Floods 9 Read Online Free Page B

students and staff thought it was hilarious and went out and committed an enormous amount of highway robbery by disguising themselves as health officials with fake Red Plague Scanners and telling all the distressed mothers that they had located the germs and would have to remove the source immediately in order to irradiate it and kill the germs before they spread.
    Amazingly, the source was always inside handbags, particularly in the wallet area.
    â€˜Humans are so pathetic,’ said the Headmaster. ‘Why, I have had the bubonic plague for the past twenty-three years and it’s never done me any harm.’
    â€˜It’s not like this is causing any real harm, either,’ said the Matron. ‘I remember a similar outbreakin Scotland many years ago when everyone’s arms turned tartan.’
    â€˜My favourite one was in 1987,’ said the Cook. ‘The one in Belgium when everyone’s legs turned back to front. If I remember rightly that was caused by one of the Floods too.’

    â€˜Do you mean that I’m not the only one who has magic go wrong?’ said Betty.
    â€˜Oh no,’ said the Matron. ‘Your family’s famous for it. Happens in all top wizard families. And after all, your father is King of our beloved Transylvania Waters. You don’t get much topper than that. The Belgian leg affair happened when your Great-Aunt Florinse tried to turn a ginger kitten into a tabby.’
    â€˜No one ever told me that,’ said Betty. ‘It would have been reassuring to know I inherited Clumsy Magic.’
    â€˜But coming back to our current problem,’ said the Headmaster, ‘we need to discuss the situation. And by discuss, I mean, of course, work out all the ways we can profit from it.’
    Matron nodded. ‘My previous experiences of bright red marks on various parts of the body is that they will probably start to fade in about five days and vanish completely in ten,’ she said.
    â€˜So we’ve got about a week,’ said the Headmaster.
    Some students were already doing very nicelyout of the situation. As racing had been cancelled in case the new Red Plague was catching for horses, the twins and Merlinmary were out on the streets selling Special Anti-Red-Plague Facemasks for twenty-five dollars each, which by a skilful bit of time travel they had made the day before in Taiwan for five cents a dozen. They added dog and cat masks to their range, which Satanella modelled for passersby, and their sales almost doubled. 21 Soya-Vegetarian-Recycled-Toilet-Paper Masks and Kosher Masks increased their sales too.
    Once again the twins were top of the money-making list, even after they had given Betty and Ffiona ten per cent commission because they had made all the bottoms go red in the first place. Ffiona and Betty with their commission and the confiscated wallets were a very close second.
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    17
TRUE STORY: A little while ago a man was arrested for speeding in Germany. He claimed his identical brother had been driving the car and because the police could not prove beyond any doubt which twin had been driving, he got away with it!
    18
See the back of this book for some of the more popular and fashionable items on sale there.
    19
You know how it always says in books, ‘Don’t try this at home’? Well, this is different. I think you SHOULD try this at home. I think the world would be a better place if lots and lots of you drew black masks on your faces. See the back of the book for instructions.
    20
Read some of the earlier Floods books for examples.
    21
There are a huge number of dogs and cats in New York with very devoted owners.

The Stock Exchange was almost deserted. It wasn’t actually closed, but instead of the hundreds of people who went there every day, only a couple of dozen were there. Betty’s Red Plague had only affected people in New York, so all the other stock markets around the world were still working away as normal,