The Phredde Collection

by Jackie French

  ‘What are nose pliers?’ I asked.

  ‘Don’t worry, dearie, you’ll find out,’ said the evil phaery. ‘Now,’ she turned to Phredde and Bruce, ‘are you two staying to watch? Or do you want to try to clamber out the windows?’

  Phredde looked at Bruce. Bruce nodded slightly. ‘No,’ said Phredde. ‘What we’re going to do is…CHARGE!’

  Phredde leapt. Bruce jumped. I waited for the evil phaery to crash to the floor…

  WHUMP! Bruce and Phredde crashed to the floor instead.

  ‘What…what was that?’ demanded Phredde shakily. ‘You can’t magic us!’

  ‘Of course not, dearies,’ said the evil phaery. ‘It’s a glass wall. You can’t get at me, but I…’ There was another PING! and I was suddenly next to the phaery ‘…can magic your friend over here. Now, have you any final questions before we begin?’

  ‘Just one,’ I said. ‘What’s your name?’

  Chapter 12

  The Attack of the Vampire Mosquitoes

  The evil phaery blinked. ‘My name?’ she said.

  ‘Yeah. If I’m going to be tortured by an evil phaery it’d be good to know which evil phaery. I mean, if Phredde and Bruce have to go back and tell my mum and dad I’ve been chopped into pieces…’ I gulped, and tried to keep my voice steady, ‘…by an evil phaery, my mum and dad are going to want some details.’

  The evil phaery sighed. ‘Very well, then,’ she conceded. ‘My name is The Phaery Daffodil.’

  ‘The Phaery Daffodil?’ I asked. ‘I thought it’d be something like The Evil Phaery Wormwood or Hemlock or something.’

  The Phaery Daffodil looked annoyed. ‘Look, my parents didn’t know I was going to decide to be an evil phaery when I left school. They wanted me to be a dentist.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said.

  ‘Right,’ said The Phaery Daffodil. ‘On with the torture! Torture gives people such a lovely taste!’

  Lightning flickered across the gloomy room. The thunder went tweet, tweet, tweet…

  Tweet, tweet, tweet?

  ‘Mordred!’ yelled The Phaery Daffodil. ‘What the fruitcake are you doing with that thunder?’

  ‘Sorry, Mum!’ The voice floated down from somewhere above the ceiling. ‘I pressed the wrong control button.’

  ‘Well, unpress it then!!’

  ‘I can’t!’

  ‘Fruitcakes!’ swore The Phaery Daffodil. ‘How can you have a decent torture session without serious thunder?’

  ‘Look, really, I don’t mind,’ I said politely.

  ‘Well, bring on the vampire mosquitoes, then!’ called The Phaery Daffodil.

  ‘Yes Mum.’

  The tweet, tweet, tweeting stopped. The room slowly filled with a deep, droning, buzzing noise…

  I took a deep breath. ‘Er…goodbye Phredde. Goodbye Bruce. You don’t have to watch this, you know!’

  ‘You’re my best friend!’ cried Phredde desperately. ‘If you’re going to be tortured by vampire mosquitoes I want to watch.’

  ‘Wow, thanks,’ I said.

  ‘You know what I mean!’ yelled Phredde. ‘And you, The Phaery Daffodil, if you hurt my friend you’d…you’d better watch out, that’s all I can say…’

  The buzzing sound grew louder.

  And louder.

  And louder…

  I looked around. There was no sign of any mosquitoes, vampire or otherwise.

  ‘Sorry Mum,’ came the voice from the ceiling again. ‘I think there’s something wrong with the vampire mosquito program. All I’m getting is sound.’

  ‘Then turn it off! I knew we should have used real ones!’

  ‘I couldn’t find any! There are none left down in the dungeons!’ said Mordred’s voice above us.

  ‘I ate them all in the tunnel,’ admitted Bruce.

  The Phaery Daffodil looked more and more upset. ‘You plot and scheme for years to get a human to torture, and what happens?’

  ‘I’ve got some mummies,’ offered Mordred’s voice.

  The Phaery Daffodil sighed. ‘I suppose that’s better than nothing.’

  The buzzing stopped. Suddenly a door appeared in the middle of the room. It opened with a long, deep creak, and the first mummy stepped through.

  I stared at it. No bloodstained bandages, no little box containing its brain and stomach…

  This mummy wore an old blue tracksuit, all sagging at the knees. She carried half a dozen plastic bags, too. ‘Give me a hand!’ she puffed to The Phaery Daffodil. ‘These groceries weigh a tonne!’

  Another mummy was coming through the door now. This one was talking on her mobile phone. ‘You need what!? A sheep costume? By Thursday! How on earth am I going to…’

  ‘Mordred!’ shrieked The Phaery Daffodil.

  ‘What?’ called Mordred.

  The Phaery Daffodil gritted her teeth. ‘These are not mummies!’

  ‘Yes, they are,’ protested Mordred. ‘It says here on the program, “Assorted mummies, with sound effects”.’

  ‘Enough!’ screamed The Phaery Daffodil. ‘I’ve had it up to HERE with all this Temple of Gloom stuff!’

  ‘But Mum, it’s my homework project!’

  ‘Homework?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah!’ Mordred’s voice was suddenly really enthusiastic. ‘I’m doing a tech course on special effects for horror movies. It’s so cool! It’s all done with computers nowadays! We have to do this special project for the end of term and I chose a Temple of Gloom, because I thought it might be useful for Mum’s work…’ The voice trailed off sadly.

  ‘You’re being really mean,’ I informed The Phaery Daffodil. ‘Your son is just trying to help, and you don’t appreciate the effort he’s making at all!’

  ‘I’m an evil phaery!’ shrieked The Phaery Daffodil. ‘I’m supposed to be mean!’

  ‘Huh!’ I said.

  ‘She’s right,’ said Mordred’s voice. ‘You just don’t understand, Mum! You just keep criticising me, and stressing out when the least little thing goes wrong, like that little mix-up with the giant mosquitoes yesterday…’

  ‘They were supposed to drink blood, not raspberry cordial!’ cried The Phaery Daffodil.

  ‘That’s parents for you,’ I said.

  I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I was being really cool and heroic despite the fact Phredde and Bruce and I were imprisoned in a Temple of Gloom, even if it was just Mordred’s homework project. But really all my insides had turned into ice cream with caramel sauce and I was terrified! But I thought, if you just keep the bad guys talking, then sooner or later some hero will come bursting in and rescue you…

  Well, that’s how it works in the movies, anyway. I just hoped it worked like that in Phaeryland too.

  ‘Well, I’m sick of all this gloom stuff!’ The Phaery Daffodil was yelling. ‘You just get rid of it!’

  ‘But Mum…’

  ‘At once!’

  PING!

  The Temple of Gloom vanished. We were in a kitchen, but it wasn’t the lamington kitchen. It was another kitchen entirely.

  Chapter 13

  Prudence Casserole

  This kitchen was more normal looking. Well, sort of normal. It had nice yellow walls, and cork tiles on the floor, and a big kitchen table with chairs around it, and a stove, and a breakfast nook, and kids’ pictures taped on the fridge door.

  Except these kids’ pictures were diagrams of vampire bats (more of Mordred’s homework, I supposed) and the stove was big, roasting-Prudences-in-the-oven sort of big. And there was this giant pot on the top, that looked suspiciously like a casserole for Prudences too, and the table was laid for dinner with knives and forks and two place mats, and I had a horrible feeling that dinner was going to be me…

  ‘Phredde!’ I roared. ‘Bruce!’

  ‘We’re still here!’ said Phredde’s voice. I looked round. Phredde and Bruce were there behind the glass wall, their backs to the larder.

  ‘Do something!’ I shouted.

  ‘What?’ cried Phred
de. ‘I told you, we can’t unmagic someone else’s spell!’

  ‘Then stop thinking magic!’ I yelled. ‘Think practical!’

  ‘Practical?’ I could almost hear Phredde’s brain humming.

  ‘Break the wall down or something! You’re my only hope!’ I screamed.

  BANG! CRASH! Phredde beat her fists against the glass wall, but it must have been super-tough glass (the same stuff as the glass slippers were made out of, I suppose) ’cause it didn’t break.

  Splot, splosh, splish! Bruce beat on the wall with his froggy fingers too, and with his tongue. It left slimy smears all over the glass, but that was all.

  PING! The Phaery Daffodil stood in front of me. She was still wearing her long, black, flowing thing—it would have made a cool dressing gown—but now it had a flowery apron over it, with ‘Don’t Kiss the Cook’ written on it. (I wasn’t tempted.)

  Even worse, she was holding a giant stir-fried-Prudence sort of frying pan.

  ‘Enough of all this nonsense,’ she ordered, ‘or it’ll be midnight before we get any dinner. You, Prudence, get up on the bench!’

  ‘No,’ I said defiantly.

  The Phaery Daffodil shrugged. ‘Have it your own way,’ she said calmly.

  PING!

  Suddenly I was stretched right along the benchtop. Even worse, my arms and legs seemed to be strapped down by invisible bonds.

  ‘Phredde! Bruce!’ I shrieked.

  ‘We’ll think of something!’ yelled Phredde.

  ‘Any minute now, I promise!’ cried Bruce.

  ‘Well, do it soon or glub, glub, glub, glub…’ Suddenly my mouth was full of cotton wool.

  ‘Mordred! The cleaver!’ cried The Phaery Daffodil.

  PING! Suddenly Mordred was in the room too.

  He looked okay. I mean, he looked just like a normal teenager, in jeans and a cap on back-to-front and a T-shirt with a tomato sauce stain on it (well, I hoped it was a tomato sauce stain) and a floppy pair of wings like Phredde’s and a sharp-looking cleaver in his hand—well, an almost normal teenager, anyway.

  The Phaery Daffodil considered me. ‘She looks tender enough,’ she said, ‘even without a bit of torture to tenderise her first. I do hate it when people are stringy. Maybe we could have her fried with chips and tartare sauce.’

  I spat out the cotton wool. ‘I’m not tender at all!’ I yelled. ‘I’m really tough! It’s all the netball practice we do at school!’

  ‘Then we shall have to roast you,’ decided The Phaery Daffodil. ‘Or maybe stewed. Which would you prefer?’

  ‘Er…roast,’ I said. It had suddenly occurred to me that if I was shoved whole in the oven I might just be able to tunnel out—or something—whereas escaping once I’d been chopped up with a cleaver and covered in batter would be a bit more difficult…

  ‘Actually, I wasn’t asking you,’ said The Phaery Daffodil. ‘Mordred?’

  Mordred considered. ‘I feel more like pasta…’

  ‘Good thinking!’ I said.

  ‘With meatballs,’ he went on.

  I had a feeling those meatballs weren’t going to be pork and veal.

  ‘Look, tomato sauce is really nice on pasta!’ I assured him. ‘With lots of basil and nice smelly parmesan cheese on top. That’s how Mum makes it. You don’t need meatballs at all.’

  The Phaery Daffodil looked at me sternly. ‘You know,’ she said. ‘it really does make it difficult to work out a menu when one’s dinner keeps interrupting. No, not meatballs. That would mean we’d have to mince her, and you know how messy that can be. I think a nice plain casserole would be best.’

  ‘With tomatoes and carrots?’ asked Mordred hopefully.

  ‘And a little thyme, and garlic and celery…’

  PING!

  Now I was in the giant casserole on the stove. I peered over the edge…‘Look, Phredde, Bruce, I don’t want to hurry you,’ I yelled, ‘but…’

  PING! The Phaery Daffodil emptied a really massive tin of tomatoes all round me.

  ‘Yuk!’ I said. ‘That was an almost clean T-shirt!’

  PING! PING! Plop, plop, plop, plop…

  Carrots, onions, chopped celery, a few sprigs of thyme…

  The Phaery Daffodil reached over and crushed a clove of garlic over my head.

  CLANG. PING! Suddenly the world was dark, and smelt of tomatoes and garlic with just a hint of thyme. The Phaery Daffodil had put the lid on my casserole dish.

  ‘Phredde…’ I yelled.

  Phredde, Phredde, Phredde, Phredde… the words echoed off the walls of the casserole dish.

  ‘Phredde! Bruce! Heeelp!’

  Elp, elp, elp, elp… came the echo.

  ‘Globboddyity gloop,’ came something that sounded like Phredde’s voice from outside.

  ‘I can’t hear you!’ I shrieked.

  ‘I said we’ve thought of something!’ came Phredde’s voice faintly. ‘Just hold on!’

  ‘Hold on to what!’ A tomato floated past my chin. ‘Phredde, it’s getting warm in here!’

  It was, too. First of all my toes felt warm. Then my sit-upon, and then the tomato juice started to heat up all round me…

  Suddenly I had an idea. ‘Hey!’ I yelled. ‘Phaery Daffodil!’

  ‘I’ve told you before,’ said The Phaery Daffodil’s voice. ‘A well-behaved dinner doesn’t argue…’

  ‘But I’m getting caught on the bottom! My bottom! I mean, I’m getting singed! I need stirring! You don’t want a burnt dinner, do you?’

  I heard her sigh. ‘Just hand me the wooden spoon, will you, Mordred?’ she said.

  The lid lifted off me. I surged up…

  Then everything happened at once.

  Whoomp! I grabbed the wooden spoon.

  PING! Suddenly a pneumatic drill appeared in Phredde’s hands.

  Gribbagriubba griba gribba! The pneumatic drill pounded into the glass wall separating me from Phredde and Bruce.

  ‘We’ll be with you in a minute!’ shrieked Phredde. ‘Just hold on!’

  PING! But before I had time to wonder who had PING!ed what, there was a knock, knock, knock… and the kitchen door opened.

  ‘What the…’ The Phaery Daffodil grabbed the wooden spoon back out of my hands and turned to the door. So did Mordred.

  ‘Excuse me. I hope I’m not disturbing anything?’

  It was the handsome prince we’d seen eating his baked beans on toast at breakfast.

  He looked even more handsome now, with his dark curls and this velvet hat with a feather and his really tight trousers and his really cool black leather boots and this sword at his side.

  I’ve never been so glad to see a handsome prince in my life.

  ‘Help me!’ I screamed. ‘I’ve been captured by an evil phaery and she’s going to casserole me with tomatoes and carrots and garlic…’

  ‘And a sprig of thyme,’ said The Phaery Daffodil. She smiled really sweetly at the handsome prince. ‘Don’t pay any attention to her.’

  The handsome prince blinked. I suddenly realised he didn’t look a very bright handsome prince. In fact he looked sort of…dumb…

  ‘Um…’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose she’s a princess in need of rescuing? You see, I’m searching for a princess to rescue and…’

  ‘Of course she’s not a princess!’ said The Phaery Daffodil, eying him up and down appreciatively. ‘I told you. She’s just our dinner.’

  ‘Um…you don’t mind if I have a closer look, do you? Just in case? I’d hate to leave a princess in distress.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said The Phaery Daffodil graciously, patting her hair to make sure it was in place. ‘Be our guest.’

  Gribbagriubba griba gribba, went Phredde’s pneumatic drill in the background.

  The handsome prince picked up his sword and stepped into the kitchen and over to the stove. He peered into my casserole.

  ‘No,’ he said to The Phaery Daffodil, who was quickly reapplying her lipstick, ‘she’s not a princess. Not in those clothes.’

&nb
sp; ‘What! But I’ve got a ball dress and glass slippers and everything!’ I wailed. ‘They’re back at the Sweet Pea Guesthouse!’

  The handsome prince shook his head. ‘If you’re not wearing them then you can’t be a princess,’ he said stubbornly. ‘My mum told me, “You go and rescue a princess.” She didn’t say anything about rescuing a girl in green tracksuit pants.’

  ‘Can’t you rescue me anyway?’ I pleaded, picking a bit of celery out of my hair. ‘Just for practice, until you find the real thing?’

  The handsome prince looked at his watch. ‘I don’t think I have time,’ he said a bit anxiously. ‘I was told there was a sleeping princess around here somewhere, but I must have taken the wrong turning.’

  ‘Are you sure we can’t offer you a cup of tea before you go?’ asked The Phaery Daffodil, looking even more appreciatively at his really tight trousers and the way his muscles bulged under his silk shirt.

  ‘No, thank you,’ said the handsome prince.

  ‘Honeydew nectar? Glass of milk? Mug of warm bat’s blood?’

  ‘I’m afraid I never drink bat’s blood,’ said the handsome prince apologetically. ‘Look, I really have to hurry…’

  ‘Look,’ I yelled desperately. (Phredde’s pneumatic drill didn’t seem to be getting anywhere soon and it was really getting hot now.) ‘How about you rescue me and I’ll tell you where to find the princess…’

  ‘What would a tomato and garlic casserole know about finding princesses?’ snorted The Phaery Daffodil.

  PING! BOOOOM!

  I blinked. That hadn’t been Phredde’s pneumatic drill!

  Then the smoke cleared and Bruce’s froggy face grinned at me through the clouds of disintegrating larder and glass wall. ‘Just a little hand grenade I magicked up!’ he said. ‘I thought it would be faster than a pneumatic drill.’

  Phredde dashed over to my casserole and turned the heat off. ‘Hold on!’ she yelled.

  PING! Suddenly I was wearing my ball dress again. AND the glass slippers, which immediately filled up with tomato juice with just a hint of garlic, and my tiara…

  The handsome prince blinked. ‘She is a princess!’ he cried.