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master woke up in a flash.
    As did the pink cushions beneath his feet - revealing themselves to be four fat pigs.
    `Pay your toll! Or get off my bridge!'
    The farmer backed off quickly. `Aye, we will, Abel Penny! We will! One sack of potatoes for going and one for returning.'
    The toll master shook his head. `It be two sacks for going and two sacks for returning. Paid in advance because I don't trust you.'
    The farmer's face flushed angrily. `That be robbery, Abel Penny!'
    `Pay up or don't cross.'
    The farmer returned to the wagon to talk with the other farmers. Then with nods to each other the three stepped between the wagon's shafts and took a run at the bridge. `Out of our way you pig-faced thief or we'll run your thieving body down,' shouted the first farmer.
    `I don't think so,' hollered the toll master who, with each step the men took towards him, was growing taller and wider.
    `He's filling the bridge,' breathed Swift, his eyes almost popping out of his head.
    `Look at the pigs,' gasped Chad.
    The pigs had grown along with their master and were now as big as bullocks, with snouts the size of buckets and teeth as large as cobblestones. They pawed at the bridge's surface with trotters larger than horses hooves.
    `Bite them,' yelled the giant toll master. `Savage them! Hurt them!'
    The giant pigs galloped towards the farmers who scrambled to the top of their potato sacks. Unable to reach the men, the angry pigs buffeted and pushed at the wagon, trying to capsize it.
    `They're going to be hurt!' cried kind-hearted Celeste. `We should help them!'
    `Wait,' whispered Lem with his hand on her shoulder to restrain her.
    `Very well. We will pay four sacks,' shouted the terrified farmers. `Stop your beasts before they shove us into the river and you get naught.'
    With a click of his immense fingers the toll master summoned his pets to his side, and he and the pigs began to shrink until he was again just a fat-bellied, piggy-looking man.
    Four sacks later the wagon had crossed the bridge and Abel Penny was asleep again.
    `I wonder if pigs can swim,' whispered Lyla, holding a thorn-covered branch aside for the others.
    Celeste made a horrified face. `I hope not. I don't fancy being chased by a giant swimming pig.'
    `You could always dive to the bottom of the river and stay there,' said Swift.
    `And what about the rest of you?' argued Celeste.
    They pushed on through the thick undergrowth of the Royal Woods, their faces, arms and legs being cut and scratched by thorns with every step.
    Finally they reached a bend in the river that was out of sight of the bridge and the sleeping tollman.
    It was, as Swift felt he had to point out, a very wide and fast-moving river with nothing to hang onto to stop them from being swept away.
    The others agreed and, after much discussion, decided that the only way to cross was to creep back to the bridge along the riverbank and cross the river by swimming from one pylon to the next.
    `Without Abel Penny seeing us,' emphasised Celeste.
    `Food first,' Chad insisted.
    So they rested by the water, and ate Emma's fish and Bethy Bee's plums, before setting off.
    Lyla tied her rope to the others belts so that they would not be swept away then, holding the jewellery box above her head, she slid into the fast-moving water and swam with one arm to the first pylon. `Deep,' she mouthed back.
    Placing Splash on top of her head, and with Chad holding onto her shoulders, Celeste swam after her. Next went Lem and Swift paddling from pylon to pylon.
    They had all reached the central pylon when a shout of anger exploded above them.
    `I know you're there. I can smell you. And I never forget a smell. You owe me a toll and when you get out, you'll pay it or I'll set my pigs upon you!'
    They all glanced worriedly at each other.
    `No good keeping silent you thieving robbers! Juicy dinners for my pigs, that's what you'll be!'
    It was the fear in Swift's eyes that made up Lyla's mind. `We don't have anything to pay you with