Unfortunately, she wasn’t quite as agile as Shay, and she landed on her back rather than her feet. She supposed she ought to count herself lucky that she hadn’t landed on the axe which was still gripped in her hand – but, even so, landing from that height really, seriously hurt! She groaned, gasping for breath, but before she had time to work out if she’d broken any bones, Shay was taking the axe from her grip, and Ethan was dragging her to her feet.
‘Come on, come on,’ the magician was saying, hurrying her up.
Beanie grabbed the baby volcano Shay had dropped and they all ran towards the door. Stella heard a thumping, rolling sound behind her and glanced back to see that some of the cabbages had fallen from the plant and were rolling across the floor towards them, gnashing their teeth and leaving wet trails of drool and saliva in their wake.
‘The cabbages are following us!’ she yelled, which wasn’t a sentence she’d ever thought she’d speak unless she was seriously ill and suffering from the most appalling hallucinations.
Shay reached the door first and kicked the plant pot away before dragging open the door and turning back round to brandish the axe at the cabbages. Beanie raced through the door first, closely followed by Koa and Stella. She heard a thump, thump behind her as Shay chopped at the hissing, rolling vegetables. But there were too many of them, and Stella heard the rip of boot leather and then Ethan yell as he tumbled out into the corridor. Shay was right behind him, slamming the door firmly closed, and they all heard the thuds of a dozen cabbages slamming into the door only seconds later.
One of them had made it out, though – and it had its teeth firmly clamped into Ethan’s ankle.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
‘It was so obviously going to be me who got bitten by the cabbage!’ Ethan moaned. ‘I mean, it was just never going to be anyone else, was it?’
He bent down, intending to grab the slobbering vegetable and yank it out of his foot, but Shay stopped him. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘We should probably find something to put it in first. Otherwise it’ll only start snapping at us all the moment it’s free.’
‘He’s right. We should leave it where it is for now,’ Stella said.
‘That’s easy for you to say!’ Ethan exclaimed. ‘It’s not your ankle it’s got its fangs sunk into! We don’t need anything to put it in because I’m going to stamp on it as soon as it’s off.’
‘You can’t!’ Beanie said. ‘We should take it with us.’
‘Oh, good idea! Perhaps we can make a salad out of it,’ Ethan suggested sarcastically.
‘Gross and horrible though it may be, it’s still a scientific find,’ Shay said. He slapped the magician on the back. ‘Well done for capturing it, Prawn.’
‘I haven’t captured it,’ Ethan replied. ‘It’s captured me.’
‘Well, we should still take it back to the club as a specimen,’ Shay said.
‘I am not travelling all the way back to Coldgate with a cabbage embedded in my foot.’ Ethan crossed his arms over his chest. ‘I won’t do it.’
‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ Shay replied. ‘We’ll stick it in the top-hat box once we get back to the sled.’
Ethan groaned. ‘You’re giving me a headache again,’ he said. But he accepted that the cabbage – which seemed to have got its teeth stuck in the leather of the magician’s boot, as well as his actual foot – would stay where it was until they returned to the sled.
The four of them made their way back through the ship and up to the deck, where Ethan forced Beanie to hand over his wooden narwhal before he would agree to be tied to him again. Beanie fussed a little, but Ethan was adamant.
‘I have already been bitten by a cabbage today – I refuse to be dragged off a ladder as well,’ he said. ‘I promise I’ll look after it but I’m not going to be tied to you again unless that narwhal is in my pocket instead of yours.’
Beanie was finally persuaded to hand it over.
‘Have you got any other prized possessions about your person you want to declare?’ Ethan enquired. ‘Any precious jewels or sacred icons you’d like me to take charge of?’
‘No,’ Beanie said. ‘There’s just Aubrey.’
They slowly climbed down the ladder in single file as before, except this time they made Ethan go first since no one fancied having their head near his feet if the cabbage managed to get itself free from Ethan’s boot and needed to find something else to clamp its teeth into.
As soon as they reached the bottom, the goose came flapping out of the tent towards them and honked at Stella until she picked her up. Stella stroked her head and felt the goose begin to settle.
‘Here,’ Ethan said, handing the narwhal back to Beanie. ‘Do us all a favour and put it somewhere safe, for goodness sake.’
The wolves, too, were very pleased to see them, flocking around Shay and fidgeting, eager to be off once again. First, though, they had to deal with the cabbage. The top-hat box was fetched from the sled, and opened up in preparation. The cabbage was wedged in deep, and it took all four of the explorers to prise it off. It turned on them the moment it was free, snapping its awful teeth in an extremely menacing way, but they managed to wrestle it into the box without any further mishap. Unfortunately, though, it left a few rather large fangs embedded through Ethan’s boot and into his foot.
‘I knew I might get bitten by a snow shark when I came to the Icelands, but I never thought I’d be savaged by a cabbage!’ Ethan exclaimed. ‘I have all the bad luck.’
‘You have all the fun,’ Stella sighed.
‘If you really think so then why don’t you stick your hand in the box?’ Ethan said, offering it to
