Floods 9 (14 page)

Difficult choice,
it will think.
NOT.

As luck would have it, however, there was one rather stupid and very shortsighted eagle floating above the town that day. It was very hungry on account of not being able to see the ninety-six rats running around below it, but it could see one rat that appeared to be waving at it.

Ooh, dinner,
thought the eagle and swooped down.

Yum, yum, get off, ouch, yum yum, nice rat,
it thought in that order as Aubergine grabbed its leg, Chrysanthemum tied the bug to its other leg then Aubergine stuffed the rat in its open beak.

Then they gave the taxi driver not one, not
two, but three fifty-tugrik notes
⁵⁷
and the three of them set off for Surge and Alexeye's secret six-legged yak farm, making sure before they set off that the bug tied to Aubergine's head was the only one that was activated. It was a slow journey because the taxi
driver kept taking the three notes out of his pocket and counting them, and every time he did, he fainted with happiness.

‘We will go and hide out in the ever-so-vast endless pine forests of Russia,' Aubergine said in a nice clear voice so Winchflat would catch every word. ‘No one will look for us there and if they do, it is so vast and endless they will never find us.'

‘Tell them we will work our way east until we reach the coast where we will settle down to enjoy our vast wealth,' said Chrysanthemum.
⁵⁸

‘What's that, my darling?' Aubergine continued. ‘You would like to live in a small village on the far eastern coast of Russia? I would like that too.'

‘The money, mention the money,' said Chrysanthemum.

‘With all this enormous wealth to carry, our journey may be slow, but just think, when we reach our destination we will probably be the richest people for five thousand miles.'

‘Brilliant,' said Chrysanthemum, falling in love with Aubergine again, so they were now in love with each other a total of five times with an average of two and a half times each.

‘We will dine on caviar and champagne and that will just be breakfast,' said Winchflat.

When they reached the yak farm, they captured the biggest strongest six-legged yak, implanted the fourth bug under his skin and led him away to the Russian border.

Ooh, that's a big forest,
the yak thought to himself.
I bet it's full of thousands of girl yaks and nice tender grass to eat and lovely sparkling mountain streams to drink from.

When they got back to Ulan Bator, Aubergine gave the taxi driver a sedative before handing him their remaining Mongolian money, which included several legendary one-hundred-tugrik notes.
⁵⁹
The
total value of tugriks they gave the taxi driver was more than fifty-seven Australian dollars, enough to buy a small place in the country called All Of It.

Even though Winchflat was now tracking the yak and not Aubergine any more, the two runaways were still cautious. Rather than go directly to Transylvania Waters they flew via several places to Monte Carlo, where they spent a happy week fraudulently winning lots of millions at the Casino until they were politely asked to leave. The authorities knew they must be doing something illegal to keep on winning over and over again, but no matter how hard they tried, they could not work out what it was they were doing.
⁶⁰

⁴⁸
Until he met Chrysanthemum, Aubergine's best friend had been his pocket calculator and even that hadn't liked him very much because Aubergine could do financial calculations a lot faster than it could. Adding two and two, he couldn't do, but adding two billion and four thousand and nine he could do with his eyes shut. In fact, he could even do it with his eyes wide open just as long as the numbers he was adding were money and not vegetables or sheep.

⁴⁹
Forty-three.

⁵⁰
Twenty-three cubic centimetres.

⁵¹
Of course, in some countries, the kings and queens do have to make sacrifices to get the job. In Britain, for example, they have to have their ears stretched so they stick out a really long way and have their chins removed and talk with a really stupid accent. (See
The Dragons 1: Camelot
for more information about talking posh.)

⁵²
See the back of this book for some little-known Floods facts.

⁵³
Aubergine made a mental note not to buy a boat while they were there.

⁵⁴
About four Australian cents.

⁵⁵
The hardest thing was finding a toilet roll tube. Mongolian toilet paper is actually a small hedgehog wrapped in rhubarb leaves.

⁵⁶
Except for the Scottish Golden Beet Eagle, though that actually prefers artichokes.

⁵⁷
Twelve cents.

⁵⁸
Remember – Winchflat can hear everything Aubergine speaks, but nothing anyone else says.

⁵⁹
Eight cents. I keep reminding you of the Australian to Mongolian exchange rates because I'm assuming that many of you are as rubbish at maths as I am. So for the last time – four Australian cents is about the same as fifty Mongolian tugriks.

⁶⁰
I know, but I'm not telling you. I might go on holiday there myself one day and want to use the same system.

‘I know Aubergine Wealth said they were going east to the coast,' said Winchflat, ‘but they are going in the opposite direction.'

‘Maybe they've discovered the tracking bug,' said Mordonna, ‘and they're trying to throw us off the scent.'

‘It's possible, but I think it's unlikely,' said Winchflat. ‘We all know Mr Wealth is one of the greatest geniuses ever when it comes to money and all that sort of stuff, but I happen to know he's useless with electronics. I gave him a torch once and he needed a user guide before he could turn it on.'

‘Maybe his girlfriend found it,' said Mordonna.
‘And be very careful before you make your next statement.'

She knew that Winchflat thought girls and computery stuff should not be, could not be and hardly ever were in the same place at the same time. Just to make sure he didn't say so, she clicked her fingers and all the red knobs on his control panels turned blue and all the blue ones also turned blue. Winchflat got the point.

‘There's something wrong,' he said. ‘They were travelling west through the Russian forests making strange grunting noises and now they are lying in a gutter in Ulan Bator with a hangover and seeing double.'

Aubergine had switched the yak tracker off and both the Flood cousins on. He counted to fifty, then switched them back.

‘No, it's all right,' said Winchflat. ‘Must have been some electrical interference.'

Then Aubergine did the same with the eagle tracker for fifty seconds.

‘It'll make Winchflat think there's some technical problem with his equipment,' he said as he switched between the cousins, the eagle and yak again.

‘What did you just do, Mother?' said Winchflat staring at all the blue knobs. ‘My machine's gone haywire.'

‘I just changed the colour of the knobs. That's all.'

‘Well, something's not right,' said Winchflat, more than a little annoyed.
⁶¹

‘Maybe it's gone wrong,' Betty suggested.

‘My machines never go wrong,' said Winchflat. ‘I mean, they've all got secondary backup systems and special robot self-repairing thingies with spare screwdrivers and gaffer tape. They simply cannot go wrong.'

He buried his head in his hands. ‘But I think it has,' he added.

‘Have you tried re-booting the whole system?' Festival suggested.

‘Both boots and fresh socks too,' said Winchflat. ‘But it's still telling me that one minute Mr Wealth is heading west through the Russian forest, then a minute later he's seeing double in a Mongolian gutter before tearing a rat to pieces in a small pet shop on the edge of Ulan Bator.'

Aubergine Wealth switched back the yak and left it at that.

‘It's OK,' said Winchflat with a sigh of relief. ‘It seems to have stabilised. Must have been electrical interference. I've built filters in to allow for that, but there must have been a really big solar flare or something. They are still travelling west through Russia and it looks as if they heading towards Kazakhstan.'

‘What are they talking about?' said Mordonna. ‘Maybe that'll give us a clue.'

‘I think the audio has gone faulty,' said Winchflat. ‘Since the solar flare interfered with the signal the audio has sent nothing but strange grunting sounds. I fed the sound into my computer and it says
it's the noise of a yak eating grass. So I think we'll just have to rely on the GPS bit.'

‘Unless it is a yak eating grass?' Betty suggested.

‘Well, little sister, how on earth could it . . . Oh,' said Winchflat.

‘Wait!' said Chrysanthemum. ‘I know it was a brilliant plan and everything, but I think there's something we overlooked.'

‘What?' Aubergine asked.

‘Well, the Winchflat boy could hear you speak too, couldn't he?'

‘Yes.'

‘So now he can hear you impersonating a yak having its breakfast, can't he?'

‘Damn!' cursed Aubergine and hit the mute button on his remote.

‘Let's hope it's not too late,' said Chrysanthemum.

There was no way they could know. On the one
hand, having switched between the four bugs should have made Winchflat think his machine wasn't working properly, so he might think the audio was playing up too. On the other hand, Winchflat had programmed his brain to totally reject the possibility that anything he invented could ever go wrong and Aubergine suspected that Winchflat would have analysed the sounds and discovered they were genuine yak-having-lunch noises.

‘I think the only thing to do is switch on all four devices at the same time,' said Winchflat, ‘and head for Transylvania Waters as quickly as we can. I know a secret way into Castle Twilight and once we get inside, there are hundreds of derelict and deserted rooms where we can hide for as long as we want. I mean, right under their noses is the last place they will ever think of looking.'
⁶²