Read Online Floods 3 by Colin Thompson - Free Book Online Page B

Nerlin’s backpack.
    Fifty-nine litres of blood flopping about in two saddlebags gave George something else to moan about as they set off down the valley. Gradually the snow grew thinner until at last they were below the snow line. They followed a path along a river that jumped and sparkled over bare rocks. Grass began to appear, then stunted trees and small groups of houses with people who waved as they passed.They stopped in a village and bought food before moving on again.

    â€˜Rubbish grass,’ said George. ‘Tastes like mulch.’
    â€˜We really need to get off this main path,’ said Vessel. ‘This is the first place they will look for us.’
    â€˜What, you mean find somewhere where the grass is even crappier?’ said George.
    â€˜Where exactly are we going?’ said the Queen.
    â€˜Wherever it is, I bet it’s somewhere bleak and cold with really tough grass,’ said George.
    â€˜We’re going East,’ said Vessel. ‘When we get to Shanghai we will find a boat. Then we’ll decide where to go from there.’
    â€˜Shanghai?’ said the Queen. ‘How romantic. Are we going to travel along the famous Silk Road?’
    â€˜If only we could,’ said Vessel. ‘But the King will have spies all along that road. No, we will take the older and lesser-known road, the Cardboard Road.’
    The Cardboard Road was an ancient route where traders had carried cardboard from the workshops of China to the cities of Europe. It had only existed for two hundred years before the Europeans had managed to analyse and successfully copy the Chinese cardboard and make cardboard of their own. There had also been a Porridge Road, where traders had carried porridge from its place of origin – a small town on a ridge above the River Po – to England. It had only taken British scientists eighty years to isolate the main ingredient – oats – and a further fifty years to discover the other ingredient – water. After that the Porridge Road, along with the Lard Road, the Soap Road and the Yellow Brick Road Road, had fallen into disuse and vanished beneath encroaching vegetation. Nowadays the only road that still operates is the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Road.

    Eventually, after three days of hacking through undergrowth, following themselves, setting traps for and catching each other, Cliché, Stain and Ooze reached the Valley of the Sages and Other Herbs. The first thing they saw was the Hearse Whisperer sitting on a rock filing her nails.
    â€˜You three couldn’t follow your own fingers if they were on the ends of your hands and were pointing where you had to go,’ she said.
    The three spies, who hadn’t the faintest idea that the Hearse Whisperer was the King’s secret, secret agent, tried to ignore her, but as they walked past she put out her foot and tripped the first one, sending the other two crashing down on top of him.
    â€˜Oops,’ she said. ‘Now why don’t you just go back home and get killed by the King? You are the crappiest spies in the whole history of spying and you couldn’t find a snowflake in a blizzard, never mind catch a princess, her husband, her mother, the mother’s servant and a donkey.’
    â€˜How do you know about that?’ said Cliché.
    â€˜Assuming that’s what we are doing, of course,’ Stain added hastily. ‘Which we’re not.’
    â€˜No, of course we’re not,’ said Ooze. ‘We don’t know what you’re talking about. We’re just doing a bit of hiking.’
    â€˜Oh, yes, that’s right,’ said Cliché. ‘What princess?’
    â€˜Look, I work for the King,’ said the Hearse Whisperer. The three idiots might be of some use to her, though she couldn’t exactly see how. ‘He sent me here to help you,’ she added.
    â€˜Oh,’ said Stain.
    â€˜So, you’re on your way to