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

Spudly.
    Nerlin read the letter and went white, though that could have been the factor minus-fifty bleach, and sent for Mordonna, who read the letter but didn’t go white because she was already incredibly white. They sent for Mr Hulbert and called Winchflat back from Summer School again and they all tried to decide what to do.
    The letter said:

    â€˜Can’t you make a Grime Reaper Detector?’ said Mordonna.
    â€˜I’ve tried before when he escaped After you locked Auntie Howler up,’ said Winchflat. ‘The trouble is, he seems to have some sort of magic aura that makes him invisible to any type of detecting equipment. Even when I used that pair of his old underpants that Howler wore in a locket round her neck, it didn’t help.’
    â€˜So what are our options?’ Nerlin asked.
    â€˜Would it be so bad to set her free?’ said Mr Hulbert, who had never seen Howler.
    They showed him a photo and when he came round again he sat in the corner shivering. A very tiny voice in his brain tried to say, surely even the very worst creature has some redeeming feature , but the rest of his brain said, if you even think that again, I will smash your head against the wall.
    â€˜It would appear,’ said Mordonna, ‘that we have no choice but to set her free.’
    â€˜There must be something we can do,’ said Nerlin and, looking at Spudly, added, ‘Could you take us to where they all are?’
    The young goblin nodded.
    Nerlin wrote a note saying they would set Howler free, but they needed forty-eight hours because her hippo undies were in the wash, plus another twenty-four hours after that because of the time it would take to reach the cave. He tied the note to the vulture’s leg and sent it back, which wasn’t actually going to work because the Grime Reaperhad shot the poor bird out of the tunnels so quickly everything was a blur.
    â€˜Well, just go back to the mouth of the tunnel you came out of and wait,’ Mordonna told the vulture. ‘I’ve no doubt the Grime Reaper has some way of knowing when you’re there.’
    â€˜Won’t he be expecting the bird to take the little goblin back with him?’ said Mr Hulbert.
    So Nerlin added another sentence to the letter that said they were keeping Spudly as insurance.
    â€˜Like he’d care what happens to him,’ said Mordonna, ‘but it might stop his suspicions.’
    They summoned the fastest horses in town and set off within the hour and reached Yggdrasil, where Spudly ran down into the goblins’ cave to fetch Nedwin.
    â€˜Wait a minute,’ said Winchflat. ‘There’s a warning light flashing on my Safety Meter. I need to check it out before we go any further.’
    As they followed Winchflat into the tree, the light flashed faster and faster and there was no sign of Spudly returning. They stopped while Winchflattwiddled knobs, read dials and pressed buttons.
    â€˜Ah,’ he said at last. ‘There’s good news and there’s bad news.’
    â€˜What’s the good news?’ said Mordonna.
    â€˜We’re not in any serious danger.’
    â€˜And the bad news?’
    â€˜In the cave ahead there are fifty-eight cardigans and some of them have pictures of reindeer knitted into them,’ said Winchflat. ‘I would advise everyone to put on their dark glasses.’
    â€˜But …’ Mr Hulbert began, but almost instantly the tiny voice inside his brain said if you so much as hint you can’t see what’s wrong with cardigans, I will be forced to cut off your blood supply from the neck upwards .
    â€˜What?’ said Nerlin.
    â€˜Nothing.’
    â€˜I think if we all come out of this unscathed, we might relax the cardigan laws a little bit,’ said Nerlin.
    â€˜WHAT?’ Mordonna exclaimed.
    â€˜Only a tiny bit. Obviously, knitted pictures of animals would still be totally illegal as would thoseawful buttons woven out of