The Forbidden Expedition (Volume 2) (The Polar Bear Explorers’ Club, Band 2) - Hardcover

Buch 2 von 6: The Polar Bear Explorers? Club

Bell, Alex

 
9781534406490: The Forbidden Expedition (Volume 2) (The Polar Bear Explorers’ Club, Band 2)
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1534406492 ISBN 13: 9781534406490
Verlag: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2019

Inhaltsangabe

Stella and the gang travel to Witch Mountain to save Felix and what they find along the way could change the course of their adventures forever in this second novel in the whimsical Polar Bear Explorers’ Club series.

Stella Starflake Pearl has been eagerly awaiting her next adventure, ever since she and Felix returned from the Snowy Icelands. She fears, however, that she might never be sent on another expedition, especially since the president of the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club himself is afraid of her ice princess powers. But when disaster strikes and Felix is snatched by a fearsome witch, Stella and the rest of the junior explorers—including a reluctant new ally from the Jungle Cat Explorers’ Club—must set off into the unknown on a forbidden journey to the top of Witch Mountain.

What awaits them there is a mystery. The only thing they know is this: No one ever returns from Witch Mountain.

In the second installment of Alex Bell’s magical The Polar Bear Explorers’ Club series, Stella and the gang face villainous vultures, terrifying witch wolves, flying sharks, and eerie picnicking teddy bears on their daring quest to save one of their own.

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Alex Bell has always wanted to be a writer but had several different back up plans to ensure she didn’t end up in the poor house first. After training as a lawyer, she now works at the Citizens Advice Bureau, a legal advice firm in the UK. Most of her spare time consists of catering to the whims of her Siamese cat.

Tomislav Tomic graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, Croatia. He started publishing his illustrations during his college days, and since then has illustrated a great number of books, picture books, school books, and many covers for children’s books. He lives and works in Zaprešic, Croatia.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter One Imgae CHAPTER ONE
STELLA STARFLAKE PEARL SAT down on her favorite ice bench in the backyard and sighed. Her recent expedition with her friends Beanie, Shay, and Ethan had been extensively covered in all the papers and expedition journals—not just because the four junior explorers had been the first to reach the coldest part of the Icelands, and not only because Stella was the first girl to ever be admitted to the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club, but also because it turned out that Stella was actually an ice princess.

She looked over at the witch puppet she’d brought back with her from the Icelands. When she’d discovered it was a magical thing that could move around all by itself, she’d been delighted, but her adoptive father, Felix, had insisted on taking the puppet away and shutting it up in the top room of the East Wing.

From her position on the bench, Stella could now just make out the pointed outline of the witch’s hat as the puppet walked up and down the windowsill of the turreted bedroom. Every now and then the witch would stop and rap her wooden knuckles on the glass. The sound carried clearly to Stella through the frozen air, making her shiver.

“She won’t be locked up forever,” Felix had promised. “But we can’t be too careful. This puppet is an exact likeness of Jezzybella. Not only did she kill your parents, but she tried her best to kill you, too. I’ve heard of witches making images of themselves and then being able to see through their eyes. If that’s what this puppet is, then we can’t have it anywhere near you.”

Stella knew that what Felix said was perfectly sensible, and yet deep in her gut she couldn’t help feeling that he was wrong about the puppet. Yes, it was a toy version of the witch who had killed the snow queen and king, but Stella had felt compulsively drawn to it back at the ice castle, and she still did somehow now.

The small, sad sound of the puppet rapping her tiny knuckles against the glass carried through the air once again, and she had to force herself not to run up to the turret to let her out. Felix had sent for a puppet expert from Coldgate, and until he arrived she would leave the witch where she was.

Stella smoothed out the powder-blue skirts of her dress and ran a finger lightly over the sparkly silver crowns stitched into the fabric. Her magical tiara had been put on display with other curiosities at the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club, and word of the junior explorers’ adventures had traveled fast. In the two weeks since she’d been back, gifts had poured in from people Stella had never even met. There had been dresses, lace gloves, beautiful boxes of pink jellies dusted with powdered sugar, tiny unicorn dolls, and more besides.

At first Stella had been delighted. Everyone likes getting presents, after all, and people send rather nice ones to ice princesses. But they send not-so-nice things too. Letters saying that ice princesses did not belong in civilized society, that they ought to stay out in the wilds of the Icelands, nursing their frozen hearts and casting their evil spells. Felix had taken those letters and tossed them straight onto the fire, telling her to pay them no heed and that everything would die down soon enough, but Stella still felt a cold little stone of worry about it, right in the pit of her stomach.

She was distracted from her concerns when her pet polar bear, Gruff, came lumbering over to her across the snowy lawn. Felix had rescued Gruff from the snow just like he had rescued Stella, and the great white bear had been her best friend for as long as she could remember. Visitors to the house were often startled by his enormous size—especially when he stood up on his back legs, which he did whenever he really wanted to show off and look fantastically handsome. He stood more than ten feet tall, towering over even the tallest man. He’d done this the first time he’d ever met Aunt Agatha—Felix’s overbearing, bossy sister—who had let out the most terrible shriek and then fainted dead away in a cloud of petticoats and perfume. Stella had thought the screaming and fainting was terribly rude, especially as Felix had made Gruff look very handsome with a fetching bow tie he’d had specially made for the occasion.

Gruff shoved his black nose into the pockets of Stella’s cloak in search of his favorite fish biscuits. She gave him a gentle shove and told him to sit. He flumped down obediently in the snow, and Stella rewarded him by tossing him a treat. The bear crunched it up happily, spraying crumbs everywhere, then licked Stella’s cheek before lumbering off toward the lake. Felix had told Stella once that polar bears were very fast runners and could reach top speeds of twenty-five miles an hour, but Stella had never seen Gruff move any faster than a sedate lumber. This may have been because Gruff had been born with a twisted paw, but then again, perhaps he was just a big old lazy bear (which is what Stella really thought).

She stood up from the bench. There was no point moping around worrying. Felix always said that if you were feeling a bit anxious or upset, the best solution was to jump straight into doing something useful and/or fun. Preferably fun, of course, because fun things were much more effective at cheering up a person than a useful thing could ever be.

Stella glanced over to where Felix stood on the terrace, examining the glass fairy globe the fairies had given him the day before. Fairies were terribly fond of Felix, so it made sense that his explorer’s specialty should be fairyology. There were several fairies flitting about him now—Stella could see the sparkle of their wings from across the yard.

Felix looked up and gave Stella a wave. She waved back and then settled herself down in the snow to make a snow bear. She would have much preferred to make a snow unicorn, but they were a lot more difficult and she had never managed to get one quite right. She put her gloved hand down, ready to scoop up her first snowball, when a crackle of blue sparks leapt from her fingertips.

She froze. There before her was a perfect, sparkling snow unicorn. It was no more than four inches tall, but Stella could see each individual strand of hair in its flowing mane, the twists in its white horn, and even a collection of fine, feathered eyelashes. The unicorn’s beautiful snow eyes gazed directly at Stella, as if it could really see her—as if it was waiting for her to say something.

Stella gazed around in confusion. Had someone else come into the backyard and made the unicorn? But there was nobody around except for Felix, and even he couldn’t make snow animals as detailed and perfect as that. And surely it hadn’t been there just moments ago. One minute she had wished for a unicorn made of snow, and the next, sparks had shot from her fingers and one had appeared. Almost like magic. But Stella couldn’t do ice magic. Not without her tiara. And that was miles away in a cabinet inside the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club. …

Slowly, she reached out a hand toward the unicorn. As her fingertips got closer, she could have sworn that one of its ears twitched, just slightly—

The sound of breaking glass made her jump, and she snatched back her hand.

“Stella!” Felix shouted, and she was alarmed by the sound of panic in his voice.

She turned to look over her shoulder and saw that...

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Verlag
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Erscheinungsdatum
2019
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1534406492
ISBN 13 
9781534406490
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Zeichner
Tomic Tomislav
Anzahl der Seiten
352
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Verantwortliche Person
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