Floods 9 by Colin Thompson Page B

time.
    â€˜I suspect that Mr Wealth thinks we don’t know what he’s done,’ Nerlin continued. ‘He probably thinks he’s safe until school starts next week and we’ll all assume he’s gone on holiday.’
    â€˜Maybe he has,’ said Ffiona.
    â€˜Mr Wealth does not do holidays,’ said Nerlin. ‘He thinks they are a waste of money.’
    â€˜Don’t worry,’ said Mordonna, putting her arm round Winchflat’s shoulders. ‘Once again our resident genius is in control of the situation.’
    When Aubergine Wealth had passed out behind the curtain back in Manhattan, he thought no one had realised he was there. When he had come to and everyone else had gone back to Transylvania Waters, he was sure that no one had known he hadn’t gone with them. There had been a lot of things going on, what withtransferring all the wealth back to its original owners and removing every single trace of the Summer School. So it had been a fair assumption. After all, who would miss one person, especially one person who didn’t actually have any friends to look out for him? 48
    But Winchflat had noticed because Winchflat noticed absolutely everything, even the numbers of feathers on the left wing of a sparrow that had been sitting on the windowsill outside the room where they were having their last Summer School meeting. 49 He hadn’t been able to count the feathers on the sparrow’s right wing as it was sitting sideways. Although he assumed it was the same, he wasn’t happy with guessing and decided at some point in the future he would have to make a machine to let him see through sparrows so he could count all the feathers with complete accuracy. With such an eye for detail, it would have been surprising if he hadn’t seen Aubergine. He had even noted exactly how much blood the economics teacher had lost as it trickled down the crack in the floorboards. 50
    Mmm, clever,
he thought when he discovered the anti-spell lead shield buried under Aubergine’s scalp, but it only took a couple of seconds to lift a tiny bit of the lead and slip a bugging device into his brain. If Aubergine discovered it, he would assume that the lead was blocking the device’s signals, which of course it wasn’t. It took more than some heavy metal to outsmart Winchflat.
    â€˜So where is he now?’ said Nerlin.
    â€˜They are at JFK airport,’ said Winchflat, ‘trying to decide where to fly to.’
    â€˜They?’ said Mordonna.
    â€˜Yes. Aubergine Wealth appears to have got married.’
    â€˜Are you sure?’ said the Headmaster. ‘When you say married, you do mean to another living person and not a pocket calculator or a spreadsheet?’
    â€˜No, it’s a person,’ said Winchflat. ‘A human being.’
    â€˜Not a witch?’
    â€˜No, it’s an ordinary human. If it was a witch, my bug would say so.’
    â€˜And can your bug tell us what they are saying?’ said Nerlin.
    â€˜Only what he is saying, not her,’ said Winchflat. ‘I can usually tailor bugging devices for each situation, but Mr Wealth getting married was not a possibility that I thought was remotely likely.’

    Aubergine and Chrysanthemum decided they would go back to Transylvania Waters, and not some remote part as far away from Castle Twilight as possible, but to a small house built right into the outer wall of the castle itself. They also decided that to avoiddetection, they would actually fly to Belgium and then travel the rest of the way by horse and cart. Belgium would be the last place the Floods would expect them to go. They bought their plane tickets and went through security and, of course, as soon as Aubergine stepped into the electronic scanner, the lead shield in his head set off all the alarms.
    â€˜Take your shoes off, please, sir,’ said the security officer.
    â€˜Take your belt off, please, sir,’ the officer said