Explorers on Witch Mountain by Alex Bell

Author:Alex Bell [Alex Bell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571332571
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2018-12-07T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The mountain path wasn’t the easiest to climb, and they found themselves slipping and sliding on the snow every time it got too steep. At one point, they passed a little cloud of magical vulture confetti, each tiny vulture flapping its wings as it flew along.

‘They’re following in the path of the real vulture,’ Cadi said, pointing them out. ‘The spell will start to wear off eventually and they’ll hop along on the ground for a bit before finally turning back into ordinary paper. You might see some on the floor as we go.’

They all automatically glanced down at the path around them and then Beanie said, ‘Oh, look, that screaming pumpkin doesn’t have any teeth!’ He turned to Stella and said, ‘Do you think I should take it back as a present for Moira? Perhaps then she’ll come to my party.’

Moira was Beanie’s cousin, and at Beanie’s last birthday had announced that she was never coming to one of his parties again because he was weird and she didn’t like him.

‘Forget Moira,’ Stella said with a sigh. ‘She’s always so horrible to you. I don’t know why you try so hard to be friends with her.’ She noticed, however, that Beanie picked the pumpkin up anyway and strapped it to the back of Nigel’s saddle with a great deal of care.

Eventually, they were out of the pumpkin patches and the path levelled out, turning away from the mountain edge and leading them into the crags of the mountain itself.

‘Can’t you shut him up?’ Ethan asked, jerking his thumb towards Gus. The walrus had kept up an almost constant stream of bellowing since they set out.

‘He talks to himself when he’s happy,’ Cadi replied.

‘Well, he’s giving our position away to any witch who might happen to pass by,’ Ethan grumbled. ‘Between that and the jungle fairies’ chant of doom, we’re making quite a racket. We might as well all start blowing trumpets to announce our location.’

‘We didn’t bring any trumpets,’ Beanie said, giving him a puzzled look. ‘And I don’t think that would be a very good idea, at any rate.’

They continued on in this manner for most of the day, climbing further and further up the mountain, as the air became increasingly colder and sharper around them.

They were some way into the afternoon when Shay suddenly lifted his head and said, ‘What was that?’

‘I didn’t hear anything,’ Stella replied, but the words were barely out of her mouth when a faint howling filled the air.

‘Oh no,’ Cadi said, stopping on the path. ‘It’s the witch wolves. They don’t normally come out until nightfall.’

‘What are witch wolves?’ Ethan demanded. ‘They sound bad.’

Cadi turned to look at them, her face pale. ‘They are,’ she said. The fact that the hunter was worried was a little unnerving to the others, especially given that she’d jumped onto a flying shark’s back with no sign of fear at all. ‘They’re soul eaters,’ she said. ‘But we’ve got another problem to deal with right now.

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