Floods 6

by Colin Thompson

  She suspected that she might get quite emotional when she told them all her story and she wanted to make sure it was only her emotions that got carried away and not her ribs or any of those little tiny bones that are always so hard to find again.

  ‘What none of you know,’ she began, ‘is that my husband, the mean, horrible, fat King Quatorze, was not my first true love. No, my first love,’ and here she blushed as only a skeleton with virtually no skin left on it can blush, ‘was the dashingly handsome, incredibly rich, but not very intelligent Prince Wynegum of Patagonia.’

  ‘Patagonia? That’s where we go to school, Granny,’ said Merlinmary. ‘I never knew there was a Patagonian royal family.’

  ‘Prince Wynegum was the last,’ said the Queen sadly. ‘We were to be married and carry on the royal line so that Patagonia could once more claim its place as a leading world power.’

  ‘So what happened?’ said Mordonna.

  ‘We were touring small country towns in Belgium,’ the Queen continued. ‘I said no, let’s go to Wales or Tasmania, but I was overruled. I could sense impending doom. Have I ever told you that I have an unerring ability to sense impending doom?’

  ‘Yes,’ said everyone, beginning to sense impending boredom.

  ‘Well, we were performing in the little town of Silly32 on a cold December night. My beloved was about to do his high-wire act, where he walked blindfolded above the stage reciting Shakespeare’s The Tempest and juggling seven pork pies and a Jell-O model of the Eiffel Tower, before leaping into a bowl of custard balanced on a small boy’s head. This was nothing unusual. He had performed this act dozens of times, on several occasions with his trousers on fire, and even once with seven live chickens down his trousers – not at the same time his trousers were on fire, of course – but this night was different,’ said the Queen.

  She fell silent and for a few minutes no one said anything.

  ‘Go on, Granny,’ said Betty.

  ‘Well, on this particular night there was a terrible storm in Silly. The thunder and lightning were so loud you could hardly hear yourself speak, even on stage. Prince Wynegum, being right up near the roof on his high wire, could hear nothing but the hail crashing on the roof. But, being a true professional, he didn’t let that stop him. He began his walk and was halfway across when the biggest thunderclap ever recorded in the whole of Europe exploded above his head. The roof split open and a massive bolt of lightning crashed through, looking for some metal. It found some – my beloved’s crown. He lit up like a firework, and the audience, thinking it was part of the act, cheered their heads off as my darling flew up into the air and came down headfirst into the bowl of custard, cooked to a crisp. As the storm died down, the theatre was filled with the smell of burnt custard and roast prince. I have never been able to eat either since.’

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ said Mordonna.

  ‘What happened to the boy who had the bowl of custard on his head?’ said Morbid.

  ‘We never saw him again,’ said the Queen. ‘Though there are stories that his ghost appears in the Silly theatre every time there is a thunder storm.’

  ‘Does my father know this story?’ Mordonna asked.

  ‘Of course not, darling,’ said the Queen. ‘He is so stupid and so vain, he thinks it was his charm that won me over.’

  ‘You’re kidding,’ said Mordonna.

  Winchflat couldn’t quite understand why, considering his grandmother was a powerful witch, she hadn’t just cast a spell to make the King nicer.

  ‘Some things are just too damaged for magic to fix,’ said Queen Scratchrot, reading her grandson’s mind. ‘Believe me, I tried, but the best I could do was remove the ugly boils from his neck – and even that didn’t work properly. They didn’t so much go away as move down to his bottom. Still, it meant I didn’t have to look at them any more, because I can honestly say in all my years of marriage to the King, I never once saw his bottom.’

  ‘Yeugh, Granny,’ said Betty.

  ‘Too much information,’ said Mordonna with a shudder.

  ‘So how did you actually meet him?’ asked Winchflat.

  ‘He was standing outside the stage door of the theatre one night asking every single person who came out if they would marry him. His parents had kicked him out of Transylvania Waters and told him he couldn’t go back until he was married,’ the Queen explained. ‘Everyone else said no, of course, but when he asked me, I was so depressed over losing my sweetheart that I said, “Yeah, whatever,” and before I knew it I was being whisked away in a coach and we were married before we reached the border.’

  ‘How awful,’ said Mordonna, who had married Nerlin for love and his incredible good looks.

  Everyone felt rather depressed after the Queen’s sad story, but fortunately by then it was time to go back to the hotel for dinner.

  It wasn’t until they were all sitting down in the dining room that they realised one of the children was missing.

  Satanella.

  ‘Well, where is she?’ said Mordonna when Betty said she couldn’t find her. ‘She was on the beach with us, wasn’t she?’

  ‘I don’t know where she is,’ said Betty when she came down from checking their rooms. ‘I’ve looked everywhere.’

  ‘She’s probably playing with the baby Hulbert.’

  ‘Claude,’ said Betty.

  ‘Yes, that one,’ said Mordonna. ‘You know how they adore each other.’

  ‘No, she’s not, that was the first place I checked. Claude’s having his bath. He managed to get an incredible amount of sand in all his chubby creases, not to mention quite a lot of seaweed up his nose.’

  ‘OK, so let’s try to remember the last time we saw her,’ said the Queen.

  ‘It was on the beach,’ said the twins. ‘We were throwing sticks in the sea for her.’

  ‘She didn’t get washed away by that angry water, did she?’ said Nerlin, looking quite alarmed.

  ‘Or eaten by a shark?’ said Merlinmary, imagining her sister all chewed up in little bits.

  ‘There was a shark, but Satanella chased it and it swam off terrified,’ said Morbid.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said Valla. ‘I saw her going off along the beach and that was after the stick throwing.’

  They worked out that early that afternoon had been the last time any of them had seen Satanella.

  ‘I bet she was going off after a scent trail,’ said Betty. ‘Satanella can’t resist a good smell.’

  The family agreed that Betty could be right. Like all dogs, Satanella was prone to picking up those scents that can hypnotise dogs so much that, no matter what else is going on around them, they are in a little world all of their own. You could drop a bomb, make it rain lamb chops and throw a million red rubber balls, but nothing would be able to pull them away from the irresistible scent trail. The trail could go underground, up a tree, across a river, under a warthog’s armpit and even into the finest Belgian sausage factory, but the dog would follow it to the ends of the earth.

  ‘I hope she hasn’t gone to the ends of the earth,’ said the Queen. ‘Little dogs do that, you know.’

  ‘Well, we’d better go after her,’ said Mordonna. ‘Winchflat, I don’t suppose you brought your Electronic-Hypnotic-Psychotic-Antibiotic-Smell-Tracker from home, did you?’

  ‘Of course I did, Mother,’ said Winchflat. ‘I never go anywhere without it.’

  ‘How can you be sure that it was a hypnotic, psychotic, antibiotic smell that Satanella was following?’ said Betty. ‘It might have just been a dead lobster.’

  ‘I’ve thought of that,’ said Winchflat. ‘It has a Dead-Lobster-Antenna as well.’

  ‘Should we take a collar and lead in case Satanella doesn’t want to come back?’ said Ffiona, who sometimes forgot that Satanella was Betty’s sister and not just the family pet.

  ‘A collar and lead?’ said Morbid. ‘You must be joking. The last person who tried to put a collar on our big sister is in traction and still undergoing finger transplants.�
�

  ‘We could take Claude,’ said Ffiona. ‘If Satanella saw him, she’d come back straight away.’

  ‘Darling,’ said Mrs Hulbert, ‘it’s half-past Claude’s bedtime and pitch black out there, and I’ve only just managed to get the last bit of seaweed out of his nose. You are not taking your baby brother back to the beach.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Winchflat, switching on his thermonuclear three-hundred-and-ninety-seven-LED torch. ‘Betty and I will go and find her.’

  Betty’s hunch was right. Even without the help of Winchflat’s Smell-Tracker, because they were wizards Betty and Winchflat were immediately able to detect that there was a powerful scent trail running along the beach and off into the darkness. Because they weren’t dogs like their sister, the scent did not entrance or hypnotise them.

  ‘My equipment has analysed the smell as a very old baby’s nappy wrapped around an even older crab’s stomach,’ said Winchflat. ‘Pretty well irresistible to a dog, especially one with a nose as sensitive as Satanella’s. Come on, we’ll follow it.’

  ‘How do you know she went that way?’ said Betty. ‘The trail goes in both directions.’

  ‘My Electronic-Hypnotic-Psychotic-Antibiotic-Smell-Tracker can tell that it came from that way and goes in that direction,’ said Winchflat, pointing west. ‘And I think Satanella would be much more likely to follow whatever is leaving the trail than to go back and see where it came from. I mean, she’d want to catch whatever it is that’s making the smell, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Betty.

  They followed the trail along the beach to the end of the bay. They climbed over some rocks and up to the top of the cliffs.

  ‘Look,’ said Betty as they squeezed under a wire fence, ‘here’s a bit of Satanella’s fur caught on the wire.’

  ‘Oh, that’s good,’ said Winchflat. ‘If we can’t find her, we’ll just go home and clone another Satanella from one of her hairs.’

  ‘That’s not a very nice thing to say.’

  ‘I think it was a joke,’ said Winchflat.

  ‘What do you mean, you think it was a joke?’ said Betty. ‘Either it was or it wasn’t.’

  ‘I think it was,’ said Winchflat. ‘I’ve been reading about jokes on the internet and I think that was one.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t very funny,’ said Betty.

  ‘Are they meant to be?’

  ‘Duh.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Winchflat. ‘Obviously this whole joke thing is much more complicated that I realised. I think I’ll stick to making subatomic nuclear fission anti-gravity shoes, though maybe I could make a Joke Detector with a little prod that could poke me when I’m supposed to laugh.’

  ‘That would be a brilliant invention,’ said Betty. ‘There’s billions of humans who could do with one of them. It would make you really, really rich.’

  The trail went all over the place in the soft grass on top of the cliffs, criss-crossing itself over and over again before going back down to the beach and heading back to where it had started.

  ‘Are you sure your machine’s working properly?’ said Betty.

  ‘Yes, absolutely.’

  The trail ended about three metres from where they had started, but closer to the water’s edge. It ended in a frenzy of footprints, some dog prints that weren’t Satanella’s and some human prints too.

  ‘Looks like there was a fight or something,’ said Betty.

  ‘Well, there’s no blood or fur,’ said Winchflat.

  ‘What’s this?’ said Betty, picking up a wallet.

  ‘Ah,’ said Winchflat after he’d looked through it. ‘I think I know where our dear sister is.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘This wallet belongs to the local dog catcher. I bet Satanella’s locked up for being on the beach without a lead.’

  ‘I’d like to know how on earth he caught her,’ said Betty.

  ‘Me too,’ said Winchflat.

  ‘Maybe he didn’t,’ said Betty. ‘Maybe she ate him and all that’s left is his wallet!’

  ‘So why didn’t she come back to the hotel?’

  ‘If you’d just eaten a human being you’d be too full to climb up the steps from the beach,’ said Betty. ‘But actually, brother dear, the eating thing was a joke.’

  ‘Oh. Well, in that case, I definitely need to make my Joke Detector.’

  Betty and Winchflat went back to the hotel to tell their parents what they’d discovered. There was nothing that could be done that night, so first thing the next morning Mordonna and Nerlin went along to the council dog pound to rescue their daughter. Except when they got there, she didn’t actually want to be rescued. She was tearing round in a big cage playing with two Jack Russell terriers and an old football.

  ‘You know you will be liable for a fine, letting your dog run around on the beach without a collar and lead?’ said the dog catcher.

  ‘I am pretending that I come from Belgium and I cannot understand a single word you are saying,’ said Mordonna in perfect Flemish.

  ‘Oh, from Belgium, are you?’ said the dog catcher, disappearing into his office. ‘Hold on. I’ll get Maurice. He’s one of your lot.’

  ‘Good afternoon, madam,’ said the dog catcher’s apprentice.33 ‘My boss says that in order to get your dog back you will have to pay a fine for allowing it to walk on the beach without a lead.’

  ‘Now listen, Maurice,’ said Mordonna, taking off her sunglasses and hypnotising the poor man, ‘tell your boss that this dog is a Royal Belgian Spaniel and, as everyone knows, because they are royal they are allowed to roam free wherever and whenever they like. Furthermore, if I was to report your boss for locking up a Royal Belgian Spaniel, not only would he have to pay a huge fine, but you would both go to jail.’

  The apprentice told the dog catcher what Mordonna had said. The dog catcher had a very strong suspicion that there was no such dog as a Royal Belgian Spaniel, but his apprentice seemed completely convinced and he was Belgian, so the dog catcher decided they must be telling the truth and he opened the cage.

  ‘I don’t want to go,’ said Satanella. ‘I’m having a great time here with Ruby and Rosie.’

  ‘Did that dog just speak?’ said the dog catcher.

  ‘Did that dog just speak?’ the dog catcher’s apprentice translated to Mordonna.

  ‘Of course I did, you stupid man,’ said Satanella, followed by, ‘Of course I did, you stupid man.’

  The two men fainted.

  Ruby and Rosie wanted to say, ‘Did that dog just speak?’, but dogs can’t speak so they just looked as surprised as dogs can, which isn’t a lot even if they feel it inside.

  ‘Sweetheart, you know what happens to dogs who end up here, don’t you?’ said Mordonna.

  ‘No, what happens?’

  ‘Well, if no one comes to claim them and no one wants to give them a new home, they keep them for a week and then they get … umm, err…’

  ‘Sent to the big kennel in the sky,’ suggested Nerlin.

  ‘In that case, and seeing as how those two idiots are still unconscious, we’ll just take Ruby and Rosie back to the hotel with us,’ said Satanella.

  ‘But maybe they have an owner who loves them and will come here looking for them,’ said Mordonna.

  ‘I’ll ask them,’ said Satanella, who could speak dog as well as human. She turned and conferred with the terriers for a moment. ‘No, they were dumped on the beach by a really mean man who was jealous of them because his kids loved them more than they loved him.’

  Mordonna picked up Ruby, or it could have been Rosie as they were identical,34 and sniffed her fur. She closed her eyes and concentrated, then said, ‘That’ll teach people to be cruel to animals.’

  ‘What have you done, Mother?’ said Satanella.

  ‘The mean man’s wife and three children have just dumped him on a beach and driven off with his brother, who is really nice and was the man who the woman wanted to marry in the first place, except she got confused because she
had lost her glasses,’ said Mordonna. ‘They will go to Canada and live happily ever after, having left a false trail that will send the nasty man to Belgium, where he will live miserably ever after like he deserves to.’

  Normal parents would instantly say no to an idea like taking the two stray dogs home, but Mordonna and Nerlin were not normal parents. They were brilliant wizard parents, so they picked up the two little dogs and took them back to the hotel.

  Normal hotels would instantly say no to anyone walking in carrying two dirty little dogs, but the Hotel Splendide was not a normal hotel. It was a super-luxurious, top-of-the-range hotel and the Floods had paid them a HUGE amount of money to book the entire top floor for a week, plus the manager had seen Mordonna without her sunglasses on so was deeply in love with her. So when they did arrive back carrying Ruby and Rosie, he instantly sent a maid upstairs after them carrying two priceless bone china dog bowls containing the finest poached chicken.

  It doesn’t get any better than this, Ruby and Rosie thought.

  (When a human sits back and says, ‘It doesn’t get any better than this,’ there is always a tiny nagging voice in the back of their brains that whispers things like:

  ‘Well, if this is as good as it gets, does that mean that from now on it’s all downhill?’ or, ‘Are you telling me that no one could be more perfect than your husband/wife?’ or, ‘Oh, come on, surely you’d like a bigger house/car/iPod than this?’

  There was no nagging voice in Ruby’s or Rosie’s head. And there are no nagging voices inside the heads of wizards and witches, because when a wizard or witch sits back and says, ‘It doesn’t get any better than this,’ they are always right. It isn’t because they want less, but because they have the power of magic. Their husbands/wives really are perfect35 and so is their house and everything else. And if they change their mind, as everyone does from time to time, all they have to do is a quick spell and everything is perfect again.)

  Satanella explained to her brothers and sisters what had happened. It was because of Ruby and Rosie that she had been caught in the first place. Not only had all three of them been completely hypnotised by the crab-in-the-nappy trail, they had all become instant best friends and were having too much fun to notice the dog catcher creeping up on them. By the time Satanella realised what was happening they were locked up in the cage in the back of his ute on their way back to the pound. Of course, being a witch, Satanella could have escaped at any time and had actually intended to, taking her new friends with her, but as they were having such fun playing with the old football in the cage at the pound, before she could put her plan into action her mother and father had arrived and ‘rescued’ them.