‘You would prefer that I’d left an infant to freeze to death alone in the snow?’ Felix enquired, his face turning an interesting shade of pink. ‘Surely no human being with a shred of decency would contemplate such a thing for even a moment? Stella is the most precious person in the world to me; I would give my life for hers a hundred times over.’
‘Who knows where she came from or what she is?’ the ginger-moustache man insisted. Then he shuddered and said, ‘That girl gives me the creeps with her white hair and those icy blue eyes. They stare right through you, like there’s no soul in there at all. If you ask me, she ought to be—’
He didn’t get any further, however, because Felix hit him, with a clean, straight punch directly to the chin. Not expecting it, the explorer toppled over onto the floor with a heavy thud.
Stella clapped both hands over her mouth in shock. She remembered how Felix had occasionally mentioned being a boxing champion back in his youth, but she had always thought he was joking.
‘Stella has ten times the soul you have, you ignorant, bigoted fool!’ Felix ran a hand through his dishevelled hair, took a deep breath and said, ‘I have never once hit another man outside of the boxing ring in my whole life, but if you speak about my daughter like that in front of me again, I—’
‘Felix!’ Stella cried and, this time, everyone heard her, and the explorers all turned to stare as one.
‘Good heavens! Stella!’ Felix exclaimed, staring at her.
Taking advantage of the momentary distraction, the explorer on the floor scrambled to his feet and lunged towards Felix. Before he could reach him, however, Zachary Vincent Rook threw up his hand and the explorer instantly turned into a singing cucumber that rolled along the wooden boards, before coming to a stop beside Felix’s boot.
‘Bad form attacking a man when his back is turned,’ the magician said, shaking his head in disapproval. ‘Extremely bad form.’
Felix nodded his thanks to Zachary before carefully stepping over the cucumber – which was singing a sea shanty with great gusto – and running towards Stella as she hurried towards him. They met in the middle of the wolf pen where Felix caught Stella up and lifted her so high that her feet came right off the floor. Stella buried her face in the curve of his neck, breathing in his familiar scent of soap and peppermint.
‘My dearest girl,’ he said, finally setting her down, ‘Believe me when I say that I have never been more pleased to see you in my whole entire life.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURTWO WEEKS LATER
A warm welcome awaited them back at the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club, and a feast was held in honour of the returning explorers. After the collapse of the first ice bridge the adult explorers had been unable to reach the coldest part of the Icelands, but they had still managed to make a number of interesting discoveries during their expedition – including a yeti pool, a fairy polar bear habitat, and a boisterous dancing penguin colony. They’d even brought one of the dancing penguins back with them – his name was Monty, and he delighted the diners all evening with his enthusiastic show of jigs, slip-jigs, barn dances and can-cans.
It was the junior explorers who were enjoying the limelight, though. The president of the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club was thrilled to have another first for the club – even if it was a joint first with the Ocean Squid explorers. They had made it to the coldest part of the Icelands and that was something worth celebrating. Both clubs would take it in turns displaying the expedition’s discoveries, starting with the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club – which lost no time putting the carnivorous cabbage, starflakes and ice princess tiara on display.
The president even asked whether they might consider handing Dora over to be stuffed and placed in the front lobby along with the other captured beasts from the Icelands. Stella turned this request down flat and Felix had backed her up, as she’d known he would. This line of enquiry clearly made him nervous about Monty the dancing penguin’s safety, however, for Stella noticed Felix sneaking him into his bag when he thought no one was looking. Pinching a penguin – and a magic one at that – was a clear breach of club rules but Stella knew that Felix was wont to turn a blind eye to the rule book on occasion.
The discovery that the president of the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club was the most pleased with, however, was not the tiara, the cabbage, the starflakes or the magic goose – but the moustache spoon Stella had stolen from the frosties. The president proclaimed it the most ingenious invention ever created and it seemed likely that Stella might even get some kind of special reward for bringing it back with her.
The feast was in full swing, and for once there was an almost pleasant atmosphere between the Polar Bear explorers and those from Ocean Squid. Everyone seemed happy with the way things had turned out, although Zachary Vincent Rook kept saying things like: ‘Of course, if it hadn’t been for my boy, Ethan, they would all have probably been killed by that cabbage.’
And Ethan kept saying, ‘It was a joint effort, Father,’ and then rolling his eyes at the others apologetically.
Stella didn’t really mind who got the credit for what. Felix said exploring wasn’t about personal credit and that any explorer who only did it because they wanted to be famous was doomed to fail. You had to love exploring for the thrill alone, and Stella definitely did.
The junior explorers stayed at the table until
