Camelot (15 page)

1
I know. It's a ridiculous name, but I didn't make it up. King Arthur's dad was really called that. It's probably Olde Medieval English for Nigel.

2
Except islands can't actually talk, apart from the Talking Island, which never stops talking.

3
There really is a creature called an olm – look on Google. They are strange, blind creatures which eat, sleep and breed underwater and are also known as ‘human fish' because their skin looks like human skin. They usually grow up to 40 centimetres long. They only live in subterranean caves in parts of Southern Europe, and in the moat at Camelot.

4
See page 17 for a tourist brochure about the Downwind Islands, one of the lovely places to holiday around Camelot.

5
After whom the awful headache the migraine is named.

6
Posh word for baby.

7
If you don't believe me, see how many you can find on eBay.

8
There are not a thousand nanas living there, but the builders of Camelot believed in planning ahead.

9
Old-fashioned speak for ‘when he's carked it'.

10
Which may or may not someday be made available to EVERYONE, including you, as an exciting, yet terrifying, picture book.

11
On the other hand, there were people who not only visited but actually lived in these damp, remote places. We might return to them from time to time, though probably only when we are having nightmares.
Click Here for Damp People
.

12
Which is French for The Island of Toast, but sounds much grander. Unlike anyone who is sent there, we may return to L'île de Pain Grillé.

13
This was dead easy. Neither side of his bread was buttered because only the King and Fremsley the Royal Whippet were allowed to eat butter.

14
Like a lot of self-important kings and queens, Arthur frequently referred to himself as ‘one'. Really he should have called himself ‘one-quarter', which would have summed his personality up much more accurately, but then the same could be said for anyone calling themselves ‘one'.

15
It should be noted here that, unknown to the King, Merlin had arranged kitty trampolines below the castle windows. While this did not stop most kitties falling into the moat, they did bounce up and down a lot before they did. Apart from being really funny to watch, this made Merlin a lot of money from betting on how many times a kitty would bounce before it flew off into the water. DO NOT try this at home. See page 177.

16
Actually, he was vain and stupid, it was only his ‘spoilt' that was different from Arthur's. Arthur's ‘spoilt' meant everyone gave him whatever he wanted. Spikeweed's ‘spoilt' meant ruined.

17
This is the only joke in dragon society.

18
And don't forget, this was in medieval times, when people would happily eat cockroaches and drink stuff they squeezed out of dead worms. So you can imagine what the stuff they wouldn't eat was like. Actually, you probably can't, and if you can, you need therapy.

19
As someone who would make muesli illegal if I were King, I have always thought it looked second-hand even straight out of the packet. How can anything that had no fat and no sugar be any good for you?

20
Well, they do in my house.

21
Midden sales are like garage sales only with a lot more mud and body parts. Romeo Crick may have been a large three-year-old or a very small fifteen-year-old. No one, including Romeo himself, knew his exact age so they stood him next to other children and decided he was about five.

22
Which is the same as a wicker basket but with nasty sharp bits.

23
Who were terrible, but not as terrible as the Angry Knights of Darkness.

24
Just to clear up any confusion, Romeo and his father had been bathing in the sewage pit. Geoffrey had been standing at the side holding their clothes and fallen in.

25
Every good book and TV show has a cooking segment. See page 231 for a Camelot Pizza recipe.

26
Do you see a crafty link forming here?

27
Strawberries.

28
Unless of course you went to the Very Tall Cliffs of Asgirth, stood on the Very Slippery Grass of Asgirth and tried to look down at the Very Pretty Puppies of Asgirth, who always played right at the foot of the cliffs. Then you most definitely would fall off, but generally not get killed due to your fall being cushioned by the Very Pretty Puppies of Asgirth, who were extremely soft and cuddly until you fell on them, when they became extremely soft and flat.

29
A kind of ancient version of a hoodie.

30
There was a species of dragon that could breathe fire while they were still inside their shells. Of course, this made hard-boiled eggs and the species became extinct.

31
In Bellingen, the town I live outside of, there is an island that is home to seventy-thousand flying foxes. When it rains, the smell of bat pee as you drive by is overwhelming, but people living nearby hardly notice it. This has absolutely nothing to do with Bloat, who even now curls up and begins to whimper at the slightest hint of pee fumes.

32
He wasn't, actually. When Primrose had turned him down he had become a monk, the first dragon to do so, and was now living in a ditch in a remote monastery in Silesia unable to think of anything but the image of his lost love.

33
On the other hand, there would probably be even more Hello Kitty, pink glitter and reality TV shows.

34
A whole seven months beyond her years, in fact.

35
See page 151 for some examples of how to talk Orfly Posh.

36
This might seem surprising to us nowadays, but in those days there was a lot more chivalry about and, after all, everyone wore a coat.

37
Because nail clippers had not yet been invented, the toenail trimming involved a lot of kneeling on the ground and nibbling with his teeth.

38
I lived in England for a very long time and in England there are lots of signs that say ‘The North'. As a small child I assumed there was a town called The North and I used to wonder why we never arrived there even though we often drove towards it. I now realise that The North is a strange legendary place where all the rainbows end. There were nowhere near as many signs saying ‘The South' or ‘The West' and I don't remember ever seeing a single sign saying ‘The East'. Of course, we might have actually been living in The East, but in fact I don't think The East had been invented when I was young. My favourite place, and one I still think of quite often, was The South-West.

39
In England there is a big house where all the old doddery knights are kept. It's called the House of Lords.

40
Of course he didn't. What he actually thought was,
Hello grass, hello sky, hello horse's ears.
But his horse thought it and also thought,
All these years serving the Kings of Camelot and I end up carrying someone with less brains than my saddle. It's not fair.
His saddle thought,
No one ever said life was fair.

41
In 1562 bagpipes were declared illegal in most civilised countries and remained so until Queen Victoria, who was as mad as a hyperactive puppy, repealed the law in Britain. Since then bagpipes have been used as an instrument of torture by many evil dictators.

42
What really happened was that the Queen ate Tyrd and then died of food poisoning.

43
Which is a bit like undying love only with pimples and open sores.

44
TRUE HISTORICAL FACT: In the Middle Ages it was against the law for anyone from England to marry a Welsh person.

45
Which, of course, is where the word ‘hood', meaning gangster, comes from.

46
Do NOT try this at home and I say this from experience from when my cousin Stephen and I persuaded his younger sister to stuff daisies up her nose. Not only did she do it, but then we got her to stick her finger into a snail's shell and paint her face with it. She had to go to the doctor to get all the daisies taken out and Stephen and I got into Big Trouble, but it was worth it. She was great to play with – we could persuade her to do the grossest things.

47
Clever boy.

48
Don't be disgusting, it's nothing like that and anyway, it's only his top she's taken off.

49
This will be remedied in
The Dragons Book 2
when Fremsley will be revealed as a true superhero.

50
Except whoever it was who had swapped the babies over in the first place.

51
Which was about as close as penguins are to the North Pole.

52
Hey, I love puns and the best puns are the worst puns.