Floods 6 (6 page)

‘Yes, of course,' said Betty.

They followed the trail along the beach to the end of the bay. They climbed over some rocks and up to the top of the cliffs.

‘Look,' said Betty as they squeezed under a wire fence, ‘here's a bit of Satanella's fur caught on the wire.'

‘Oh, that's good,' said Winchflat. ‘If we can't find her, we'll just go home and clone another Satanella from one of her hairs.'

‘That's not a very nice thing to say.'

‘I think it was a joke,' said Winchflat.

‘What do you mean, you
think
it was a joke?' said Betty. ‘Either it was or it wasn't.'

‘I think it was,' said Winchflat. ‘I've been reading about jokes on the internet and I think that was one.'

‘Well, it wasn't very funny,' said Betty.

‘Are they meant to be?'

‘Duh.'

‘Oh,' said Winchflat. ‘Obviously this whole joke thing is much more complicated that I realised. I think I'll stick to making subatomic nuclear fission anti-gravity shoes, though maybe I could make a Joke Detector with a little prod that could poke me when I'm supposed to laugh.'

‘That would be a brilliant invention,' said Betty. ‘There's billions of humans who could do
with one of them. It would make you really, really rich.'

The trail went all over the place in the soft grass on top of the cliffs, criss-crossing itself over and over again before going back down to the beach and heading back to where it had started.

‘Are you sure your machine's working properly?' said Betty.

‘Yes, absolutely.'

The trail ended about three metres from where they had started, but closer to the water's edge. It ended in a frenzy of footprints, some dog prints that weren't Satanella's and some human prints too.

‘Looks like there was a fight or something,' said Betty.

‘Well, there's no blood or fur,' said Winchflat.

‘What's this?' said Betty, picking up a wallet.

‘Ah,' said Winchflat after he'd looked through it. ‘I think I know where our dear sister is.'

‘Where?'

‘This wallet belongs to the local dog catcher. I bet Satanella's locked up for being on the beach without a lead.'

‘I'd like to know how on earth he caught her,' said Betty.

‘Me too,' said Winchflat.

‘Maybe he didn't,' said Betty. ‘Maybe she ate him and all that's left is his wallet!'

‘So why didn't she come back to the hotel?'

‘If you'd just eaten a human being you'd be too full to climb up the steps from the beach,' said Betty. ‘But actually, brother dear, the eating thing was a joke.'

‘Oh. Well, in that case, I definitely need to make my Joke Detector.'

Betty and Winchflat went back to the hotel to tell their parents what they'd discovered. There was nothing that could be done that night, so first thing the next morning Mordonna and Nerlin went along to the council dog pound to rescue their daughter. Except when they got there, she didn't actually want to be rescued. She was tearing
round in a big cage playing with two Jack Russell terriers and an old football.

‘You know you will be liable for a fine, letting your dog run around on the beach without a collar and lead?' said the dog catcher.

‘I am pretending that I come from Belgium and I cannot understand a single word you are saying,'
said Mordonna in perfect Flemish.

‘Oh, from Belgium, are you?' said the dog catcher, disappearing into his office. ‘Hold on. I'll get Maurice. He's one of your lot.'

‘Good afternoon, madam,'
said the dog catcher's apprentice.
³³
‘My boss says that in order to get your dog back you will have to pay a fine for allowing it to walk on the beach without a lead.'

‘Now listen, Maurice,'
said Mordonna, taking off her sunglasses and hypnotising the poor man,
‘tell your boss that this dog is a Royal Belgian Spaniel and, as everyone knows, because they are royal they are allowed to roam free wherever and whenever they like. Furthermore, if I was to report your boss for locking up a Royal Belgian Spaniel, not only would
he
have to pay a huge fine, but you would both go to jail.'

The apprentice told the dog catcher what Mordonna had said. The dog catcher had a very strong suspicion that there was no such dog as a
Royal Belgian Spaniel, but his apprentice seemed completely convinced and he was Belgian, so the dog catcher decided they must be telling the truth and he opened the cage.

‘I don't want to go,' said Satanella. ‘I'm having a great time here with Ruby and Rosie.'

‘Did that dog just speak?'
said the dog catcher.

‘Did that dog just speak?' the dog catcher's apprentice translated to Mordonna.

‘Of course I did, you stupid man,' said Satanella, followed by,
‘Of course I did, you stupid man.'

The two men fainted.

Ruby and Rosie wanted to say, ‘Did that dog just speak?', but dogs can't speak so they just looked as surprised as dogs can, which isn't a lot even if they feel it inside.

‘Sweetheart, you know what happens to dogs who end up here, don't you?' said Mordonna.

‘No, what happens?'

‘Well, if no one comes to claim them and no
one wants to give them a new home, they keep them for a week and then they get … umm, err…'

‘Sent to the big kennel in the sky,' suggested Nerlin.

‘In that case, and seeing as how those two idiots are still unconscious, we'll just take Ruby and Rosie back to the hotel with us,' said Satanella.

‘But maybe they have an owner who loves them and will come here looking for them,' said Mordonna.

‘I'll ask them,' said Satanella, who could speak dog as well as human. She turned and conferred with the terriers for a moment. ‘No, they were dumped on the beach by a really mean man who was jealous of them because his kids loved them more than they loved him.'

Mordonna picked up Ruby, or it could have been Rosie as they were identical,
³⁴
and sniffed her fur. She closed her eyes and concentrated, then said, ‘That'll teach people to be cruel to animals.'

‘What have you done, Mother?' said Satanella.

‘The mean man's wife and three children have just dumped
him
on a beach and driven off with his brother, who is really nice and was the man who the woman wanted to marry in the first place, except she got confused because she had lost her glasses,' said Mordonna. ‘They will go to Canada and live happily ever after, having left a false trail that will send the nasty man to Belgium, where he will live miserably ever after like he deserves to.'

Normal parents would instantly say no to an idea like taking the two stray dogs home, but Mordonna and Nerlin were not normal parents. They were brilliant wizard parents, so they picked up the two little dogs and took them back to the hotel.

Normal hotels would instantly say no to anyone walking in carrying two dirty little dogs, but the Hotel Splendide was not a normal hotel. It was a super-luxurious, top-of-the-range hotel and the Floods had paid them a HUGE amount
of money to book the entire top floor for a week, plus the manager had seen Mordonna without her sunglasses on so was deeply in love with her. So when they did arrive back carrying Ruby and Rosie, he instantly sent a maid upstairs after them carrying two priceless bone china dog bowls containing the finest poached chicken.

It doesn't get any better than this
, Ruby and Rosie thought.

(When a human sits back and says, ‘It doesn't get any better than this,' there is always a tiny nagging voice in the back of their brains that whispers things like:

‘Well, if this is as good as it gets, does that mean that from now on it's all downhill?' or, ‘Are you telling me that no one could be more perfect than your husband/wife?' or, ‘Oh, come on, surely you'd like a bigger house/car/iPod than this?'

There was no nagging voice in Ruby's or Rosie's head. And there are no nagging voices inside the heads of wizards and witches, because when a wizard or witch sits back and says, ‘It doesn't get any better than this,' they are always right. It isn't because they want less, but because they have the power of magic. Their husbands/wives really are perfect
³⁵
and so is their house and everything else. And if they change their mind, as
everyone does from time to time, all they have to do is a quick spell and everything is perfect again.)

Satanella explained to her brothers and sisters what had happened. It was because of Ruby and Rosie that she had been caught in the first place. Not only had all three of them been completely hypnotised by the crab-in-the-nappy trail, they had all become instant best friends and were having too much fun to notice the dog catcher creeping up on them. By the time Satanella realised what was happening they were locked up in the cage in the back of his ute on their way back to the pound. Of course, being a witch, Satanella could have escaped at any time and had actually intended to, taking her new friends with her, but as they were having such fun playing with the old football in the cage at the pound, before she could put her plan into action her mother and father had arrived and ‘rescued' them.

Claude was over the moon to see Satanella again, and when he was introduced to Ruby and Rosie he was over three moons. On their part, Ruby
and Rosie found Claude's nappy to be a wonderful new world of excitement – not quite as incredible as the one on the beach, but a constant panorama of always changing smells – and so they fell in love with him instantly.

‘Dog, dog, dog, dog, dog,' Claude said, showing that he could recognise what they were
but wasn't able to count properly. He also said, ‘dog, dog, dog,' whenever he saw his mother, his father, his sister and anyone else, including furniture and horses and goldfish.

The four of them spent the rest of the day running in and out of everyone's rooms and eating bits of poached chicken and fluff.