The theta graph $Theta_{ell,t}$ consists of two vertices joined by $t$ vertex-disjoint paths of length $ell$ each. For fixed odd $ell$ and large $t$, we show that the largest graph not containing $Theta_{ell,t}$ has at most $c_{ell} t^{1-1/ell}n^{1+1/ell}$ edges and that this is tight apart from the value of $c_{ell}$.