‘OK,’ said Ffiona, unconvinced.
All she could see was that without Betty to look after her at school, there was a strong possibility that having her head flushed down the toilet might start all over again. She’d be able to pretend that Betty was just on an extended holiday and coming back any minute, but eventually the bullies would work it out and her life would become sheer misery.
‘And don’t worry about the school bullies,’ said Betty. ‘I’ll get Mum to cast an invincible protection spell over you so that if anyone comes within a metre of you planning to do something horrible, they will have instant toothache and terrible diarrhoea.’
Ffiona looked up hopefully at Betty.
‘So if the bullies start taunting you from across the street, all you have to do is the exact opposite of what they expect you to do,’ Betty added.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, they’ll be expecting you to run away, won’t they?’
‘I suppose so,’ said Ffiona.
‘But what you do is run straight at them and, as soon as you get to within one metre of them, bam – screaming headache and runny bottom. Them, that is, not you,’ said Betty. ‘And if a teacher or anyone else is being mean to you, you can do it to them too.’
The two girls returned to the living room, where the Hulberts were waiting with their luggage. Betty turned to Satanella. ‘One other thing,’ she said. ‘I think that Ruby and Rosie should go with the Hulberts. We might be running away a fair bit and hiding and moving around a lot and … well, Claude adores them. But Satanella, they’re your friends so you should decide.’
‘I adore them too,’ said Satanella, ‘but I agree, they’ll be safer and happier with the Hulberts.’ She ran off to say goodbye to her friends.
‘But I will see you again, won’t I?’ said Ffiona.
‘I promise you that one day we will see each other again,’ said Betty. ‘And a witch’s promise is the most powerful promise you can get.’
There isn’t one. I mean, the story isn’t over yet.
The Floods haven’t even had their blood-red slurpies like they did at the end of the first five Floods books. But since they don’t have a verandah to sit and drink them on any more, we’d better let them drive off into the sunset, until they find a new home in the next book.55
FOOTNOTES
1 Actually, that could be a typing mistake. Mordonna could have collected the warts from the armpits of a family of hippies at the local zoo.
2 As you already know, only one of the twins, Morbid and Silent, speaks and I can’t remember whose turn it is.
3 You don’t want to know what the toaster was used for. Actually, if you are reading this book you probably do want to know, but because of new sustainable environmental rules put in place by the government, I’m not allowed to tell you.
4 Witches and wizards like to eat a bit of earth whatever age they are – unlike humans, who usually grow out of it by the age of three, unless they join the Ancient Order of Earth Eaters, a strange Belgian off shoot of the Masons.
5 Next month he is hoping to pass two hundred hours.
6 See the back of the book for more information on this and other Old Retchup’s products.
7 See the back of the book for information on how to get your very own Dead-Granny-Backpack.
8 As used in The Floods 5: Prime Suspect.
9 Her other eye was in one of the zip-up pockets, where it was ‘keeping an eye’ on her other fallen-off bits.
10 Instead of eating off tables like everyone else, Igorina actually tries to eat the table. You can read more about Igorina in The Floods 4: Survivor.
11 Take the fifteen worst smells you can think of – and really use your grossest imagination. Multiply each one by fifty, add them all together and then stick your nose into the middle of it and sniff as hard as you can. This will make you throw up, which will actually make it smell nicer. Igorina smells worse.
12 This paragraph will only seem incredibly complicated if you have not read The Floods 3: Home & Away – and if you have read it, you already know who Parsnip is so you won’t have to read the convoluted paragraph. However, if you hadn’t read it, then you wouldn’t be reading this footnote. Complicated, isn’t it?
13 See The Floods 5: Prime Suspect.
14 This footnote is not here to give you a clue about what might, or might not, happen in the future. It’s just here to make you feel uneasy.
15 See The Floods 4: Survivor, The Floods 5: Prime Suspect AND The Floods Family Files for more information about Winchflat’s Zoomy Thing.
16 One of the world’s most expensive champagnes, costing around US$750 a bottle.
17 US$25,000 a kilo. This is NOT a typing mistake!
18 Toddler walking involves looking at someone, setting off towards them and then walking in a completely different direction straight into a table because their brains haven’t been properly connected to their legs.
19 Potato Patches is a famous place in Tristan da Cunha, which is where Satanella was born – see The Floods 3: Home & Away.
20 The shrouds were from the Collette Digintomb range of holiday wear, a consistent bestseller in Transylvania Waters’s top department store Rabid Jones. Why it is so popular is a mystery as no one ever goes on holiday in Transylvania Waters.
21 Another Collette Digintomb bestseller – filter factor 15,000, with added sulphuric acid for a whiter-than-white skin peel. See the back of the book for more information.
22 This fine tradition is still carried on in many European countries to this day.
23 When you see words written like This, it means they are speaking Flemish. It also means that I am too poor to pay to get them translated into Flemish and my publisher is too mean to pay someone.
24 A lot of Belgian people speak French and no Belgian people at all speak Belgian because there is no such language. You have to feel sorry for a country as big as Belgium that doesn’t have a language named after it, but then neither do Switzerland, America, Canada, New Zealand nor, dare I say it, Australia. But at least our language doesn’t sound like someone clearing their throat. I mean, if you had a cold and a blocked-up nose and someone said, ‘How are you feeling today?’, you might say, ‘I’m feeling rather flemish.’
25 As Winchflat was in a really heavy suit with lead boots, I should have said that he ‘stomped’ down to the water’s edge, but I vowed years ago that I would NEVER use the verb STOMP because it is the worst word in the world and is always used in really bad children’s books. ALL books containing the word STOMP are bad (except this one).
26 Sleeping is a popular holiday pastime among humans because large bits of holidays are too boring to stay awake for.
27 They are called Stupid Fish because if you are a fish that is meant to swim around, but you burrow two metres into the sand and then burrow out again, you are a very stupid fish.
28 Of course, if you are a witch or wizard you quite often bring the rubbish in rather than take the rubbish out, especially if you live surrounded by humans like the Floods do. Winchflat had several cellars piled to the ceiling full of what he called ‘really useful stuff’, which you and I would call trash. In fact, ‘going shopping’ for Winchflat meant going to the local rubbish dump and collecting stuff.
29 It’s weird, isn’t it, but even when people are at the seaside in their swimmers and it starts raining, most of them run for shelter.
30 Castle Twilight’s roofs had all been made of lead, but because lead is quite valuable, the King had sold it all and covered the roofs with grey painted cardboard which, of course, let in all the rain. And, as everyone knows, it rains almost every day in Transylvania Waters, so it was very, very wet inside the castle.
31 There’s a judge like that in every competition.
32 Yes, there really, really is a place in Belgium called Silly.
33 Being an apprentice, he was only allowed to catch very old cats and very old ladies.
34 Apart from their names.
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br /> 35 In the entire history of everything, there have only been two wizard divorces and they involved identical twins and two very cross-eyed witches who, after it had all happened, were still not completely sure they hadn’t remarried the same person.
36 As I’ve said already, there really is a place called Silly in Belgium, but I don’t know whether it really has a theatre or a sausage factory. So if you go there and can’t find either, don’t blame me.
37 And much too boring to put in this or any other book. I mean, like, who cares? They’re dumb louts and they deserved it.
38 One of the things that the Floods had discovered they really liked about Port Folio.
39 Unless they are Wizard Scientists, who really do create and discover new and exciting things.
40 This can go on until about the age of fifty.
41 That and the fact that the human audience are equally stupid. Actually, some of them are even more stupid, because they are the ones who were rejected from being on Big Brother or Idol.
42 Even Belgian labradors think this.
43 No antelopes were harmed during the casting of this spell. Mordonna made them out of bits of old rabbits that had all died peacefully in their sleep.
44 If you are a lion, that is.
45 Except for one even-dumber-than-normal pigeon, which flew straight through an open window into a kitchen. This was OK, because the kitchen belonged to a family who were so poor they normally only had porridge to eat and pigeon pie was something they had only ever dreamed of.
46 Ostrich pox is like chicken pox only with MUCH bigger spots.
47 Because, as everyone knows, if one tiny beam of daylight lands on the living dead, they instantly turn to dust.
48 See the back of The Floods 1: Neighbours.
49 Incredibly, the coin landed heads-side up at the foot of a sewer rat, Wick Dittington, who was trying to decide whether to stay in the drains of Port Folio or go away to the big city to seek fame and fortune and more fame tinged with a bit of exciting scandal. This, of course, is another fascinating story, but suffice it to say, the rat not only achieved fortune and fame, but became Lord Mayor of London.
50 Except hedgehogs and echidnas.
51 NEVER, NEVER try this at home, or anywhere else.
52 Humans never get married by email because they think it isn’t very romantic. Humans do, however, split up and get divorced by email – something wizards never do.
53 To find out ALL about this, see The Floods 5: Prime Suspect.
54 Igorina didn’t actually call her padded cell home, she called it ‘unghh’, which was basically what she called everything.
55 Or the one after that.
The Floods
Random House
HOW TO LIVE FOREVER
The Floods 7: Top Gear
Floods 6 Page 9