Floods 8 Read Online Free Page B

shook.
    A fat angry woman in a fat angry dress, with fat angry hair and bright red lipstick smudged over her fat angry mouth and down her chin, stormed in.
    It was Countess Slab, the King’s awful new wife. The only good thing about her was that she was so dreadful, she made the King seem almost, but not quite, but nearly maybe, well, actually not so bad after all.
    â€˜WHERE’S ME LUNCH?’ she roared. ‘It’s a minute past one. I wants me lunch NOW.’
    The cook – and, in fact, everyone else in the kitchen, except Betty – had thrown themselves to the floor when the Countess had come in. The woman plunged her arm into a boiling saucepan, pulled out two whole cabbages and swallowed them.
    This woman’s days are numbered, Betty thought to herself. She could tell that the Countess was only in charge because she was louder, larger and nastier than everyone else.
    â€˜Oi yous, little girl thing,’ she screamed at Betty, ‘get over ’ere.’
    â€˜â€œPlease come here, Your Highness” is what you are supposed to say,’ Betty said. ‘I am a proper princess, not some lardy pants who married a tyrant who shouldn’t really be king at all, and therefore I outrank you, fatso, and you will speak to me with respect.’
    The Countess froze. It had been many, many years since anyone had answered her back. In her homeland of Bavaria one or two people had tried, but she had simply sat on them and carried on sitting on them until they had got very, very flat and dead. She had even done this to one of her own sisters. After that no one had ever answered her back, not even her parents.
    Until now.
    Still rooted to the spot, Countess Slab changed from her angry-looking red to a dangerous-looking purple. Because of her shape she looked like a very big aubergine in a dress. Steam began to come out of her nose, and if there had been any matadors in the room they would have all run away. This is what Betty did, pausing only to cast a spell overthe doorway she ran through that made it shrink to about half the width of the Countess. Blind with fury, Countess Slab threw herself at the doorway and stuck halfway through.
    â€˜YOUS EVIL LITTLE WORM!’ she screamed at Betty, who had stopped just out of her reach. 9

    Taking a few steps back, Betty turned and grinned at her.
    â€˜You will now apologise to me, lardy pants, and then you will apologise to the whole world for being so gross and horrible and stupid,’ she said.
    â€˜SHAN’T!’
    â€˜In that case you can stay where you are,’ said Betty. ‘And don’t think you can call a stonemason to come and dig the wall away, because I’ve done a spell and the whole wall is as hard as a diamond.’
    â€˜Excuse me,’ said the cook, after Betty had made a new door in the wall and gone back into the kitchen. ‘Did you say you were a princess?’
    â€˜Umm, err, yes,’ said Betty. ‘Probably shouldn’t have said that, but you know, I got carried away.’
    â€˜So Princess Mordonna is your mother?’
    â€˜Maybe.’
    â€˜And is your father called Nerlin, the true King of Transylvania Waters?’ said the cook.
    â€˜Umm…’
    â€˜It’s all right,’ said someone. ‘You’re among friends here. We’ve all talked and dreamt of the day Nerlin and Mordonna would come back and get rid of them.’
    The cook wrapped her arms round Betty and hugged her. All the others came over smiling and wanting to touch her.
    â€˜So it is all true,’ said the cook. ‘When your mother and father and the Queen disappeared, the King tried to cover it all up and said they’d gone away on holiday, but no one believed him.’
    She pointed at the Countess, who was now stuck so tightly in the doorway that her stumpy legs wouldn’t reach the ground. She was kicking her feet and screaming.

    â€˜You’re sure she can’t get out of