Floods 3 by Colin Thompson Page B

just mermaids,’ said the Queen. ‘You get a lot of them round here.’
    She said this with such confidence that no one thought to ask her how she knew, seeing as how she had never been to sea in her whole life.
    â€˜Is that what mermaids do?’ Nerlin asked. ‘Cry like babies and say they want their mummies?’
    â€˜I’m guessing they’re probably not mermaids,’ said Vessel. ‘Get a torch.’
    â€˜We haven’t got one,’ said Mordonna. ‘I looked earlier.’
    â€˜OK,’ said Vessel. He threw some petrol over the side, followed by a match.
    The cries of ‘I want my mummy’ changed into ‘I want my mummy and some ointment’ and ‘Ow, ow, my ear’s on fire’.
    â€˜Spies ahoy,’ said Parsnip.
    â€˜Oh, look, it’s our three little spies,’ said the Queen, ‘and they’ve got surfboards.’
    â€˜No, no …’ Cliché began.
    â€˜Maybe we could whip up some waves for them to ride,’ said the Queen. ‘I remember having to learn a big wave spell at school. Never could understand why, seeing we didn’t have any sea,but now I suppose it could be useful.’
    â€˜No, please, no …’
    â€˜No trouble,’ said the Queen. ‘Glad to help. I just have to make sure I remember it right, because I think it was right next to the “turning a spy into a jellyfish” spell in the water spells book.’
    â€˜No, I, we, err …’ Stain stammered.
    The fire had burnt off all his hair except for one tuft so now he looked like an overcooked coconut. The other two looked worse, like burnt coconuts that had been used in a coconut shy at a fun fair.
    â€˜Now, don’t tell me,’ said Vessel. ‘There’s something you want. That’s why you banged our boat.’
    â€˜Yes, we –’
    Vessel held up his hand. ‘No, no, let me guess. Three cold naked spies hanging on to bits of wood, hundreds of miles from land in the middle of the night with a terrible storm approaching … what on earth could they want?’ he said.
    â€˜A cup of tea?’ said Nerlin.
    â€˜Surfboard wax?’ said Mordonna.
    â€˜Swimming trunks?’ said the Queen.
    â€˜A towel, that’s what it’ll be, I bet you,’ said Vessel. ‘I bet they want a towel.’
    â€˜Help,’ Cliché bleated in a pathetic voice.
    His fingers had gone numb holding onto his plank, and even the plank itself was disappearing as a giant marine woodworm ate it for breakfast.
    Vessel threw a rope over the side and hauled the three naked, shivering spies on board. They were each given a sack to wear and then locked in the ship’s hold with half a beetroot and a mug of water.
    â€˜What are we going to do with them?’ asked the Queen.
    â€˜Find some remote island that barely supports life and leave them there,’ said Vessel. ‘Unless you have a better idea.’
    â€˜We could keep them as a blood supply for Valla,’ Mordonna suggested. ‘Fresh food is much healthier for him.’
    So each morning Cliché ‘donated’ a cup of his blood for young Valla’s breakfast. Six hours laterStain ‘donated’ a cup for Valla’s lunch and in the evening Ooze did the same for the boy’s dinner.
    They spent a few weeks drifting about in the Pacific learning useful sailor-type things, like the fact that one bit of sea looks exactly like another bit of sea and one seagull looks exactly like another seagull, even the girl ones, and young boy wizards do not like seagull blood half as much as spy blood.
    â€˜Ahoy ahoy,’ shouted Parsnip, getting very excited. ‘Snowbits, mountain, place ahoy.’
    â€˜Must be South America or Burma,’ said Vessel, who had never done geography.
    â€˜Ahoy, umm, Snip-Snip look in atlas.’
    There was a fluttering of wings from the crow’s nest, followed by a lot of sheets of