Treasure Fever! Read Online Free

cabbage so that it couldn’t eat the goat or the wolf. And then it wouldn’t matter which order I took them across the river.’
    â€˜But they’d all be dead!’ I said.
    â€˜So?’ said Clive.
    â€˜Well, it doesn’t make any sense,’ said Fiona. ‘Why would the man strangle a cabbage? Cabbages don’t eat wolves or goats.’
    â€˜Because the cabbage was going to strangle him!’ said Clive. ‘It was a bad cabbage.’
    â€˜But it’s his best friend!’ said Jenny.
    â€˜They’d had a fight,’ said Clive.
    Mr Brainfright looked at Clive and nodded. ‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘Very interesting. But I think it would be preferable if he got them all across the river alive. Even the cabbage.’
    â€˜Suit yourself,’ said Clive. ‘I’m just trying to be helpful.’
    â€˜What sort of boat is it?’ said Grant. ‘Is it a speedboat?’
    â€˜No,’ said Mr Brainfright.
    â€˜A powerboat?’ said Grant. ‘Powerboats are cool!’
    â€˜No,’ said Mr Brainfright.
    â€˜A hovercraft?’ said Grant hopefully. ‘Hovercrafts are even cooler than powerboats!’
    â€˜It’s not a hovercraft or a powerboat or a speedboat,’ said Mr Brainfright. ‘It’s just a regular rowboat.’
    â€˜Oh,’ said Grant, shrugging. ‘Rowboats are so last century.’
    â€˜Does the man have a horse?’ said Penny.
    â€˜No,’ said Mr Brainfright. ‘Just a wolf and a goat and a cabbage.’
    â€˜Where’s his horse?’ said Gina.
    â€˜I don’t know,’ said Mr Brainfright. ‘Maybe it ran away.’
    The twins looked alarmed. ‘It ran away?’ said Gina. ‘Shouldn’t he be trying to find it?’
    â€˜He is,’ said Mr Brainfright, taking a deep breath. ‘That’s one of the reasons that he’s crossing the river. To look for his horse.’
    â€˜But how did the horse cross the river?’ said Gina.
    â€˜It’s not important,’ said Mr Brainfright. ‘For all I know it rowed across in the boat!’
    â€˜No,’ said Penny. ‘Impossible. Horses can’t row.’
    â€˜This one could,’ said Mr Brainfright. ‘But that’s not important. What is important is how the man is going to get across the river with the wolf and the goat and the cabbage. First to suggest a solution gets a lollipop!’
    That sure got everybody’s attention. Nobodyreally cared about goats, wolves or cabbages, but we
did
care about lollipops.
    And nobody cared more about lollipops than me.

12
The exact number of people in the world who care more about lollipops than me

    Zero.

13
A small wet blob

    My problem was that I didn’t know how to begin solving the problem.
    Should the man take the cabbage across first? It was his best friend, after all. But while he was doing that, the wolf would eat the goat.
    So it would obviously be better if the man took the wolf across first. But then the goat would eat the unguarded cabbage.
    So it would be better if the man took the goat across first. But then the man would have to come back and get either the wolf or the cabbage, and if he took the wolf across, then it would eat the goat while he went back for the cabbage.
    If he took the cabbage across, then the goat would eat the cabbage while he went back for the wolf.
    It was impossible! There was no way the man could do it!
    Suddenly . . .
splat!
. . . a small wet blob smacked into the back of my neck.
    Now I had a new problem.
    Clive Durkin.
    Clive was not only the sort of person who would not hesitate to strangle wolves, goats and cabbages if he needed to get across a river in a hurry, but, as I think I’ve already mentioned, he also liked to chew up small pieces of paper, roll them into balls, and flick them at people.
    And he’d chosen this moment to turn his attention to me.
    I turned