Floods 3 by Colin Thompson

spies. They blended in like barbed wire at a jellyfish party, but because they looked so weird, no one dared bother them, though several people did invite Parsnip to join them in a sweet and sour crow and noodle dinner.
    The three spies didn’t manage to escape from the mine until they had each carried seven bags of coal to the surface at the suggestion of the miner, who had a large stick and an angry donkey. The Hearse Whisperer had followed Vessel and the Queen down to the harbour and sat watching them from a tall chimney. She knew the Queen would sense her presence if she got too near so she kept a safe distance.
    â€˜Right,’ said Vessel when he and the Queen reached the wharf, ‘we need to find a boat, something big enough to survive the open sea.’
    â€˜None of these is much good,’ said the Queen. ‘They’re a load of junk.’
    â€˜Very funny,’ said Vessel. ‘But that one at the end of the harbour looks promising. The one with the French flag.’
    â€˜How will we get everyone else off the ship?’ said Nerlin, who had just reached them with Mordonna.
    â€˜No problem,’ said the Queen. ‘We are wizards, after all.’
    She took a small wand from her sleeve and waved it at herself. There was a flash and the Queen turned into a twenty-three-year-old French cafe dancer with long black hair, bright red lips and a dress with a long split in the side. She walked up the gangplank of the French boat and whistled loudly.

    â€˜â€™Allo boys,’ she said in French, ‘’Ow would you all like to come to a party with lots of pretty girls, silly loaves of bleached white bread a metre long and bowls of hot snails in garlic? There will be an accordion player and second-rate red wine.’ 34
    The entire crew of the boat ran towards the Queen, who led them down a very dark alley where Vessel had removed all the manhole covers. In the darkness the Queen and Mordonna helped each sailor make a donation of one pint of blood for baby Valla’s breakfasts. The sailors floundered around in the drains for several hours before they realised they weren’t at a party. By the time they got back to the harbour, their ship, the Maldemer , had vanished.

‘At last long Snip-Snip got proper crow’s nest,’ Parsnip said with pride from his new nest at the top of the Maldemer ’s mast. ‘Snip-Snip watch out.’
    No one on board had ever been on a boat before. Lake Tarnish is so toxic that any boats on it get eaten away within a few weeks. 35
    â€˜Ahoy land,’ Parsnip shouted.
    â€˜Thank you, Parsnip,’ Vessel called back, ‘that’s not surprising considering we haven’t left the harbour yet.’
    â€˜Ahoy harbour,’ Parsnip replied.
    â€˜Right,’ said Vessel, ‘we need to find out how to work this thing. I saw a picture of a boat once. I think we’re supposed to fix these huge bedsheets to that stick poking up out of the floor.’
    â€˜Yes,’ the Queen agreed, ‘and I think the pointy end should be at the front, not at the back like it is now.’
    â€˜What’s this thing?’ said Nerlin.
    â€˜I think it’s called a compass,’ said the Queen.
    â€˜It can’t be, there’s nowhere to put the pencil to draw a circle with,’ said Nerlin.
    They hoisted the sails and, as they did, the boat turned itself round and began to sail south-east.
    â€˜Which is, er, exactly the direction we want to go,’ Vessel lied as he looked at the maps.
    Now and then an island or another boat appeared on the horizon, but by pulling on the rudder thing they found hanging over the back of the boat, they managed to keep out of everyone’s way.

    When the spies reached the harbour, the first people they met were a group of French sailors who smelled as if they had been to a party down a drain.
    Cliché asked the sailors if they knew where the spies could get a boat, but the