Brigid Lucy
and the
Princess Tower
Little Hare Books
an imprint of
Hardie Grant Egmont
Ground Floor, Building 1, 658 Church Street
Richmond, Victoria 3121, Australia
www.littleharebooks.com
Text copyright © Leonie Norrington 2011
Illustrations copyright © Tamsin Ainslie 2011
First published 2011
Published in this edition 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the
National Library of Australia
ISBN 978 1 742736 36 5 (epub)
Cover design by Vida & Luke Kelly
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Prologue
Chapter one: let’s pretend
Chapter two: being very good
Chapter three: a train ride
Chapter four: taking revenge
Chapter five: the princess tower
Chapter six: the great hall
Chapter seven: a dark and terrible secret
Chapter eight: the monster stairwell
Chapter nine: the secret room
Chapter ten: in trouble again
Epilogue
Magical creatures
Magical swearwords
Magical spell words
To Ellen Sarah, who often
accidentally gets into trouble—LN
For my sister, Jocelyn—TA
Prologue
Hello. Are you a reader person? Yes! I’ve been waiting for you for ages! Because guess what? I’m a storyteller. I tell all the stories about me and my best friend, Biddy. Well, Biddy doesn’t know I’m her best friend because she can’t see me. I’m invisible.
Don’t you adore the word invisible? It’s just like ‘inside visible’. Like, say, for example, if you have underpants underneath your dress. Then the underpants are invisible—you can’t see them. But they’re still there, aren’t they? Well, it’s the same with me. Although Biddy can’t see me and I can’t see myself, I’m still here.
What do I look like?
Well, I think I look like this …
Or this …
But not this …
And I definitely haven’t got pointy ears or long feet.
How did I meet Biddy?
Me and Biddy came from the country. She used to live on a farm and I used to live in the Great Bushland, way past the bottom of her garden.
One day, I was tobogganing down the trunk of a white gum tree. Again. For the one hundredth, millionth time. Boring, boring, boring. When, suddenly, I heard a strange noise. I spun around and slipped.
Zuuup! I flew through the air. And, plonk! I landed in a tangle of hair. This hair was long and soft and attached to a little human girl.
The little girl was sitting under a tree with two huge drippy-tongue dogs. She was crying and cuddling the dogs.
‘I’m not going away,’ the girl was saying, through sobs and hiccups.
‘Going away?’ I asked, running onto the top of her head, and out to the end of her nose. ‘Where? Can I come? Please, please, please. I’ve lived in this Great Bushland for one million, six hundred and forty-two thousand years, nearly. I would love to go somewhere else.’
But the little girl just ignored me.
That was when I realised that she couldn’t see me, or hear me. So I just ran back up into her hair, and came with her to the city, all by myself.
And it has been so exciting! In the city there are millions of people running and rushing and bumping. They say things like, ‘Sorry, excuse me. Sorry, pardon.’
And there are lots of magical creatures. One time, in the Centre of Town, we saw a magic pirate man who swallowed a great long deadly sharp silver sword.
And, another time, we saw a silver angel standing as still as a statue. Until she heard coins fall onto her money plate. Then she came to life and sprinkled stardust on Biddy’s shoulder, and some fell on me. It was splendiferous.
But the bestest thing of all about being with Biddy is that, each night, Biddy’s mum reads us stories from books. The stories are about all the magical creatures that I’d never heard of before I met Biddy. They are called elves and witches and pillywiggans.
The Great Bushland where I’m from is full of magical creatures, such as tiny flying ympes, and beautiful nefariouses, and foul-breathed fillikizard dragons. They act the same as the fairies and witches and dragons in Biddy’s storybooks. But they look totally different.
Here, let me draw you a picture …
Don’t I miss the Great Bushland?
No way! I love the city to infinity. And I totally adore living with Biddy. Although sometimes it is a bit annoying that she can’t see me, or hear what I say. Or when she does boring stuff like watching TV, or playing computer games, or listening to her music on her headphones.
But Biddy only does those things because she thinks that the city is too totally boring. She says there is nothing exciting to do. This is because Mum says we are not allowed to go anywhere by ourselves, in case we get kidnapped by the big-bad-stranger-persons or we get run-over-and-squashed-down-flat-by-a-car. But I think we can do exciting things anywhere.
So, that’s the problem. (You know how all stories have to have a problem? Well that is the problem for this story.) Biddy thinks her life in the city is boring and I love it. Shall I tell that story?
Okay. Wait a minute—I have to start it properly …
‘Long, long ago …’
No, I can’t say that because it is happening right now …
‘Once upon a time …’
‘Jamie!’ Biddy yells.
And suddenly, her head jerks backwards and forwards, sending me flying.
I’m slipping! I grab a strand of hair and cling on. Bounce! Bounce!What is Biddy doing?
She’s climbing over the fence. She’s going next door to visit Jamie without asking! Ooh-ah!
Chapter one
let’s pretend
‘Jamie, come and play,’ Biddy yells at Jamie’s bedroom door.
(Jamie is a boy. Which is okay. Sometimes you have to have boys in adventures. Especially if there are no girls living in your whole entire street.)
‘No,’ says Jamie. ‘I don’t want to.’
‘Jamie. Quick, I don’t have much time,’ Biddy tries to explain, pushing his door open. ‘I need someone to play with me. There is no one else.’
But Jamie doesn’t listen, so Biddy has to pull him out of his room.
This makes Jamie yell, ‘Leave me alone! I want to play on my computer!’
‘Don’t be boring,’ Biddy tells him. Then she drags him down the hall and out of the back door into the garden. ‘We’re going to play princes and princesses and wicked witches,’ she says.
‘I don’t like pretending,’ Jamie says.
‘Imagination is not pretending, Jamie,’ Biddy explains. ‘It is stories and adventure.’ She is using her mummy-being-patient kind-of voice.
‘Now,’ she says, ‘I’m Princess Rapunzel and you’re my dog.’
‘But I don’t want to be a dog,’ Jamie frowns. ‘If I have to play, I want to be the prince.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Biddy says. ‘We can’t have a prince yet. We have to find the prince. That’s the whole point of the story.’
‘I don’t want to be a dog,’
Jamie says again.
‘Not even a big black hunting dog?’ Biddy says. She puts her hands on her hips. ‘What about a big scary dog with gold studs in his collar and four gold earrings like a pirate?’ she asks.
Jamie thinks a bit, but then he still shakes his head.
I run up on top of Biddy’s head to get a closer look at Jamie. He looks very determined not to be a dog.
Man! What is it with boys? I think. Why won’t they play properly?
‘Come on, Jamie,’ Biddy says. She is being as patient as the scoriaks that live in the Great Bushland. Scoriaks are great, heavy creatures that live inside rocks and are as patient as the earth growing.
‘You can turn into the prince later,’ Biddy says. ‘And we’ll fall in love and get married. Okay?’
‘But I don’t want to get married,’ Jamie says.
Which is just too totally silly. Everyone in stories wants to get married and live happily ever after.
So Biddy just ignores that and keeps going with the game.
‘Now, if I’m going to fall in love with you, you have to do what you are told,’ she says.
She stands up, tall and elegant, like a princess. Then she looks down her nose at Jamie and commands, ‘Sit!’
Jamie shakes his head again.
But I reckon he is about to change his mind, so I lean out from Biddy’s hair, holding onto a strand of her fringe.
‘Keep going, Biddy! He’ll do it!’ I say.
Even though Biddy can’t hear me, I can’t help but talk to her. And sometimes she does listen, kind of.
‘I said, “Sit!”, pirate dog,’ Biddy yells.
Then, just when Jamie is about to sit, someone opens the garden gate, and says, ‘Brigid Lucy!’ in a very annoyed voice.
It’s Biddy’s mum! Oh-oh! Mum is going to yell at Biddy for coming over to Jamie’s place. I quickly run up Biddy’s fringe and into her hair to hide. I close my eyes and cover my ears.
‘Brigid Lucy, what do you think you are doing?’ Biddy’s mum yells. She rush-walks across Jamie’s garden to where we are playing. Baby Ellen is on her hip, and Biddy’s little sister, Matilda, is being towed along behind.
‘I’ve told you not to go anywhere without asking me first,’ Mum continues.
‘I did ask you,’ Biddy says, putting on her most innocent face.
‘You did not,’ says Mum.
‘I did so,’ Biddy says. ‘You just didn’t listen to me, because you were talking on the phone.’
Then Mum’s face goes all red, and she yells even louder, ‘Brigid, go home right now.’ As if it is all Biddy’s fault that she’s in trouble. But it isn’t.
Mum was talking on the phone when me and Biddy wanted to go to Jamie’s. So even if we did want to ask, we couldn’t. Because Mum told Biddy she’s-not-allowed-to-make-any-noise-while-Mum-is-on-the-phone. So it is Mum’s fault, too.
But Mum doesn’t admit it is her fault, too. While me and Biddy are walking to the garden gate, we hear Mum tell Jamie in her most polite voice, ‘I’m very sorry, Jamie, but Biddy has been a naughty, naughty girl. She is not allowed to play any longer.’
Which is not fair. How come she is so nice to him when he was playing, too?
Chapter two
being very good
When we get back home, Mum tells Biddy, ‘You are the naughtiest-little-girl-in-the-whole-wide-world!’
And, ‘What-if-you-had-been-stolen-by-a-big-bad-stranger-person-who-cut-you-into-tiny-pieces-and-sent-you-home-in-an-envelope?’
And, ‘How-would-you-like-it-if-Iran-away-and-you-couldn’t-find-me-and-you-were-worrying-yourself-sick?’
Biddy wants to say she’s very-very-very-sorry.
But Mum hardly stops yelling before she says, ‘Hurry-hurry-hurry. We have to go to the Centre of Town.’
The Centre of Town!
Yes! That’s where the museum is with all the dead-people mummies, and the stuffed magical creatures like the extinct Tasmanian tiger.
I hope we are going to the museum, I think.
But then Mum says, ‘I have a very-important-appointment. So I’m going to take you and your sisters to Granny’s house.’
‘Hooray!’ I yell. This is the best news of all. Granny lives in the Centre of Town, and she is going to look after me and Biddy, and Miss Getting-All-The-Attention Matilda, and dribbly little Crybaby Ellen, while Mum goes to the very-important-appointment.
Now, the thing is, there is a new rule in Biddy’s house since we moved to the city. The rule says: Naughty-girls-are-not-allowed-to-go-on-outings. If Mum remembers that Biddy has just been naughty, she won’t let Biddy come on the trip to Granny’s.
Instead, Biddy will have to stay with Miss Grimes from over the road. Miss Grimes cuts caterpillars and grasshoppers in half with scissors. And she drowns snails and slugs in jars of beer in her vegetable garden. Yukki-poo-la-drop-kick!
Biddy really wants to go to Granny’s.
Granny is Biddy’s absolute favourite grandma. She knows everything about plants and herbs. She knows about magic creatures like fairies and goblins. She even knows about those cheeky yebil yebils that come from the Great Bushland. You know, the ones that look like a slip of a shadow and always trip you up when you are running.
And she knows about bugs (particularly spiders). And she knows all about frogs and snakes and unicorns. She is the bestest grandma in the whole entire universe.
Mum tells Biddy to promise that she will be ‘the-best-good-girl-that-she-can-possibly-be-for-the-rest-of-the-day’.
Biddy promises she will be good, even though she knows she might not be able to keep the promise. Because how can a person know what’s going to happen when it hasn’t happened yet?
In the end, the promise did get broken, but Biddy wasn’t to know that, was she?
She starts by being very good.
Mum says, ‘We’re going to catch the train, so dress yourself appropriately.’
(Appropriate is a schoolteacher word meaning ‘okay’ or ‘right’ or ‘good’.)
So Biddy doesn’t wear her favourite pink plastic high-heeled shoes that make the best clicking noises on the footpath. Mum once said they would get caught in the train door. She said that Biddy would fall-down-through-the-gap-onto-the-train-tracks-and-get-chopped-in-half-by-the-train.
Biddy puts on her second-favourite shoes instead. And she doesn’t cry or scream when Mum brushes all the tangles out of her fringe, even though it hurts a lot!
But do you think Mum notices how good Biddy is being? No, of course not. Mum is too busy, like she always is, trying to feed Crybaby Ellen. And packing the pram. And changing Matilda’s shoes onto the right feet, while Matilda screams, ‘I do it! I do it!’
Even though she can’t, because she is still just a little Getting-All-The-Attention baby-pants.
Chapter three
a train ride
Biddy loves the clickity-clack, clickity-clack noise that the train makes as it rocks along the tracks. I do, too. What I like best is when Mum can find four seats that face each other. And then me and Biddy and Matilda all sit together on one side, and Mum and baby Ellen sit on the other one, facing us.
Then Biddy and Matilda bump against each other, and we all sing, ‘Clickity, pickity, mickity, quack—the train goes down the railway track. Clackity, clockity, cluckity, click—we bump and sway and don’t get sick.’
Then we go, ‘Blaah!’ and pretend to be sick, and Mum tells Biddy and Matilda, ‘Girls. Behave.’
But today we can’t sing the train song because there are too many people in our carriage. We can’t find four spare seats together. So, Matilda has to sit next to Mum and baby Ellen. And me and Biddy have to sit opposite them, next to an evil witch. This witch is not a good witch like Granny, the sort that knows all kinds of potions and spells. This witch is a real-proper-evil witch.
It’s true! I know it is hard for you human reader people to believe in witches. But we invisible creatures know all about that kind of stuff. I can recogn
ise magical beings anywhere.
Like, we have a nefarious that lives in our Great Bushland. I know all about her. She is beautiful, but totally ancient and grumpy. If ever you went near her, she would gobble you up dead.
And I’ve read heaps about other sorts of witches in Biddy’s books.
Some look just like beautiful young women with long white-tipped fingernails.
They always wear shoes with high heels. And they always have beautiful handbags to carry their evilness in.
(You see, if they just had plain, boring handbags, the evilness would glow through and everyone would see it.)
I know you are thinking that lots of women are young and beautiful and have pretty fingernails and clothes and shoes and handbags. That’s why I am going to tell you a secret. You can use it to check if someone is an evil witch. The secret is: all evil witches are terrified of being touched by children.
By the time human children are Biddy’s age, they know when a grown-up person doesn’t like kids. And they just don’t go near that person. So, when Biddy sees the evil witch on the train, she climbs onto the seat next to her, like Mum tells her to. But then Biddy puts her backpack between herself and the witch, and starts looking out of the window.
Mum lifts Matilda up onto the seat next to her, to keep Matilda safe.
Then Mum turns away from Matilda to get baby Ellen out of the pram. Just then, Matilda notices the beautiful woman sitting opposite her with a handbag all covered in bright red sequins and jewels. And Matilda is too little to know about witches, so she makes a big mistake.
She jumps off her seat, reaches out to touch the bag, and says, ‘Huddo, I’m Tilly. Dat’s piddy.’
The witch snatches her handbag away from Matilda’s grasp, and glares at Mum. Her lip is curled up. ‘Kindly keep your grubby child away from me,’ she says.
Mum pulls Matilda back up onto the seat beside her.
Matilda kicks and screams, ‘Want the piddy. Want to sit with Bibby.’
Brigid Lucy and the Princess Tower Page 1
