Floods 12

by Colin Thompson

The three Fake Bushes prostrated themselves on the ground but instead of saying ‘Oh most Glorious Majesties, we welcome you to the Caves of the Old Crones,’ all they could do was cry out in pain and say ‘Ow, OW, OWWW!’

  ‘What is the matter with you?’ said Mordonna.

  ‘Sharp bushes. Oww,’ Fake Bush One cried.

  ‘We needs pruning,’ said Fake Bush Two.

  ‘You haven’t got any secateurs, have you?’ said Fake Bush One. Fake Bush Three was in so much pain she couldn’t speak.

  ‘Are those acacia bushes?’ said Blossom.

  They were, and when Fake Bush One said so, the Floods backed away in horror, because, as everyone knows, witches and wizards are terrified of acacia trees (and bushes).21 This, of course, was why the Old Crones had used them to disguise their security guards and had them growing everywhere.

  ‘Donkeys love acacia,’ said Bubbles. ‘We will eat you out of your agony.’

  ‘Is it just me, or has everyone else noticed that those bushes are talking to us?’ said Nerlin.

  ‘They are not bushes, my darling,’ said Mordonna. ‘They are people.’

  ‘I think your mother is losing it,’ Nerlin whispered to Betty. ‘She thinks those talking bushes are people.’

  ‘They are, Father,’ said Betty.

  ‘Yes, she’s right,’ said Winchflat, who had been near enough to catch the whisper.

  OMG, Nerlin thought, I seem to be the only one in the family who hasn’t been infected with Doolallyness.

  After a huge amount of ‘Ouches’, ‘Ahhhs’ and ‘Ooohs’ plus a few ‘Ow, that is not part of a bush’, followed by lots of ointment and cups of strong sweet tea, the three middle-aged women disguised as little old ladies were finally free and ready to officially greet the visitors and lead them up to the caves.

  Except that the donkeys, who were full up with acacia, all wanted to lie down and have a sleep.

  ‘Everyone knows it’s really bad to go mountain-climbing straight after a meal,’ said Blossom. ‘You can get terrible stomach cramps.’

  ‘And wind,’ said Bubbles. ‘Actually, you get lots of wind after acacia, even if you stand perfectly still.’

  And by now it was dark and no one had a torch. So there was another delay while one of the middle-aged women rode up to the caves on the donkey that could see really well in the dark on account of a Night-Vision Spell that Mordonna had cast on him, on a mission to find a torch.

  ‘I wish you’d done an Anti-Wind Spell as well, Mother,’ said Betty, as the donkey went off into the darkness followed by an endless trail of leaky explosions.

  ‘Good idea,’ said Mordonna, clicking her fingers, but all the spell did was make the explosions silent, which didn’t really help a lot. The smell and the clouds of green smoke were still there.

  By the time the donkey came back with the torch and everyone had finally reached the caves, it was long past dinner time. The smell of the finest grilled bacon drifting down the path only made things worse. Or, rather, it would have done if it hadn’t been for the donkey-acacia wind that had mingled with it and turned it into a smell that put most people off any thought of food.

  ‘Wow, what is that smell?’ said Nerlin, who unsurprisingly thought it was amazing. ‘It’s like the wonderful smell of bacon, only fifty times better.’

  Two of the less important Old Crones led the donkeys away downwind from the caves, so by the time they got into the cave and sat down, all they could smell was the perfect unadulterated scent of the bacon itself.22

  Quenelle, the Queen of the Old Crones, made it perfectly clear that eating bacon sandwiches was far more important than anything anyone could ever say, so she said nothing until everyone was on their third sandwich.

  ‘You are all most welcome,’ she said as everyone wiped the bacon fat off their chins with their sleeves.23 ‘And as the ancient philosophers of Atlantis discovered, there is nothing quite like bacon to help the brain to focus. Bit of a pity that, because the island of Atlantis was underwater, so the scent of bacon floated out through the waves, attracting the biggest gathering of sharks ever recorded, and once the bacon had gone the sharks ate the Atlanteans, which is how their whole civilisation was wiped out. However, we are up a tall mountain, which is a shark-free zone. So sleep well, for tomorrow we will untangle our beloved King’s Doolally brain.’

  That night, because the bacon they’d eaten had been enchanted bacon, everyone had the most wonderful dreams, and the next morning they awoke feeling very peaceful.

  While everyone else did a lot of rambling and wandering around among and in between the mountains, Quenelle and her two top Old Crones sat down with Nerlin to assess the situation.

  ‘How many fingers am I holding up?’ Quenelle said, raising her hand in the air.

  ‘You are not holding up any of them,’ said Nerlin. ‘They are standing up themselves on the top of your hand.’

  ‘And who is the prime minister of Transylvania Waters?’ said Anorexya, the second Old Crone.

  ‘I am,’ said Nerlin.

  ‘What does two and two make?’ asked Dispepsya, the third Old Crone.

  ‘That depends entirely on which four you are talking about,’ Nerlin replied.

  ‘Stick out your tongue,’ said Quenelle.

  ‘I can’t do that,’ said Nerlin. ‘My mum always said it was rude to poke out your tongue.’

  ‘No, this is all right,’ Quenelle explained. ‘It’s for medical reasons. I need to examine it.’

  Nerlin looked down at his chest and began muttering to himself.

  ‘Are you talking to Geoffrey-Geoffrey?’ said Dispepsya.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ said Nerlin. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Well,’ said Quenelle, ‘surely you don’t think that Geoffrey-Geoffrey has only got one friend in the whole world, do you? Can you imagine how lonely he would be?’

  ‘I never thought of that,’ said Nerlin. ‘But he’s my special friend.’

  ‘Of course he is,’ the three Old Crones agreed. ‘But we are his friends, too. You don’t imagine he got as clever as he is without some help, do you?’

  Nerlin didn’t.

  ‘That’s why all the invisible friends live in that valley you came through on your way here – they come up here every day for cleverness lessons,’ Quenelle explained.

  ‘My family doesn’t think Geoffrey-Geoffrey is real,’ said Nerlin. ‘They don’t believe in him.’

  ‘Well, maybe they should come here for lessons too.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll tell them to,’ Nerlin agreed.

  ‘Actually, no. It’s probably not a good idea,’ said Quenelle. ‘In fact, I think we should keep the invisible friends stuff to ourselves.’

  ‘Anyway, now that you’ve had a chat with Geoffrey-Geoffrey, will you let me look at your tongue?’ she continued.

  ‘Yes, OK then. Geoffrey-Geoffrey said I should.’

  ‘Of course he did,’ said Anorexya. ‘We all know what a clever boy Geoffrey-Geoffrey is, don’t we?’

  Nerlin nodded and poked out his tongue.

  Looks of horror spread across the three Old Crones’ faces. They told Nerlin to put his tongue away and wait while they went off into the corner and whispered to each other.

  ‘It is the map?’ Nerlin said.

  ‘You know about the map?’ said Quenelle.

  ‘Of course I do,’ said Nerlin. ‘I see it every time I look in the mirror.’

  ‘What, you mean you poke your tongue out every time you look in the mirror?’ said Anorexya.

  ‘Of course not. Mummy told me it was rude,’ said Nerlin. ‘So I only do it in the mornings when I’m shaving.’

  ‘Shaving?’

  ‘Yes. There’s nothing worse than having a hairy tongue,’ Nerlin explained. ‘If you have scrambled eggs for breakfast, you end up with bits stuck in your mouth hair all day.’

  ‘Yes, but the map,’ Anorexya said.

  ‘Yes, it’s Transylvania Waters,’ said Nerlin. ‘It’s a special birthmark that al
l the kings of our wonderful country have. Prince Valla, my eldest son, who will be king one day, has got one too. Winchflat, who would be next in line, has a very faint outline of it.’

  ‘But it’s not of Transylvania Waters,’ said Quenelle.

  ‘Yes it is,’ said Nerlin.

  ‘No it’s not,’ said Dispepsya. ‘Wait here, we’ll get a mirror and show you.’

  ‘It hasn’t turned into Belgium, has it?’ said Nerlin. ‘Please tell me it’s not Belgium.’

  ‘It’s not Belgium,’ said Quenelle. ‘You say that as though it’s happened before.’

  ‘Not really,’ said Nerlin. ‘I had a nightmare once where that did happen and all my toes turned into turnips.’

  It turned out that it had happened when Nerlin had eaten a very, very large piece of vintage gorgonzola – a variety of cheese made with real gorgons – just before going to bed.24

  ‘No, Your Majesty. It is not a map of Belgium,’ said Quenelle.

  ‘It’s not a map of Rockall, where my beloved wife’s awful father was banished to, is it?’25

  ‘No, Your Majesty. It is not a map of Rockall.’

  ‘Thank goodness,’ said Nerlin. ‘So, what is it?’

  ‘Well, there’s good news and there’s bad news,’ said Quenelle.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The good news is that it’s a place a long, long way away.’

  ‘And the bad news?’

  ‘The only connection we can find with this place is that deep in its surrounding waters there is a bottle in which your arch-enemy, the Hearse Whisperer, was once trapped,’ Quenelle explained. ‘The bottle’s been empty for a while, and besides, now that you are the King of Transylvania Waters, the Hearse Whisperer should actually be your devoted servant now.’

  ‘So what is the map of?’ snapped Nerlin.

  ‘It’s a small island off the island of Tristan da Cunha called Inaccessible Island.’

  ‘And what does all this mean?’ said Nerlin. ‘I’ve never been anywhere near the place.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Quenelle.

  None of them did, not just Anorexya and Dispepsya, but none of the other ten Old Crones either.26 There was lots of speculation, including:

  Had Nerlin’s ear wax been used to seal the cork of the bottle the Hearse Whisperer had been imprisoned in? (It hadn’t.)

  Had a long-distance magpie taken some of Nerlin’s toenail clippings back to its nest on Inaccessible Island? (It hadn’t, though the magpie had sold some of them on eBay, so maybe they could have ended up on the island, except they hadn’t.)

  Had there been some ancient historic relic from Inaccessible Island that had ended up in the Dreary Museum Of Ancient Historic Relics From Very Remote Islands? (There hadn’t.)

  Had Nerlin lost one of his thongs27 when the family had been on holiday to Port Folio28 and had it floated around in the sea for several years before washing up on the beaches of Inaccessible Island? (It hadn’t because there are no beaches there. If there were, it would be called Accessible Island.)

  All of the above.

  None of the above.

  Something to do with bacon.29

  Although no one knew why the map had changed from Transylvania Waters into this tiny remote uninhabited island, Quenelle was certain of one thing.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I am certain of one thing.’

  ‘And is that one thing in some way connected to our beloved King’s tongue map?’ said Anorexya.

  ‘It is indeed,’ said Quenelle. ‘It is my belief that the King has been infected with a virus.

  ‘And if that is the case, Your Majesty,’ Quenelle continued, ‘it means that you are completely Doolally-free.’

  ‘What about my family?’ said Nerlin. ‘On our way up here they were having conversations with bushes.’

  ‘That was just a case of mistaken identity,’ said Quenelle. ‘After all, who among us can say they have never spoken to a bush?’

  ‘Yes, but these bushes answered back,’ said Nerlin.

  ‘Well, we’ve all been there too, haven’t we?’ said Anorexya.

  ‘I haven’t,’ said Nerlin. ‘Though when I was a little boy living back in the drains, my best friend – well, my only friend, actually – was a patch of green slime that lived on the wall of our tunnel. I used to talk to him for hours but he never spoke back. My mother called him Slime Boy and said the reason he didn’t speak to me was because he had been struck dumb by an evil spell.’

  ‘Same thing,’ said Dispepsya.

  ‘I loved Slime Boy,’ said Nerlin. ‘I really missed him when he went away.’

  ‘What, you saw him go?’ Dispepsya asked.

  ‘No, my mother said he had run away to join the circus and it wasn’t until years later that I discovered that she’d got rid of him with a scrubbing brush dipped in bleach. I never forgave her for that.’

  ‘Are you sure our great ruler is Doolally-free?’ Anorexya whispered to Quenelle.

  ‘Yes, well, maybe not completely,’ said Quenelle. ‘But I definitely think he’s got a virus, which, of course, means one thing.’

  ‘We have to send him to Gruinard,’ said Anorexya.

  ‘Yes, she is the only one who can decontaminate him,’ Quenelle agreed.

  ‘Please don’t make me take him,’ said Dispepsya. ‘My hair still hasn’t grown back from last time.’

  ‘We’ll draw lots. Gather the others and put everyone’s name in a hat,’ said Quenelle.

  ‘Not your hat,’ said Dispepsya. ‘We all know about the remote control.’

  Quenelle looked annoyed. She had no choice but to agree to the obvious and fair choice – Nerlin’s own hat. Nerlin wasn’t too sure about this, but when Quenelle told him it was a draw to raise funds for orphaned semicolons, he agreed.

  ‘And I want to do the draw,’ said Dispepsya. ‘Since I went last time – and I’ve got the teeth marks to prove it – I think it’s only fair that I should make the draw.’

  The other twelve Old Crones gathered round while Dispepsya put her hand into the mysterious darkness that was the inside of Nerlin’s hat.

  ‘Mind Dorothy,’ said Nerlin.

  ‘Dorothy?’

  ‘Dorothy, my pet rat,’ Nerlin explained. ‘He’s very rare, an endangered species.’

  ‘Rats aren’t endangered,’ said Quenelle. ‘The nasty, verminous things are everywhere.’

  ‘Especially in our dinner,’ said Anorexya. ‘Nasty yes, verminous yes, but totally delicious too.’

  Everyone agreed.

  ‘Dorothy is not dinner,’ said Nerlin. ‘He is one of only fourteen known living Tristan da Cunha Clucking Rats.’

  ‘Clucking rats?’ said Anorexya. ‘Are you telling us that they cluck like chickens?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nerlin.

  ‘Next you’ll be saying she lays eggs too,’ said Quenelle.

  ‘Dorothy is a boy,’ said Nerlin. ‘Of course he doesn’t lay eggs.’

  ‘I think your diagnosis that our glorious leader is not Doolally,’ Anorexya whispered to Quenelle, ‘is a bit wide of the mark. He’s as hopping mad as a kangaroo in a hot frying pan.’

  Quenelle missed the last six words because a very loud cock-a-doodle-doo came from deep inside Nerlin’s hat, followed by a small golden rat clutching a pawful of torn bits of paper.

  After Dorothy had been put to bed in one of Nerlin’s pockets, the thirteen Old Crones wrote their names on bits of paper again and put them back in the hat. Then Dispepsya drew one out.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ she said, and banged her hand on her forehead. ‘It’s not fair.’

  ‘Well, look at it this way,’ said Quenelle. ‘At least you know the way there.’

  ‘Go where?’ said Mordonna, who had been keeping out of the way while the Old Crones tried to analyse Nerlin.

  ‘To visit Gruinard,’ said Quenelle. ‘Your husband has a viral infection and she is the only witch who can cure him.’

  ‘You mean, all he’s got is a viral infection?
’ said Mordonna. ‘He’s not going Doolally?’

  ‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ said Quenelle. ‘But first things first. We need to cure the infection and then we can check the Doolallyness. And then, of course, there’s the map on his tongue.’

  ‘All the kings of Transylvania Waters have our country map on their tongues,’ said Mordonna. ‘It’s a hereditary royal birthmark.’

  ‘Yes, but, your husband’s … oh my God … the rat!’

  ‘Dorothy?’ said Mordonna. ‘My beloved adores that rat.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know,’ said Quenelle. ‘But where did he say it comes from?’

  ‘It’s an endangered Tristan da Cunha Clucking Rat,’ said Mordonna.

  ‘Yes, yes, and the map on your husband’s tongue is of Inaccessible Island – one of the Tristan da Cunha group of islands!’ said Quenelle. ‘We need to get Dorothy immediately. Your husband could be in grave danger, and when I say grave, I mean hole in the ground where dead bodies go. I can’t believe I didn’t pick it up earlier.’

  ‘That won’t be so easy,’ said Mordonna. ‘He won’t let anyone touch Dorothy.’

  ‘Your Majesty,’ said Quenelle, ‘does Dorothy have an invisible friend?’

  ‘What? How can I do that?’ said Nerlin. ‘He’s a rat. Rats can’t talk.’

  ‘Well, that’s not strictly true,’ said Quenelle. ‘We have a special potion that can give any animal the power of speech.’

  ‘You do not,’ said Nerlin.

  ‘And what about the Transylvania Waters donkeys?’ said Quenelle. ‘Surely you don’t think that their ability to speak was part of natural evolution, do you?’

  ‘I hadn’t actually thought about it.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t like that,’ Quenelle lied. ‘We gave them the power of speech and we could do the same for Dorothy.’

  ‘Really?’ said Nerlin doubtfully.

  ‘Just imagine the hours of fun you could have together if he could talk,’ said Dispepsya. ‘And if Dorothy hasn’t got an invisible friend, we could soon get him one.’

  ‘You could?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Quenelle said. ‘We are in charge of all the invisible friends in Transylvania Waters. As you know, they live just below here.’