‘There was even one igloo that had tiny snow goblins inside, but that one struck me as just plain worrying. What on earth would you be supposed to think if someone presented you with an igloo full of snow goblins? When I looked in they seemed to be trying to poke each other’s eyes out with twigs. It was all getting quite violent.’
‘Sounds like the kind of present Aunt Agatha would give,’ Stella said, feeling glum again at the mention of her.
Stella loved the tiny penguins in their tiny igloo, just as she had loved all the other oddities, treasures and knickknacks that Felix had brought back from his travels. But what she really wanted – more than anything – was to find her own marvels and rarities to bring back home with her. She wanted to have her very own study, the walls lined with maps and charts, where she could spend as much time as she liked drawing up packing lists, inspecting her curiosities and planning her next adventure to strange and distant faraway lands on the other side of the world.
‘Your aunt does her best,’ Felix said. ‘She just … well, she finds our ways a little odd, that’s all. But she does care …’ A faint frown line appeared between his eyes as he looked out the window. ‘In her own way.’
Stella wasn’t at all sure about that. Felix had always introduced Stella to people as his daughter, and she knew he loved her as much as any father ever could, even if she was just another orphaned foundling he’d discovered in the snow. But Aunt Agatha had always looked at her with the same kind of mild distaste with which she looked at Gruff after he’d just done one of his long, loud, fish-biscuit burps.
Stella didn’t want to argue with Felix any more though, so she gave him a kiss goodnight, scrambled over Gruff and returned to her room. She set the igloo by the side of her bed, got changed and then climbed under the sheets where she stared up at the slowly revolving mobile which hung from the ceiling. She knew she was too old for mobiles now, but Felix had made this one for her when she was very small in order to make her feel more at home, and Stella loved it.
He’d designed it to remind her of where she’d come from, stringing it with shaggy-haired yetis, snow-white unicorns, massive woolly mammoths and sparkling silver stars. There were even abominable snowmen and cloven-hooved yaks on there, all painstakingly created from clay and beads and wool and sparkling glass stones. Stella had only been a couple of years old when Felix had found her – too young to remember anything about her life before. And yet, sometimes she’d dream she was a baby again, sat on a bed, playing with a tiara covered in crystals and pearls and ice-white gems. Then the image would shift, and she’d be outside and there would be blood splattered across the snow …
Stella knew she would never find out what had happened to her or her biological family, but the frozen wilderness out there had been her home once and she wanted to see it again for herself.
And when Felix and his expedition attempted to be the first explorers to reach the coldest part of the Icelands, Stella wanted to be there with them. She just needed to think of a way to get Felix to let her come.
Finally, she sighed, turned over in bed and snuggled down deeper into the covers, where she fell asleep to the sound of the quiet, happy honking of the penguins in their igloo.
CHAPTER TWO
Stella woke up the next morning to the sun streaming through her bedroom windows and warming her toes where they stuck out the end of her bed. She sat up and wondered whether she might feel different now that she was twelve. Not that they could know her real age for sure, but Felix thought she’d been about two when he first found her. He said everyone should celebrate their birthday once a year (ideally twice), so he’d decided that the day he found Stella in the snow would be her official birthday.
The muffled sound of a party whistle drew her attention to the tiny igloo by her bedside, and she picked it up and peered in at the family of penguins. It looked like one of them must be having a birthday too, because the penguins all wore paper party hats, and were blowing party whistles, and there was a cake in the shape of a fish with a whole load of candles stuck in it. One of the penguins – presumably the birthday boy or girl (it was hard to tell with penguins) – was clapping its wings together and making little honking noises of excitement. Remembering what Felix had said about singing to them, Stella sang ‘Happy Birthday’ through the door of the igloo, which immediately caused a great furore, with all the penguins running around in circles, their big feet slapping noisily on the ice. Stella smiled and put the igloo back by the side of her bed.
With an effort, she pushed all thoughts of Felix’s imminent departure, and her own dreary imprisonment with Aunt Agatha, out of her mind. It would be a terrible waste to let it ruin her birthday. You only turned twelve once, after all.
She put on her most favourite special occasion dress. It was powder blue, with tiny white buttons in the shape of polar bears, and a glorious petticoat skirt, which puffed up beautifully when Stella spun round in a circle, making her feel rather like one of the sugar plum fairies she sometimes saw dancing in the garden at midnight.
She tied her white hair back with a blue ribbon, then went down the vast staircase that led to the lower floor. Like most explorers, Felix was extremely wealthy,
