The Phredde Collection

by Jackie French

  ‘Huh,’ said Bruce. ‘I bet she programmed the mirror to say that.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Phredde.

  ‘Anyway,’ I went on, ‘Snow White grew up and got even more totally gorgeous, and one day when the evil stepmum said, “Mirror, mirror”, the mirror answered, “Snow White is the coolest chick around.” And the evil stepmother went totally ballistic!’

  ‘I should think so,’ said Bruce. ‘After she’s programmed it to say she was the best, too. So did she get a mirror upgrade?’

  ‘No! She called the woodsman and told him to take Snow White into the forest and kill her.’

  ‘I bet he told her where to get off,’ said Phredde gleefully. ‘I bet he said, “Look, evil queen, killing princesses isn’t in my job description and I’m going to complain to the union and the police, and I’m going to go on the ‘World’s Silliest Conspiracies Show’ and tell all, and you’re going to be up for attempted murder and hauled off to prison, and…”’

  ‘Well, no. He didn’t do that. He took Snow White into the woods…’

  ‘The sneaky crawler!’ protested Phredde.

  ‘And then he left her there!’ I shouted. ‘And went back to the evil queen and said he’d bumped her off.’

  ‘I know what happens next,’ said Phredde happily. ‘Snow White goes and learns martial arts and comes back and goes Hee!!! How!!! Hong!!! and throws the evil queen into a barrel of water and…’

  ‘Er, no,’ I said. ‘She goes and lives with the seven dwarves in the forest and…’

  ‘Seven dwarves!’ interrupted Phredde.

  ‘Yeah, and…’

  ‘She goes and lives with them?’

  ‘Yeah, and…’

  ‘All seven of them?’

  ‘Yeah. And…’

  ‘Hellooo? These are male-type dwarves we’re talking about here?’

  ‘Yeah. Then…’

  ‘That’s disgusting,’ roared Phredde. ‘They shouldn’t tell kids’ stories like that. This Snow White chick goes and lives with seven blokes…’

  ‘Well, they were only small blokes…’

  ‘I don’t care if they were two centimetres high! It’s still disgusting!’

  ‘Look, she didn’t live with them…’

  ‘But you said…’

  ‘She just did housework and stuff like that!’ I roared. ‘Nothing…you know…’

  ‘So she was their housekeeper?’ decided Bruce.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Boring,’ said Phredde. ‘Why couldn’t she have become a marine biologist or a veterinary technician or something?’

  ‘Because she’d never been to uni! Look, will you let me finish!’

  ‘No worries,’ said Phredde.

  ‘Alright, then! But the crazy mirror kept banging on about Snow White still being gorgeous, so the evil queen got really suspicious. She found out where Snow White was, and disguised herself as an apple seller…’

  ‘I bet Snow White saw through that one,’ chortled Bruce.

  ‘No. She bit one of the apples…’

  ‘This girl is dumb!’ snorted Phredde.

  ‘And fell into this deep sleep like she was dead. So the dwarves put her on this bier…’ I indicated the bed/table.

  ‘They didn’t bury her? Errk! She’d go all maggotty and turn into a skeleton and…’

  ‘But she wasn’t really dead! She was asleep! And look!’ I waved a hand towards the sleeping Snow White. ‘See? No maggots!’

  Bruce peered over at her hopefully. ‘No, you’re right,’ he decided. ‘Pity about that. A nice fat maggot can be really tasty…’

  ‘Bruce!’ yelled Phredde. She looked at Snow White thoughtfully. ‘So these seven dwarves have just left the poor girl outside where the birds could do their business all over her! I think those dwarves sound pretty dumb too,’ decided Phredde. ‘Surely they had a spare bedroom they could stash her in.’

  ‘Anyway!’ I yelled. ‘Here she is.’ I indicated the sleeping woman beside us.

  Phredde examined her. ‘I don’t think she’s the fairest of all,’ she pointed out. ‘Julia Roberts is much more…’

  ‘I told you, the stepmother really needs to upgrade her mirror,’ said Bruce. ‘One of those Pentium models, with…’

  ‘But what are we going to do about her?’ I roared.

  Phredde and Bruce stared at me. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, we can’t just leave her here!’

  ‘We could lug her back to the Sweet Pea Guesthouse,’ suggested Bruce. ‘I’m sure they’ve got a room for her there.’

  I shook my head. ‘Can you just imagine what our parents would say if we come home carting a dead princess! We’d be grounded for years!’

  ‘You have a point,’ said Bruce. He looked at Snow White with interest. ‘You know, dead bodies attract flies, too,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘We…’

  ‘Bruce!’ I roared.

  ‘Er, I’m sorry,’ said Bruce. ‘I was letting my stomach take over there.’

  ‘You keep your tummy under control,’ I said. ‘Anyway, like I said, she’s not really dead. She’s just asleep. So—let us be quite clear about this—there won’t be any maggots or flies around her whatsoever! She’s just going to sleep till this handsome prince rides by and kisses her…’

  ‘Oh, yuk!’ cried Phredde. ‘He kisses a dead body! He’s a pervert!’

  ‘But she’s only asleep,’ I protested.

  ‘Yeah, but he doesn’t know that. Oh, yuk. Yuk!’ Phredde made vomiting noises.

  Bruce took a careful hop backwards, just in case Snow White should start sleepwalking and accidentally kiss him. (I keep forgetting he’s a handsome prince. Well, a prince, anyway. It’s hard to tell if someone’s handsome when they’re a frog—although he is a pretty nice-looking frog.) ‘What happens then?’ he asked cautiously.

  ‘Well, Snow White and the handsome prince get married and live happily ever after.’

  ‘That’s horrible!’ cried Phredde. ‘You mean she marries this pervert who goes round kissing dead bodies? We have to save her!’

  ‘How? We’d need a handsome prince to wake her up…’ I stopped. I looked at Phredde. Both of us looked at Bruce.

  ‘Oh, no you don’t.’ Bruce hopped back even further in alarm.

  ‘But you’re a handsome prince,’ I said. ‘Or you would be if you weren’t a frog.’

  ‘I like being a frog!’ said Bruce. ‘Anyway, I’m not going around kissing any stray princesses.’

  ‘But then she’ll wake up!’

  ‘Yeah! And want to marry me! No, thanks. Anyway, how would I explain that at school, having this princess hanging around wanting to marry me?’

  Well, I could have pointed out that any princess waking up and seeing Bruce’s froggy mouth—not to mention his big, bulging eyes and damp skin—peering over her would run shrieking into the lollipop forest. I mean, no way was any princess going to fall for Bruce, even if she had been living with seven short gentlemen and doing their washing and ironing for ever so long.

  ‘I think we should just leave her here,’ decided Bruce.

  ‘But…’

  ‘She looks perfectly happy,’ argued Bruce. ‘And you said she lived happily ever after, so what’s the problem? If we interfere we might cause all sorts of trouble.’

  ‘I suppose,’ I said regretfully.

  ‘But marrying a prince!’ wailed Phredde.

  ‘It can’t be all that bad,’ I said feebly.

  ‘Poor girl.’ Phredde looked sympathetically down at her. ‘I bet she doesn’t know any better. Raised in a palace, then stuck in a house in the forest washing and scrubbing with seven male chauvinist dwarves. I bet they never even made their own beds! She’s never had any fun…’ She brightened. ‘I know!’ There was a sudden PING! and she was gone.

  ‘What the…’ I began, then…

  PING! And Phredde was back. ‘Got them,’ she yelled, waving a fistful of paper.

  ‘Got what?’ I enquired.

  Phredde shov
ed the papers into Snow White’s warm, still hand. ‘A uni handbook and enrolment form, a pamphlet on the top ten night clubs, an adventure holiday guidebook and a copy of Feminism and the Mastery of Nature by DrVal Plumwood.’

  ‘Er…’ I said.

  ‘Don’t you see?’ said Phredde excitedly. ‘This pervert prince’ll kiss her and she’ll wake up and she’ll read all that stuff and she’ll tell him to get fruitcaked!’

  ‘But what if she still decides to marry him?’ demanded Bruce.

  ‘Well, at least she’ll have had a choice,’ said Phredde heatedly.

  ‘But…’ began Bruce.

  ‘Alright!’ I yelled. ‘We’ve solved the problem of Snow White! So let’s drop the subject! What do we do now?’

  ‘Have lunch?’ suggested Bruce.

  ‘It’s not lunch time yet.’ I glanced at my watch. ‘It’s only eleven o’clock.’

  ‘But I’m hungry!’ protested Bruce.

  ‘So am I,’ I admitted. ‘This saving princesses from handsome princes is hard work. How about we go back to the chocolate and walnut slice cottage? We could have a quick nibble, and…’

  ‘No!’ chorused Phredde and Bruce, sharing one of their secret looks again.

  I was getting sick of this. ‘Look,’ I demanded, ‘what’s wrong with having a bite of some dear old lady’s chocolate and walnut slice cottage? You said you felt like a snack, and…’

  ‘Well, it’s…’ began Phredde.

  ‘It’s like this…’ began Bruce, then stopped.

  I put my hands on my hips. ‘Go on,’ I said.

  ‘It’s…er…just not a good idea,’ said Phredde.

  ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ said Bruce. ‘It’s not a good idea.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It just isn’t,’ said Phredde. ‘Er…you might get indigestion.’

  ‘Me? I can eat six pineapple and sausage pizzas at a sitting!’

  ‘You’ll spoil your lunch,’ added Bruce quickly but not convincingly.

  ‘Look,’ I said. ‘What’s all this about? What are you two hiding?’

  ‘Us? Nothing,’ said Phredde.

  ‘Yeah, nothing,’ said Bruce.

  I looked from one to the other. I was starting to feel really upset, if you want to know the truth. I mean, after all Phredde and I have been through together, and Bruce and I too, like being chased by that ancient Egyptian mummy4…I hadn’t thought either of them would keep a secret from me.

  It must be because I was just a normal human, I decided, and not a phaery too. Just because I couldn’t fly, and PING! things up, they thought I wasn’t as good as they were—especially here in Phaeryland.

  Which made me feel really bad.

  And mean.

  And upset.

  But there was no way I was going to let either Phredde or Bruce see that.

  ‘Well, who cares?’ I said airily. ‘Let’s do something else, then.’

  ‘Like what?’ asked Phredde, looking relieved. Bruce looked happier too.

  ‘How about we…we go scout around for other trees? I mean, if these trees have lollipops on them maybe there’s a grove of…of tomato-sandwich trees, or celery-stuffed-with-cream-cheese trees.’

  ‘But sandwiches don’t grow on…’ began Phredde.

  Bruce waved her to silence. ‘That’s a great idea,’ he said, a bit too enthusiastically, giving Phredde a warning glance. ‘Don’t you think so, Phredde?’ His look said, ‘Let’s just go along with it in case she starts asking questions again!’

  ‘Oh,’ said Phredde. ‘Oh, yeah. That’s a great idea.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Well, how about you go that way, and Bruce, you go that way, and I’ll scout around that way, and we’ll meet here in…’ I checked my watch, ‘about twenty minutes.’

  ‘Why can’t we all go together?’ asked Phredde.

  ‘We’ll cover more ground separately,’ I said. ‘Who knows what we might find? Maybe there’s even a pineapple-and-sausage-pizza tree!’

  Bruce and Phredde exchanged glances again. ‘Fine by me,’ said Bruce.

  ‘But you don’t have a watch,’ Phredde pointed out.

  PING! A watch appeared on Bruce’s slimy wrist.

  ‘I do now,’ he said. ‘Okay, we meet back here at…’ he looked at his new watch, ‘11.23 precisely.’

  Phredde looked at me worriedly. ‘You won’t go too far away, will you?’ she asked me a bit anxiously.

  ‘Nah. Just through those trees a little way,’ I said. ‘If I see any ferocious little bunny rabbits I’ll shriek. Okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ said Phredde. She still didn’t sound convinced.

  ‘See you in twenty minutes.’ I turned my back and made my way through the lollipop trees.

  Three minutes later I stopped, and tiptoed back again. I peered round a lollipop tree. Phredde and Bruce were still in the middle of the glade. Bruce was saying something—I bet it was ‘Look, just let her go and cool off for a while’—and Phredde was arguing, but finally Bruce leapt off one way and Phredde trotted off another way and I was alone with my thoughts.

  They weren’t nice thoughts either. Not Phaeryland thoughts at all.

  How could they! No matter what the secret was, surely they could trust me! Or didn’t they think I was good enough, just because I was a human?

  ‘Blooming phaeries,’ I muttered to myself (I was nearly in tears, to tell the truth). No, make that ‘fairies’! Fruitcaking fairies! Always thinking they were better than other people just because they could PING! up whatever they wanted, and fly, and they lived in castles…

  I sniffed three times and wiped my eyes. ‘Well,’ I muttered to myself, ‘I’ll show them! They can keep their silly secrets! I’ll find out what it’s all about without them!’

  It was something to do with the chocolate and walnut slice cottage…or gingerbread cottage…or whatever it was. All I had to do was go back there and scout around. And if I went really quickly I’d be back in twenty minutes and then I could say, just sort of casually, ‘Hey, you know that chocolate and walnut slice cottage? Well, I went back there and I discovered the dragon in the carport…’ Or the mutant giant butterfly or whatever it was they were afraid of (being Phaeryland it couldn’t be too bad, whatever it was).

  Then they’d be sorry, I thought. Then they’d see that even though I was a normal, everyday sort of kid, I was more than capable of ferreting out any silly phaery secrets!

  Huh! I thought. Make that fairy secrets! I stomped off.

  * * *

  3 A bubbling brook goes bubble, bubble, bubble. A tinkling brook, on the other hand, goes tinkle, tinkle, tinkle. Phredde says there are also sparkling brooks in Phaeryland (they go sparkle, sparkle, sparkle), but I didn’t see any.

  4 See Phredde and the Zombie Librarian.

  Chapter 8

  Back to the Cottage

  It didn’t take long to get back to the yellow brick road, or to the cottage either. The sun was almost overhead now (I bet it was smiling down at me, too, with a silly Phaeryland grin, but I had a feeling that even in Phaeryland staring at the sun might send you blind, so I didn’t like to check).

  Little heat waves were rising up from the yellow brick road, and the lollipop trees were drooping in the heat. Even the birds had stopped tweet, tweet, tweeting. In fact, the only sound was the rumbling of my tummy.

  A bit of chocolate and walnut slice was getting to sound really good. Maybe I’d leave a few chocolaty crumbs on my T-shirt just to show Phredde and Bruce…

  ‘Why, it’s the little human girl!’ said the sweet little old lady, bobbing up from behind her hedge again and smiling all over her sweet, wrinkled apple face. ‘Welcome, dearie! Welcome to my lamington cottage!’

  I blinked. Sure enough, the house was all chocolate icing now, with little flecks of coconut speckled all over it. There was even a hint of cream filling at the windowsills.

  ‘Er…isn’t it a chocolate and walnut slice cottage?’ I enquired dubiously.

  ‘Oh, no, de
arie.’ The sweet little old lady’s smile grew even wider. ‘It’s a yummy lamington cottage! See!’

  Well, after all, I thought, this was Phaeryland. And lamingtons are okay, though to be honest I’d rather have had a slice of watermelon. But I didn’t feel like asking her to change it yet again, because after all it must be a lot of trouble to change your house from gingerbread to chocolate and walnut slice and then to lamingtons, even if you are a phaery. And anyway, a watermelon house would drip sticky juice all over you and the seeds would fall in your hair.

  So all I said was, ‘It…er…looks very nice.’

  ‘It’s a delicious cottage, dearie!’ said the sweet little old lady, with a sweet, sweet smile, rubbing her wrinkled hands together. ‘Won’t you come inside and try a nibble?’

  ‘Er, can’t I have a nibble out here?’ I asked. For some reason I was starting to feel just a little bit nervous, to tell the truth.

  Thunder growled suddenly above me. I looked up, but there was no sign of clouds.

  The sweet little old lady shook her neat, grey head. ‘Oh, no, dearie. You don’t want to nibble the outside of my cottage! Lamingtons turn all hard and stale in the sunlight.’

  ‘Is that why you have to keep changing your house all the time?’ I asked. ‘Because it gets stale?’

  The thunder muttered ominously again.

  The sweet little old lady blinked. ‘What? Oh, yes. Yes, that’s it! I have to keep changing my house so it doesn’t get stale. So come inside and try my lovely fresh lamington walls! And I’ll make you a lovely cup of honeydew nectar, too!’

  Well, to be honest I was getting sick of honeydew nectar—it’s never going to replace a bottle of cola, or even orange juice, in my opinion. But if I was going to find out exactly what Phredde and Bruce were trying to keep from me, I’d have a better chance of ferreting it out inside.

  So I said, ‘Thank you. I’d love to,’ really politely, just like Mum is always trying to get me to do, and opened the gate, just as the thunder really roared.

  It was a cute garden past the hedge: lots more multicoloured flowers and grass as green as the forest glades, which is basically as green as any green colouring pencil could make it, the sort of green Mark’s goldfish tank goes if he forgets to clean it out.