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Trubshaw.
    â€˜That’s disgusting,’ idiot one giggled. ‘Mack’rel, mack’rel, mack’rel.’
    â€˜Do another one,’ said idiot two.
    â€˜Yeah, make the stupid bird fall off again.’
    Barry went up close to Vessel’s cage and winked at him. Vessel winked back and when Barry said, ‘Organiser’, he let out a squawk and fell off his perch.
    â€˜Organwossit, that’s really rude,’ idiot two sniggered and the two of them fell on the floor laughing again.
    By the time midnight arrived and everyone was ready to fall asleep, Barry Trubshaw had the two idiots eating out of the palm of his hand. He did this by putting bits of his cheese and pickle sandwiches in his palm and holding it out to them. All the two guards had had to eat for the past few years had been stinging nettle soup and boiled gooseberries, which, considering what they used the gooseberry bushes for, didn’t taste too good. 19
    â€˜Would you do us a big favour?’ said idiot one. ‘Of course I will,’ said Barry Trubshaw. ‘I am your friend and that’s what friends are for.’
    â€˜Would you sleep in wiv de old bird?’
    â€˜Sure, why?’
    â€˜Well, our boss said we was never to let it outof our sight so we’ve had to sleep down here on the floor every night while there is two really comfuble beds upstairs,’ idiot two explained.
    â€˜Why didn’t you bring the beds down here?’ said Barry.
    â€˜Couldn’t do that,’ said idiot one. ‘Beds goes in bedrooms. This is a lounge room.’
    â€˜Well, how about, and this is only a suggestion,’ Barry said, ‘how about taking the birdcage upstairs every night?’
    â€˜Oh,’ said idiot two.
    â€˜You’re brilliant, you are,’ said idiot one. ‘You give us sammiches, two new swear words and a way that we can sleep in the comfuble beds and watch the old bird.’
    He put his arms round Barry Trubshaw and told him that he was their best friend and he would like Barry to stay with them forever.
    â€˜What a great idea,’ said Barry. ‘But I will sleep downstairs with the bird tonight, so you can have a really good sleep without being woken up by all the swearing at dawn.’
    â€˜You’re brilliant, you are,’ said idiot two, hugging Barry as well.
    â€˜Tell you what I’ll do as well,’ said Barry.
    â€˜Got more sammich?’
    â€˜No, better.’
    â€˜More swear words.’
    â€˜No, better.’
    â€˜What, what, what?’
    â€˜Bedtime story.’
    â€˜See, I told you,’ said idiot two. ‘We have died of boredom, but now we gone to hevun.’
    Along with a Barry-Trubshaw-Tracking-Device, Mordonna had implanted a magic hypnotising bedtime story inside Barry Trubshaw’s brain. A story that made anyone who heard it fall into a deep, deep sleep. Assuring them that Vessel would be fine left on his own for a little while, Barry took the two idiots upstairs, tucked them up in bed, having first cleared out the mice, the cockroaches and the mould that had spent the past two years living in the beds while the idiots had slept on the floor downstairs. Then he told themthe bedtime story, and within one hundred and thirteen seconds the two guards were fast asleep. Which is to say, they were slow asleep, because their breathing slowed right down and their hearts barely ticked over as they fell into such a deep hibernation that it would be spring before they woke up again.
    Five minutes later Barry Trubshaw was riding away into the forest with Vessel’s cage held firmly between his knees.

The Hearse Whisperer had passed several ships as she flew on towards Tristan da Cunha. The Floods could have been on any one of them or even, she thought, split up and each travelling on a different ship. But it was far simpler for her to go straight to the island and wait for them to arrive than to fly down and search each