Floods 10 (4 page)

led them into the wonderful
, which was the longest road in Transylvania Waters because it left the town on one side, went all the way round the whole country and arrived back on the other side, though of course the two women didn't know that yet.

There were very few motor vehicles in Transylvania Waters. A few tourists arrived by car,
¹¹
though most came in on the Transylvania Waters Express, a very big cart pulled by a team of very big horses. Also, there wasn't a single place in the whole country where you could buy petrol so most of the cars
¹²
that had come stayed there After their owners had gone home. They were then skilfully converted into chicken huts by a team of craftsmen in a special workshop down what was now called

It was one of these cars that Mordonna and Edna commandeered to travel around the country
on their map-making journeys. They had got over the lack of petrol by having Winchflat build them a perpetual motion engine that ran on air and extract of rat. ‘I can't believe how backward humans are,' Winchflat had said when he replaced the smelly, pollute-y petrol engine with his sleek, silent motor. ‘Internal combustion, what a joke.'

The four chickens that had been living in the converted car were very confused as they were driven round the countryside. They were also rather annoyed, because none of them were allowed to name any of the places they passed. Maldegard had asked them if they wanted to, but as they called every single place –
– she told them they couldn't.

Less than a tenth of quarter of one per cent of the Transylvania Waters population had ever seen a car, and most of those who had wished they hadn't, so the sight of Maldegard and Edna rolling along the roads sent most people running for cover. However, because they were all witches and wizards they came running back again a few seconds later waving magic wands at the car and shouting the Turn-Into-A-Toasted-Toad-Sandwich spell, though nothing happened because Winchflat had foreseen such a situation and fitted the vehicle with a wandscreen.
¹³

Every now and then the two women stopped in a small village and sold that day's eggs.

The roads were in such a dreadful state, crisscrossed with endless cartwheel ruts and littered with old horseshoes and bits of wood, that the two women would probably have been quicker walking. They certainly would have been quicker in a horse and cart.

‘This is progress,' Maldegard explained when people said so.

‘But isn't progress supposed to move forward?' everyone said.

‘Absolutely,' said Edna Hulbert.

‘But you're not moving forward,' everyone said. ‘You're stuck in the mud.'

‘No we're not,' said Maldegard. ‘We have stopped here deliberately to name things.'

‘What?'

‘We are naming things. That mountain over there, for example, what do you call it?'

‘Umm. Let me see. Oh yes, we call it

‘Well, we are here to give it a name,' said Maldegard. ‘From now on it will be called Mount