The Polar Bear Explorers' Club by Alex Bell (books for 8th graders TXT) 📕

‘Then go away,’ Skullface said. ‘This here is an outlaw hideout. Bandits and outlaws only.’

Stella silently groaned. She’d known that a luxurious hotel out here was too good to be true. It should really have come as no surprise that the frosties had sent them straight to an outlaw hideout.

‘Please, we need help,’ Shay said, and Stella could clearly hear the desperation in his voice. ‘Our friend is hurt.’

One of the bandits glanced at Ethan. ‘Frostbitten,’ he said unhelpfully. ‘He’s a goner.’

‘What?’ Shay was aghast. ‘Are you saying he’ll die?’

The bandit shrugged. ‘Chop off his fingers and toes and maybe he’ll live. Then again, maybe he won’t. It’s his best chance anyway.’

‘I’ve got an axe you can borrow,’ Skullface put in helpfully. ‘It’s a bit blunt but it should do the job all right, if you keep hacking.’

‘You’ve g-g-got to be j-j-joking!’ Ethan gasped. Stella could feel that he was trembling from head to foot. Or was that her? It was quite hard to tell.

‘I use it for chopping wood mostly,’ Skullface continued with a shrug. ‘But you’re welcome to it. As long as you clean it afterwards, of course. I don’t want blood all over the blade and staining the handle. Even frostbitten fingers bleed quite a lot when you chop ’em off. And it’s a bit blunt, like I say, so you’ll have to put some muscle into it otherwise you won’t cut through the bone. Do it outside, though, eh? We don’t want all that gore and mess and screaming in here.’ He proceeded to produce from beneath the table the most gigantic axe Stella had ever seen in her life. He held it out to them helpfully.

Ethan fainted dead away, almost dragging Shay and Stella down to the floor with him. They tightened their grip around the unconscious magician, and Stella could feel her shoulders burning with the effort of holding him up.

A chair over in the corner of the room suddenly scraped back, and a huge man walked towards them. He must have only recently come in from outside because Stella could see ice glinting in his reddish-coloured beard.

‘Hey,’ he spoke in a friendly, lazy drawl. ‘Have you kids got any moustache wax? Explorers normally carry moustache wax.’

‘What?’ Shay gave him an incredulous look. ‘Can’t you see that we’re dealing with an emergency here, man?’

‘Sure. That’s why I—’

‘Go away!’ Stella snapped. ‘We’ve got more important things to deal with right now.’

‘Do I look like the kind of guy who waxes his moustache or oils his beard?’

Stella had to admit that he did not. In fact, he looked more like the kind of person who had strange things living in his beard, or saved bits of food in there for later.

‘You don’t look like you wax your moustache, but it would probably improve your appearance enormously if you did,’ Beanie said, trying to be helpful. ‘I’ve got some moustache wax. Here, you can have it.’

Stella didn’t know why Beanie had even bothered to bring the foul-smelling stuff, but was too horrified at the prospect of having to chop off all Ethan’s fingers and toes to worry too much about it just then.

‘Captain Filibuster’s Expedition-Strength Moustache Wax,’ the man read off the tin. ‘Yep. That’ll do the job just fine.’ He snapped his fingers and said, ‘Get your friend up on the table. I’ll sort him for you.’

Stella tightened her grip around Ethan. This could not be happening. This simply could not. She had not signed up for blood everywhere and chopped-off fingers. She had not signed up for that at all.

‘There’s got to be some other way,’ Shay said desperately. ‘We can’t let you chop all his fingers off! I mean, we just can’t!’

‘I ain’t gonna chop his fingers off,’ Redbeard replied. ‘Keep your shirt on. I’m talking about another way. One that don’t involve blood and gore and screaming. It’s the most effective cure for frostbite I know. And I’ll share it with you on one condition.’ He pointed a stern finger at them. ‘You gotta promise to leave all mention of the Yak and Yeti out of your Flag Report. Yep, I know all about them,’ he said at their surprised expressions. ‘Carried enough explorers on my ship in me day before switching to carrying convicts.’

Stella frowned. ‘Are you saying that you’re a ship’s captain?’

‘Used to be,’ Redbeard replied. ‘Captain Ajay Ajax, at your service.’ He gave them a little bow. ‘Got stranded here during my last voyage trying to take this lot—’ (he gestured to the other men) ‘—to the prison colonies on the other side of the world. Darned ship got trapped in the ice and that was that. We’ve been here ever since. And it ain’t a bad spot when all’s said and done, so the last thing we want is a bunch of law-makers chasing after us because you kids yapped about our hideout in your report. This lot don’t want to be hauled away in chains again, and I don’t want to go back to being a ship’s captain sailing on an ocean full of dangerous sea monsters. Not when I can be warm and safe here in the tavern that I always dreamed of owning, ever since I were a boy—’

‘Okay, okay, we get it,’ Stella said. ‘We won’t tell anyone about you. Please just tell us how we can help our friend without using an axe!’

Captain Ajax held up the tin of moustache wax and said, ‘This heals frostbite as well as anything. Not what it was made for, right enough, and I only discovered it meself by accident when we got stranded here. You just need to apply it to the first bite, and any bits that have turned blue, and he’ll be right as rain by the morning.’

Stella wasn’t really sure she believed that moustache wax could cure frostbite, but she was willing to try anything if it meant they didn’t have to start chopping off fingers in the snow outside.

The outlaws at the nearest