him and let her thoughts soar with visions of snow sharks and woolly mammoths and abominable snowmen. She twisted in her seat and waved at Felix who was travelling in the sled behind. He grinned at her and waved back, and Stella thanked her lucky stars that she had managed to come on the expedition after all. She vowed to herself then and there that she’d show everyone that a girl could be every bit as good an explorer as any boy. Probably better, in fact, as she didn’t have a moustache to worry about.
The ice bridge, when they reached it about an hour later, was a mighty structure stretching the entire length between two sides of a deep, yawning chasm. It had looked large enough through the telescope, but now they were closer, it became immediately apparent that the bridge was too narrow to risk taking the expedition across. Barely four feet wide, it would only just have taken the wolf-sleds – one wrong step and the entire thing would go flying over the edge, and that would be the end of that. It was quickly decided that the bridge was impassable and that the two clubs should split up to try to find their own way to the other side.
If everything had gone to plan, they would have divided their provisions and gone their separate ways at this point. Stella, Shay and Beanie would have re-joined the members of the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club, and Ethan would have gone back to Ocean Squid. It is a well-known rule, however, that intrepid expeditions into the unknown do not always go to plan. And it was pure bad luck that an entire herd of woolly mammoths chose to stampede in the valley below at the precise moment that the explorers decided to move on from the bridge.
The wolves of the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club were all well-trained expedition wolves, and did not react to the noisy tramping and trumpeting of the mammoths. The Ocean Squid wolves, on the other hand, had been acquired cheaply and in haste. They had not received the same extensive training, had never even been on a single expedition, and, inevitably, took fright at the sound of twenty six-tonne woolly mammoths thundering by beneath them. The wolves on four of the sleds – including Stella’s – charged forwards in a blind panic, forcing the unicorn tethered behind to come along as well. Most of the sleds turned and went back the way they had come but Stella’s kept going – right towards the ice bridge.
Seeing what was about to happen, the
