Floods 9 by Colin Thompson

stuff like that.’
    â€˜How do you get Very Advanced Magic? Can you buy it?’
    â€˜No. It’s mainly hereditary. If your parents had it, then you have it when you’re born. The Floods are all like that,’ said Aubergine. 45 ‘The only other way is for a Grand Master Wizard to give you an upgrade and, as far as I know, there is only one Grand Master Wizard and no one actually knows where he lives. In fact, most people think he’s simply a myth.’
    â€˜Do you?’
    â€˜Yes, but I also think he’s real, a kind of living myth,’ said Aubergine. 46
    â€˜If we could find him,’ said Chrysanthemum, ‘could you bribe him or something like that?’
    â€˜The puppies would probably have died of old age before we discovered his secret home and I think anyone who tried to bribe him would end up turned into a small omelette. No, we have to think of something else.’
    â€˜OK. Here’s my suggestion,’ said Chrysanthemum. ‘Everyone loves puppies, but not everyone is prepared to give one a home. However, everyone also loves money and everyone loves chocolate. So if we get big bars of chocolate, wrap them in dollar bills and give them away to anyone who is prepared to take a puppy at the same time, we shouldn’t have any problem re-homing them.’
    Although the thought of giving anything away went against everything Aubergine Wealth believed in, he knew that sometimes you actually had to make small investments to get a bigger return. One hundred and twenty-three bars of chocolate he could produce. His magic was powerful enough for that. Then he scooped up one hundred and twenty-threeten-dollar bills and they wrapped each bar of chocolate in one.
    They stood outside the building with a big sign that said:

    When humans see the word ‘free’ the small sensible bit of their brain switches off. In less than fifteen minutes Aubergine and Chrysanthemum were completely puppy-free. They collected up the rest of the money that had been floating round the room and went down to City Hall to get a marriage licence.
    â€˜You have to wait for at least twenty-four hours before you can get hitched,’ said the clerk.‘Unless there are special circumstances – then we could marry you straight away. Are there any special circumstances?’
    Aubergine leant over, whispered in the clerk’s ear and handed him an envelope.
    â€˜I now pronounce you man and wife,’ said the clerk with a big smile. ‘You may now kiss the bribe . . . oops, sorry. You may now kiss the bride.’
    â€˜What did you say?’ Chrysanthemum Wealth said as they took a taxi to the airport.
    â€˜I asked him if a huge bribe qualified as special circumstances. He said probably. So I gave him the title deeds to the old Summer School puppy shelter apartment block in Manhattan,’ said Aubergine.
    VIt wasn’t until they reached the airport that they realised they hadn’t the faintest idea where they were going. They had been so busy with getting married, it had entirely slipped their minds. They sat down in the cafe and wrote out a list in three columns. The first column was places the school would look first, the second column was places the school would look last and the third column was all the other places theschool would look. The third column only had one word in it, but it was the biggest problem.
    The word was:
    Everywhere.
    â€˜So what you’re saying is, there’s not much point in writing anything in the other two columns, because wherever we go, they will come looking,’ said Chrysanthemum.
    â€˜Pretty well,’ said Aubergine. ‘Though I suppose if we could work out the last place they’d look and go there, there’s a remote chance they might get bored and stop looking before they get there.’
    â€˜Is that likely?’
    â€˜Not really, but it’s the best chance we’ve got,’ said