'Well it shouldn't be beyond us,' said Norma, 'all we need to do is pull together, get fit and try our very, very best.'
Captain Bill herded across until he was just in front of Norma.
'You do it deliberately don't you?' he said but Norma just looked back at him.
'Anyway,' he continued, 'we can hardly pull together when two of us aren't here in the first place!'
The 'place' was a pretty river bank on King Otto's Island. Captain Bill, Norma, Bertha, Annie and Geraldine were enjoying a tasty picnic in the late afternoon sunshine but of Horace and Cyril there was no sign.
'Well,' said Norma,'Horace has gone to get some proper poetry paper and should be back shortly, and Bertha and I have already decided that Cyril isn't on the team.'
'Why not?' mooed Captain Bill, 'don't tell me he's getting away with doing nothing again!'
'Well I'm afraid,' replied Bertha, 'that we have to accept that Queen Phoebe had a point about his size.'
'I've had a little look in the handbook,' added Norma, 'and it does say that a key part of a good rowing team is having an even weight distribution across the boat.'
Captain Bill thought for a while.
'I suppose you're right,' he conceded, 'Cyril doesn't even have even weight distribution across his body!'
'So we've put him in charge of management and promotion,' said Norma, 'only he does have a natural gift for that sort of thing.'
And again, Captain Bill was forced to agree.
'So it's just the five of us then,' he said.
'Well actually,' replied Bertha, 'we only need four... so somebody else will have to go.'
'Can I still be manager?' asked Captain Bill.
And Norma and Bertha said that he could.
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