Free Floods 8 by Colin Thompson Page A

an antique eighteenth-century cardigan from Bruges that he hadn’t even noticed he’d been moving. He lifted the secret floorboard, put the magazine back in its right place and opened the lavatory door.
    Then he realised something had happened. Where there should have been a dark castle corridor there was now a bit of sharp rock, lots of rain, angry waves and an even angrier huge screaming Countess stuck in a bit of wall.
    The screaming seemed like a good idea, so he joined in. Their combined screaming not only shattered all the limpet shells clinging to the rock below them, but it made the Countess’s bit of wall shatter too, proving that every cloud has a silver lining. It also proved that every silver lining has a cloud as the frantic wind blew a lot of shattered wall dust into Quatorze and the Countess’s eyes.
    â€˜That all went well,’ said the Queen as they watched everything on their RockallCam.
    â€˜Apart from the poor sheep,’ said Auntie Mould.
    The plan had included sending a very old smelly sheep to Rockall with the King and the Countess, but Rockall was so small the sheep had fallen off. Incredibly, it had actually survived due to all the grease in its wool keeping it afloat and the wind blowing in just the right direction to carry it back to Scotland, where it entered and won the Eurovision Song Contest.
    We shall return to Ex-King Quatorze and the Countess Slab later…

As the genie had predicted, George the Donkey was a babe magnet. As he walked through the town towards Castle Twilight, the seven girl donkeys he passed swooned and went knock-kneed. Four of them had riders who fell off as the donkeys staggered around with stars in their eyes and the other three shed the loads of cabbages they had been carrying in convoy up to the castle kitchens. This caused a serious cabbage jam in the narrow alley they’d been walking down.
    â€˜I saw him first,’ said all seven of the girl donkeys and a fight broke out.
    â€˜Ladies, ladies, chill out,’ said George. ‘There’s enough George for everyone.’
    This demonstrated that a miserable complaining donkey is probably preferable to one who thinks he is Mr Wonderful.
    You know, George thought to himself as he remembered it had actually been Queen Scratchrot who had sold him to the coal miner all those years before, I don’t need the Queen. I am Mister Cool. If the Queen wants to see me, she can come looking.
    â€˜Come on, ladies, we’re outta here.’
    And he walked back up the path through the forest to the heartbreakingly beautiful valley in the Himalayas followed by seven adoring girlfriends.
    â€˜OK, ladies,’ said George when they got there, ‘we are all now going to live happily ever after. We will eat the perfect grass and drink the perfect water and I shall be known as George The Perfect and I name this valley Georgeland.’
    â€˜Oh, George, you are so wise and so cool and so wonderful,’ said his seven not very bright girlfriends.
    They talked about setting up a sanctuary for unwanted humans, but the water in the stream was so cool and refreshing and the grass was so delicate and delicious and the cave where they slept at night was so cosy and warm that they agreed they’d talk about it tomorrow. The next day they decided that maybe they’d discuss it next week after they’d all had a good rest and some more perfect grass, and a week later agreed that looking after neglected humans was just too much trouble and they simply couldn’t be bothered.
    â€˜Yeah, ladies,’ George said, summing up everyone’s feelings, ‘I think we just need some George-The-Great time.’
    They didn’t take a vote because donkeys can’t count, so they decided simply living happily ever after would do.
    Because hey (and hay), donkeys are like that.

Within five minutes of the news of Transylvania Waters’ liberation spreading across the town, the