Read Online Floods 10 by Colin Thompson - Free Book Online Page A

kitchen table. ‘You just take this and give it to King Nerlin.’
    â€˜I aren’t never been up there,’ said Spudly. ‘I doesn’t know where to go.’
    â€˜Don’t you worry about that, you little weasel. I’ve got a special delivery service that will take you there in no time at all,’ said the Grime Reaper. ‘Just pick up the letter, you horrid little baby. And stop snivelling! You’ll make the envelope all wet.’
    â€˜You’re not taking him,’ said Auntie Tremble. ‘He be just a little child.’
    â€˜Well, I could try and force you out through the letterbox if you like,’ said the Grime Reaper. ‘Except you’re so fat you’d probably burst. Anyway, you have no choice.’
    And with that Spudly was lifted into the air, sucked out of the cottage and whisked away to the Grime Reaper’s special delivery service, which normally would have been a great noble eagle that could soar through the sky like a great noble eagle, but because the Grime Reaper was such a cheapskate, the bird was actually a very old half-bald vulture and soared through the air like a wet bag of porridge.
    â€˜When the goblin has delivered his message, wait for a reply and bring him back here,’ the Grime Reaper ordered.
    â€˜You never said anything about it being reply paid,’ said the vulture.
    â€˜You bring him back and I’ll let you eat him.’
    Spudly wet himself. He did this just as the vulture lifted itself over the cottage roof, which meant that until he could shapeshift into something that could have a bath, the Grime Reaper would stink of goblin’s wee. 35
    The vulture flew up towards the stars and smashed its head on the cave roof. It did this in three different parts of the cave until the Grime Reaper took control of it, throwing it at breakneck speed along a series of winding tunnels, crashing between stalactites, stalagmites and fossilised bones until it shot out into broad daylight halfway up the mountain that overlooked Dreary. Spudly had shut his eyes just before the vulture had first collided with the cave roof and not opened them since. Now that he could feel fresh air on his face, he opened one eye and then the other.
    They were gliding over the forest behind Dreary towards the castle. Inside the vulture’s head its tiny brain was being controlled by the Grime Reaper, who was looking through the bird’s eyes to see exactly where it should land.
    As it flew over the castle rooftops, it saw King Nerlin lying in the shadows with a bottle of factor minus-fifty bleach, working on his anti-suntan.
    â€˜Land, land, land,’ the Grime Reaper ordered and the vulture crashed into the wall above Nerlin, dropping Spudly right in his lap.
    Nerlin was not used to having goblins dropped on him. It had never happened before. In fact, not only had he never even seen a goblin before, he actually thought they were just made up things in kids’ books. So when he saw Spudly lying in his lap, he assumed the poor child was a wind-up toy.
    â€˜One of those ones that wets itself,’ he said as he sent a servant off to get him some dry trousers.
    â€˜Sorry, Your Majesty,’ said Spudly. ‘I always wees a bit when I’m frighted.’
    â€˜What an amazing toy,’ said Nerlin. ‘It talksreally well. Probably made in Taiwan.’
    â€˜No,’ said Spudly beginning to cry again. ‘I’s not a toy. I’m a little boy.’
    â€˜No, little boys are bigger than that,’ said Nerlin. ‘You’d have to be a goblin to be that small and they’re just made up in stories.’
    â€˜Please, sir,’ said Spudly. ‘Please, I aren’t made up. I’m real.’
    â€˜Not a toy?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Not with batteries then?’
    â€˜No. I am Spudly and I am a goblin.’
    â€˜Wow,’ said Nerlin.
    â€˜And I have got a letter for you,’ said