never think of that? Those could work. Rats hate itches! Those should work. Yes! They
will
work!’ To Luka’s amazement and secret delight, she leaned down and kissed him three times, on the left cheek, then the right, and then the left again. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You are a man of your word.’
It was said of the Flying Carpet of King Solomon that it could carry any number of people, no matter how large that number might be, and any weight of goods, no matter how heavy that weight, and that it could grow until it was immensely large, as much as sixty miles long and sixty miles wide. When the weather called for shade, an army of birds would gather above it like a parasol, and the wind would blow it wherever it wanted to go, as fast as the blinking of an eye. But these were only stories, and what Luka saw next he saw with his own eyes: the InsultanaSoraya spread her arms wide, and the wind leapt up at her bidding. Then she quite simply disappeared, and, no more than ninety seconds later, reappeared; but this time the carpet was much larger and on it were literally tens of thousands of small paper airplanes. It was obvious that the ruler of Ott was capable of getting things done pretty quickly. An instant after her reappearance, the paper airplanes had taken flight and distributed themselves among all the members of her personal air force, which was still frozen in time like everything else as far as Luka could see. In the whole observable world only he and the Insultana and the armada of paper planes were moving. Also the green-and-gold Carpet of King Solomon, which, after passing out its cargo, returned to the size of a largish domestic rug.
‘How did you do that?’ Luka asked, and then added, ‘Never mind,’ knowing the answer before it was given. ‘I know. A P2C2E, and the itching-powder bombs were made at super-speed by M2C2Ds. Machines Too Complicated To Describe.’
‘I’m willing to bet,’ said the Insultana, ‘that you didn’t learn that at school.’
Many things make rats feel like scratching themselves, and there is nothing as unhappy as an itchy rodent. Rats get parasites – lice and mites and fleas – and these tiny bugs lay eggs at the base of the rats’ hairs, and they itch. Rats lead rough lives in dirty places and they get cuts and the cuts get infected and become sores and then the sores itch. Rats’ hair falls out and that makes their skin itch. Their skin gets dry, and they suffer from dandruff, and that’s itchy as well. Rats eat all kinds ofgarbage and so they suffer from food allergies and eating too much of one thing and not enough of another and all that makes them itch like crazy. Rats suffer from eczema and ringworm and they get scabs and rashes and they can’t resist scratching them, even if the scratching makes things worse. And whatever could be said of rats in general was magnified in the case of the giant Rats of the Respectorate, the famously thinskinned Rats of I. And however itchy the Respectorate rodents might have been in the past, they had never experienced anything like the itchiness that was unleashed upon them by the Otter Queen and her air force.
‘Before I unfreeze everyone,’ the Insultana instructed Luka, ‘take your friends indoors and wait until I tell you it’s safe to come out.’ Her tone had changed completely, Luka noted; no trace of sharpness remained. In fact, it was positively friendly, even affectionate.
Luka did as the Insultana told him, hustling his little party into the grey bakery and then pressing up against the glass windowpane; so he and Dog and Bear and Nobodaddy only saw a little bit of the large-scale destruction that followed. The Insultana waved an imperious arm and the Respectorate unfroze. Now Luka watched the Otters swooping and diving around the city streets unleashing their enchanted paper planes, which seemed to be equipped with Rat-seeking homing devices and chased the Rats wherever they went, indoors and outdoors,
will
work!’ To Luka’s amazement and secret delight, she leaned down and kissed him three times, on the left cheek, then the right, and then the left again. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You are a man of your word.’
It was said of the Flying Carpet of King Solomon that it could carry any number of people, no matter how large that number might be, and any weight of goods, no matter how heavy that weight, and that it could grow until it was immensely large, as much as sixty miles long and sixty miles wide. When the weather called for shade, an army of birds would gather above it like a parasol, and the wind would blow it wherever it wanted to go, as fast as the blinking of an eye. But these were only stories, and what Luka saw next he saw with his own eyes: the InsultanaSoraya spread her arms wide, and the wind leapt up at her bidding. Then she quite simply disappeared, and, no more than ninety seconds later, reappeared; but this time the carpet was much larger and on it were literally tens of thousands of small paper airplanes. It was obvious that the ruler of Ott was capable of getting things done pretty quickly. An instant after her reappearance, the paper airplanes had taken flight and distributed themselves among all the members of her personal air force, which was still frozen in time like everything else as far as Luka could see. In the whole observable world only he and the Insultana and the armada of paper planes were moving. Also the green-and-gold Carpet of King Solomon, which, after passing out its cargo, returned to the size of a largish domestic rug.
‘How did you do that?’ Luka asked, and then added, ‘Never mind,’ knowing the answer before it was given. ‘I know. A P2C2E, and the itching-powder bombs were made at super-speed by M2C2Ds. Machines Too Complicated To Describe.’
‘I’m willing to bet,’ said the Insultana, ‘that you didn’t learn that at school.’
Many things make rats feel like scratching themselves, and there is nothing as unhappy as an itchy rodent. Rats get parasites – lice and mites and fleas – and these tiny bugs lay eggs at the base of the rats’ hairs, and they itch. Rats lead rough lives in dirty places and they get cuts and the cuts get infected and become sores and then the sores itch. Rats’ hair falls out and that makes their skin itch. Their skin gets dry, and they suffer from dandruff, and that’s itchy as well. Rats eat all kinds ofgarbage and so they suffer from food allergies and eating too much of one thing and not enough of another and all that makes them itch like crazy. Rats suffer from eczema and ringworm and they get scabs and rashes and they can’t resist scratching them, even if the scratching makes things worse. And whatever could be said of rats in general was magnified in the case of the giant Rats of the Respectorate, the famously thinskinned Rats of I. And however itchy the Respectorate rodents might have been in the past, they had never experienced anything like the itchiness that was unleashed upon them by the Otter Queen and her air force.
‘Before I unfreeze everyone,’ the Insultana instructed Luka, ‘take your friends indoors and wait until I tell you it’s safe to come out.’ Her tone had changed completely, Luka noted; no trace of sharpness remained. In fact, it was positively friendly, even affectionate.
Luka did as the Insultana told him, hustling his little party into the grey bakery and then pressing up against the glass windowpane; so he and Dog and Bear and Nobodaddy only saw a little bit of the large-scale destruction that followed. The Insultana waved an imperious arm and the Respectorate unfroze. Now Luka watched the Otters swooping and diving around the city streets unleashing their enchanted paper planes, which seemed to be equipped with Rat-seeking homing devices and chased the Rats wherever they went, indoors and outdoors,
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