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

Felix grunted in response, which really wasn’t very much like Felix at all. Stella glanced around at him and said, ‘Are you all right? You’ve gone an awfully funny colour – sort of like putty.’

Felix staggered over to the bottom bunk and flopped down on it. ‘Sea sickness,’ he groaned.

‘Already?’ she said. ‘We’re barely out of the harbour.’

‘Gets me every time. I need to lie completely flat and not move a muscle.’

Stella wrinkled her nose. That didn’t sound like much fun at all, especially when there was a whole ship out there to explore.

‘Can I do anything to help?’ she offered reluctantly.

‘No, nothing helps,’ Felix replied. He was gripping the edge of the mattress so hard that his knuckles had turned white. ‘Nothing at all.’

‘Can I go and have a look around, then?’ Stella asked, already edging towards the door.

‘All right but, listen – don’t go out on deck whilst the weather’s bad. I don’t want you getting washed overboard. And come straight back here if the storm hits.’

Stella promised she would, and then hurriedly left the cabin before Felix could change his mind.

*

Exploring turned out to be every bit as thrilling as Stella had imagined. Some of the Polar Bear explorers were having a cocktail party in the gramophone room, with lots of thick cigar smoke and irritatingly loud laughter and flamboyant moustache-twirling, so Stella gave that a wide berth and headed to the lower decks instead. Down in the hold she came across their stored supplies, which included sleds, tents, snowshoes, tin cups – and rifles, in case they came across any woolly mammoths, yetis or bandits. Or angry gnomes, Stella supposed. There was also a giant crate of iced gems for the unicorns. Stella couldn’t resist sneaking a few of the yummy biscuit treats on her way past, taking care to pick out only the pink ones.

The ship was now out in open water and bobbing around like a cork, which made walking in a straight line particularly difficult. In no time at all, she was lost again. Stella was delighted. She’d never really had the chance to get lost before and found it a perfectly delicious feeling, not knowing where she might come out next or who she might meet.

One couldn’t help where one got lost, so it wasn’t entirely Stella’s fault that she found herself up on deck where Felix had told her not to go. She just happened across a ladder – which she climbed – only to enter the wolf kennels, filled with the smell of wet fur and sweet hay. She tried to tell herself that she wasn’t technically out on deck, since the kennels had a roof and some canvas walls, but these were flapping about like anything, with icy air whistling in through the gaps, along with occasional flurries of snow and steam from the great ship’s funnels. She could hear the wind roaring and the waves beating against the wooden sides.

Stella was just thinking that she really shouldn’t be here, and ought to get back down below, when a heavy thump made her turn around.

There was a boy at the back of the kennels, shifting great big piles of hay. He looked about a year older than Stella, with very dark hair that reached almost to his shoulders, golden brown skin and shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbow.

Stella felt a twinge of jealousy at his light brown skin. Until she’d started at the village school, she’d always assumed that there were other white children like her. But all the other kids at school were pink or black or brown. No one was white like she was, absolutely nobody. She came home from her first day crying, and when she told Felix the reason why, he had said, ‘Oh, my darling, it simply doesn’t do to be jealous of other people’s skins. Or of their possessions, or good fortune, or little triumphs. Nothing lies down that road but misery. The man – or woman – who walks around constantly comparing their lives to others’ will never be happy.’

‘But I’m different from all of them. No one else had white hair or skin. They said I was a ghost girl! Why can’t I just be normal?’

Felix scooped her up in his arms and kissed the top of her head. ‘I tried to be normal once, and it made me utterly miserable,’ he said. ‘So I gave it up and have been perfectly content ever since. It is no great achievement to be the same as everybody else, Stella. Being different is a perfectly fine thing to be, I promise you.’

Back on deck, Stella took a step further into the kennels and called a greeting to the boy at the back, raising her voice to be heard over the gale.

He turned around and lifted his eyebrows in surprise at the sight of her. ‘Hello there,’ he said. ‘I didn’t expect to see anyone else up here. Haven’t you noticed there’s a storm coming?’

‘You’re here, aren’t you?’

‘Sure, but I’m looking after the wolves.’ The boy’s clothes were covered in hay, and there were even pieces of it sticking out of his hair. He had brown eyes and wore a silver wolf pendant attached to a cord of leather around his neck. He also had an earring dangling from his left ear – Stella was pretty sure it was a wolf’s fang. It made him look like a pirate, which made her like him instantly.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked.

‘Shay Silverton Kipling.’

‘Captain Kipling’s son?’ Stella recognised the name of their expedition’s captain from all the times Felix had mentioned him.

‘That’s right,’ the boy replied.

‘I’m Stella Starflake Pearl.’

Shay grinned. ‘I know who you are. You’re Felix’s daughter. He’s visited our house to plan expeditions before. Mum says he’s one of the most charming men she’s ever met. He talks about you all the time, you know.’

Stella was pleased that Felix had talked about her, although she hoped