Floods 8 by Colin Thompson

Author:Colin Thompson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Australia
Published: 2009-09-08T04:00:00+00:00

‘What are you whinging about, you feeble cretin?’ the Countess snapped. ‘Get me out of here.’

She had two things to decide too: (1) how she could get out of the wall, and (2) once out, how she could spend the rest of her life without the King in it.

She knew she had made a really bad decision hooking up with the King, but she had to admit there hadn’t been anyone else to choose from. Sure, there had been a well-worn path of young men at her door, but they had all been running away. Even when her father had offered huge bribes, threats and magic spells, no one who had actually been breathing had wanted her. That is, until the short, stupid King of Transylvania Waters had come along. He was the Countess’s father’s dream – someone so stupid and greedy that he would have married a chicken for three cents and some shiny bits of plastic.

The King sent for the castle stonemason, but as Betty had said, the wall was as hard as a diamond so no matter what tools the stonemason used to attack the wall, nothing happened. The stonemason sent for the quarry man, who exploded a large stick of dynamite, but all that did was burn the Countess’s eyebrows.36

‘You morons!’ the Countess bellowed. ‘If you don’t get me out of here at once I will have you thrown into Lake Tarnish!’

But no matter what they did, the Countess remained stuck fast.

When the cook suggested from a safe distance – she went to Belgium and sent a carrier pigeon with a message suggesting that maybe if the Countess was to go on a diet, she might lose enough weight to wriggle out of the doorway, the Countess fainted, but after she woke up, without admitting it was probably the only thing to do, she did start eating less. She cut breakfast down to only three cabbages, lunch down to four and dinner to eleven. And to everyone’s surprise, she cut out the two morning break and three afternoon break cabbages altogether.

But it made no difference. Betty’s spell made sure that as the Countess shrank, so did the doorway.

‘There’s only one thing we can do,’ said the King. ‘We have to make the so-called princess reverse the spell.’

‘Well, send your spies out to find her,’ the Countess Slab demanded.

‘Umm, yes, of course, dear, right away,’ said the King, unable to admit that he didn’t actually have any spies left.

He went back into his very small soundproof room, locked the door behind him again and said, very quietly and pathetically so no one could hear him, ‘No one loves me any more.’

Even the two cockroaches hiding in the shadows nodded in agreement.

‘Though to be honest,’ one cockroach said to the other, ‘I don’t think anyone ever did.’

‘True,’ said the other. ‘They may have obeyed him out of fear and maybe even because they loved Queen Scratchrot, but you’re right, no one ever loved Quatorze.’37

‘It is said, by the old crones, that even his own armpits despise him,’ said the first cockroach.

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