Free The Dragons 3 by Colin Thompson

a few weeks ago.’
    â€˜Wow!’ said almost everyone except One-Legged Tyrant, who said, ‘I know that is amazing, but it doesn’t mean the Golden Turnip is real.’
    But he was outvoted. Everyone agreed that, even if there was no such thing as the Golden Turnip, invading Avalon would be better than sitting around doing nothing, which most of them did most of the time except when they were asleep, when they lay around doing nothing.
    â€˜You have to admit,’ said one of the oldest people in the room, ‘that life has got pretty boring lately. Ships go miles out of their way to avoid coming here or getting captured now, and they’ve all got spells and potions and wizardy stuff to protect them if we do go near them. This fleet of hijacked boats you’re trying to build up, how many have you got?’
    â€˜Two,’ said Ruthra.
    â€˜Two?’ said Thorax. ‘Not exactly a fleet, is it? Unless, of course, they are gigantic vessels, the likes ofwhich we have never seen before.’
    Ruthra mumbled.
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜One was a coracle, but it was a big one.’
    â€˜How many ferocious pirates can that hold then?’
    â€˜Two.’
    â€˜Two?’
    â€˜Yes, as long as they are quite small pirates and only have short swords.’
    â€˜And the other ship, was that bigger?’
    â€˜Oh yes,’ said Ruthra. ‘It’s as big as a big oak tree.’
    â€˜That sounds more promising.’
    Ruthra said nothing.
    â€˜It is a big oak tree, isn’t it?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    They went down to the dock and made a list of all the ships and boats and worked out how many bloodthirsty pirates they could carry to Avalon for the invasion. The Princess, who was very good at sums and algebra but rubbish at geometry and tact, worked out that if everyone stood up and didn’t wave their swords around, they could carry an army of forty-three as long as they all emptied their pockets out first, or thirty-nine if everyone insisted on taking their lucky rabbit’s foot. Except that while they were working it out, one of the ships sank and another tilted over quite a lot, and they ended up with a carrying capacity of twenty-seven, thirty-three if they all went on a diet.
    There were no actual boat builders on the island because boat builders are usually well-behaved, calm people and not the sort that went to or survived on the Diabolical Islands.
    â€˜We did have a boat builder here once,’ said the oldest man. ‘We had him for dinner and, if I remember right, we had the rest of him cold for lunch the next day.’
    So it was agreed that building more boats was not going to be an option. The suggestion that they hollow out a lot of really big turnips and use them as little boats was rejected too, because everyone agreed it would be impossible to set sail in a big turnip without eating it before you reached dry land.
    â€˜OK,’ said Rampart. ‘That’s plan A and plan B out of the window. What’s plan C?’
    Plan C was followed by several more impossible plans.
    These are a few of them:
Build a bridge to Avalon. This would only take a hundred or so years, and only need about one thousand times as many trees as there were growing on the Diabolical Islands., ,
Dig a tunnel to Avalon. This would only take a hundred or so years, and only need about one thousand times as many trees as there were growing on the Diabolical Islands.
Swim. This would take forever on account of the fact that it was such a long way that even the strongest swimmer would die of exhaustion, though that would never really be a problem because they would be eaten by sharks long before that.
Walk on water. Only very few people have ever done this. Actually, thousands of people have done this, but none of them have travelled more than one millimetre before they were walking underwater.
Fly. In those days there were no inventions that could fly, even hot air