Mitch announces that we are going to sail through the night to make up for lost time. I offer to help on the rigging, but it’s clear the orangutans don’t want me getting under their feet. So, while the sun sets, I lean back against Mitch’s hot tub (I have to, it’s freezing) and start to map the End.

Using paper and a pen borrowed from Mitch, I draw the line of mountains we sailed through and everything I can see ahead of us. I carefully draw the strange creatures I’ve already spotted: a huge, fluffy white whale, a whole gang of flying penguins, and some sort of manatee that I thought was a blob of seaweed until it lifted its head out of the water and started mewing.

There’s a bang as Mitch opens the trapdoor from her cabin. She drops into her hot tub, has a quick swim under the water, then comes to see what I’m doing. “That mountain’s way bigger,” she says, leaving a wet fingerprint on my map. “And tomorrow you’ll see that the islands are pointier . . . but I suppose this is all new to you.”

It is all new to me, but at the same time it feels strangely familiar, and I think I know why. Now we’re sailing through this world of pirate ships and whales and snow, I’m starting to wonder if it was mainly my ideas that got sent to the End. After all, it was me who was into pirates, and me who was obsessed with all things snowy. I’ve watched Frozen Planet loads of times and one Christmas I got the book and a cuddly baby seal. I used to pretend that seal was a killer whale and make it destroy boats full of Lego people.

Just then one of the furry whales arcs out of the water, racing alongside the ship. It fixes us with a small eye, shoots a fountain of glittering water from its blowhole, then disappears beneath the waves again.

“The orangutans reckon they can swallow you whole,” says Mitch with delight. Then she sighs, “I love it here!”

“Me too,” I say, and I realize this is true. My fingers might be aching and the air is so cold it’s hurting my lungs, but I feel happy in this world of ice and snow. I guess that’s because I made most of it.

“Wait until you see the Vampire,” says Mitch, and she bares her teeth at me and hisses.

“Are you being a vampire?”

“Yes,” she says, laughing, then she throws herself back in her hot tub and stares up at the stars.

Chapter 32

While Rose sleeps in Mitch’s cabin, Win and I share a dark, low-ceilinged room with the orangutans. They snuffle and snore, but at least their furry bodies keep the room warm.