‘It’s a fine plan, Agatha,’ she heard him say, making a thrill of dread run through her entire body. ‘But I’m not convinced that Stella would care much for embroidery.’
Stella risked a glance up through the pink marshmallows of the shrub and was startled to find Felix looking right at her. His mouth quirked upwards slightly in a half smile, and he gave her a wink.
‘Besides which,’ he went on, scratching his cheek, ‘walking up and down with books balanced on one’s head seems like the most dreadful waste of one’s time. I know I’m no expert on womanly things, but there’s got to be more to a young girl’s life than singing and dancing, surely? They’re not performing monkeys, after all.’
‘Felix, I really must insist. The arrangements have all been made. Stella will start at the school tomorrow.’
‘My dear Agatha, I know you mean well, but you have no right to insist. In fact, you have no say in this matter at all. Stella will not start at the school – tomorrow or ever.’ Felix turned around from the window. ‘Thank you for coming, but I think, in fact, I shan’t need you to look after Stella on this occasion.’
‘You can’t mean that you’re just going to leave her here with the servants and these awful dinosaur things?’ Agatha said. ‘She needs to be properly supervised!’
‘I will supervise her properly. She’ll come with me on the expedition.’
Stella gasped. Aunt Agatha’s mouth gaped open. ‘You can’t take a girl on an expedition, Felix! It cannot be done!’
‘Why can’t it be done?’ Felix asked, at once. ‘I’m sure a great number of extraordinary and incredible things have been achieved despite others saying that they cannot be done. Sometimes maybe even because of it.’
‘Girls can’t be explorers! The very idea! Can you honestly imagine a woman tearing about the place with sleighs and compasses, and getting stuck in avalanches, and resorting to cannibalism, and goodness knows what else? No, no – it’s all much too dangerous, much too unseemly.’
‘First of all, I’ve been a polar explorer for twenty years,’ Felix said calmly, whilst ticking the points off on his fingers, ‘and I have never yet been stuck in an avalanche. Secondly, we use sleds during expeditions, not sleighs, and, thirdly, explorers haven’t eaten each other for decades. Not for decades, Agatha. The field of exploration has come along in leaps and bounds. If twelve-year-old boys can join the expedition, I see no reason why Stella should not.’
‘You can’t be serious, Felix. This is too much, even for you. You simply cannot be serious. I won’t believe it.’
‘I try not to be serious wherever possible, Agatha, but right now, I don’t think I’ve ever been more serious in my whole life. I’m sorry you wasted your trip. Thank you for coming. Please do have some biscuits or marmalade or something before you go. You’ll forgive me if I don’t stay and chat any longer, though. Stella and I have rather a lot of packing to do.’
It was the best birthday present Stella could have possibly asked for. Felix left Aunt Agatha fuming in the orangery, and Stella almost tripped over her petticoats as she raced around to meet him back inside the house.
‘Did you mean it?’ she asked, throwing her arms around his waist.
‘Of course I meant it, sweetling,’ Felix replied. ‘When do I ever say anything I don’t mean?’
‘But the rules of the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club are—’
‘Never mind about that,’ Felix said. ‘We’ll deal with that when we get there. The important thing right now is to get everything ready so we’re in time to catch the train tomorrow. Can you pack your bits and your bobs by yourself, or would you like me to help?’
‘I can do it by myself,’ Stella promised him.
The rest of the day was spent in a whirlwind of preparation. After making one more futile attempt to talk Felix into her way of thinking, Aunt Agatha had left the house in a huff. Felix gave Stella a big old suitcase covered in faded travel stickers, which was dusty and smelled like mothballs, but Stella thought it was the most perfect suitcase she’d ever seen. She ran around throwing clothes in at random, whilst also trying to work out what else she ought to take with her for a polar expedition.
She peered into her tiny igloo and saw that the penguins all appeared to be busily packing suitcases too – although, from the looks of it, their packing consisted entirely of smoked fish. Stella wrinkled her nose at the smell and put the igloo carefully down on her bedside table.
She pulled open the drawer underneath and took out the gold compass Felix had given her for her birthday last year. A proper explorer’s compass didn’t bother with North, South, East and West but could have as many as twenty headings – things like Food, Shelter, Yetis, Water and Angry Gnomes. Stella wasn’t too sure what the Angry Gnome heading was about – she’d never met an angry gnome, or any kind of gnome, come to that, but she fervently hoped she would see one on this expedition, and that it would be positively furious. Stella wanted to see absolutely everything.
The packing was completed by late afternoon, so Felix took Stella skating on the lake behind the house for an hour before dinner. When they returned home, the cook had prepared all of Stella’s favourite foods – miniature hot dogs, giant pizzas, purple macarons and jelly dragons – for her birthday dinner, which had been set out on the long table in the parlour. A fire blazed in the huge granite fireplace and Gruff snoozed contentedly on the rug in front of it.
Stella was quite stuffed with food by the time she
