Explorers at Stardust City: the Explorers' Clubs, Book 6 by Alex Bell

Author:Alex Bell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2022-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The conversation that followed was full of excitement. Ursula and her friends learned that the Polar Bear team had been getting closer and closer to the Terrible Valleys and were now only a day’s journey away. Travelling with Stella’s dad were Shay, Ethan and Beanie.

‘We’re likely to arrive a little after you do,’ Shay told them. ‘Some time tomorrow, hopefully.’

‘If we don’t all get gobbled up by something first,’ Ethan’s exasperated voice came through the bracelet. ‘We’ve had several close shaves already, so it’s not looking good so far.’

‘How are you travelling?’ Ursula asked.

There was no snow in or around the Terrible Valleys so she guessed they must have abandoned their usual sleighs and sleds.

‘Flying carpet,’ Shay replied. ‘It’s a long story, but we came across a Weenus’s Trading Post, and by a stroke of luck he happened to have four working carpets to trade.’

‘I don’t know about a stroke of luck,’ Ethan said. ‘Mine seems to go haywire whenever I try to ride it.’

‘Perhaps if you treated it a little more courteously,’ Felix suggested mildly, ‘then it might behave better for you.’

‘It’s a carpet!’ Ethan scoffed. ‘I don’t know what the world has come to if I have to be courteous to a carpet. Next thing you know we’ve all got to be polite to door handles and considerate to dustpans—’

‘The point is, we’ll see you there,’ Shay said.

The explorers discussed their next steps and agreed that it might be a bit conspicuous if a bunch of flying carpets and a fairy space rocket went sailing straight into the Valley of Volcanoes, so they decided to meet in the neighbouring valley instead, which unfortunately was the Valley of Carnivorous Plants. No one was particularly happy about going near such a place – Ethan least of all since he was convinced he was going to be gulped down by an enraged sunflower of some kind, and didn’t seem much cheered when Beanie, who was an expert on the various ways explorers had met their demise, told him that this had never happened before.

‘I’ll be the first then,’ Ethan grumbled. ‘Lucky me.’

‘Oh no, if you were to be consumed by a sunflower it would be extremely unlucky for you,’ Beanie said. ‘Carnivorous sunflowers have over a thousand teeth, you see, so it would be terribly painful.’

‘We’ll meet you there,’ Jai said. ‘If we convene on the outskirts and don’t poke into the Valley of Carnivorous Plants any further then we have to, then hopefully no one will be attacked by flowers of any kind.’

They ended the call with a renewed sense of optimism. It would be good to meet up with their Polar Bear colleagues, especially when venturing into such unknown territory.

Bertie’s estimate had been accurate, and by that evening they were flying over the Terrible Valleys. ‘Terrible’ was certainly the right word for them. And it didn’t help that because they were all shrunk down to fairy size inside the rocket, everything looked as if it belonged to the land of the giants as well.

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