And then the First Cook, who was looking out the window, thought the sky was getting darker, and the nervous knight thought the castle felt as if it were "shifting" a little, so they all decided it was time to begin searching for wood and ropes to make a raft.


(Above: The First Cook, in better days, with his small and big refrigerators, in the Royal Kitchen)

Everyone would help, even the smallest children, and even Catrina, who pinned her crown onto her head with her best hairpins. She tried not to think about her crown floating away.

It cheered them all to see that many useful pieces of wood were floating by them in the water, so it was easy enough to reach out and snatch the best boards. The First Cook found some rope in the pantry and more in the belltower, and before noon a great raft was floating in the lake!

Catrina and the First Cook rummaged through the upstairs pantries and found marshmallows, and some of the knights caught fish with their swords (they were very nimble knights), so the tired workers all had fried fish and toasted marshmallows for lunch, and then it was time to move the castle onto the raft!

"Every animal, every man, woman, child, and little baby will help!" said Whiskers in his most optimistic voice, and they all hurried to fetch their animals with boats. (The boats had floated out of the boat house when it fell over, and had floated right to the castle, where they were rescued one by one.)

At first they tugged and tugged, but nothing happened, except that the castle almost tipped over!

Catrina screamed. Then she used her good brain and told the pullers that they must PUSH the castle onto the raft, not pull away from it!

They all felt very foolish, and immediately moved all their horses and other animals around to the back of the castle, where they pushed hard enough to shove the castle right onto the raft!

They were all so tired that they took a one-hour nap, asking Whiskers to wake them up no later than two o'clock.

Next: Down the River!