The Phredde Collection

by Jackie French

  We kept on running.

  Through more doorways, and more thingummy players making even more of a din. Then Phredde stopped and so did Bruce, so suddenly I bumped into them.

  ‘Bug—’ I began, then hiccuped, because you can’t say rude words in Phaeryland. They’ve got filters that any software company would die for.

  We were in the Great Hall, with its ceiling as high as the sky but in colours the sky never dreamed of, even when it felt in a sunrise mood. There was carpet underfoot, as thick as grass, with embroidery of unicorns and deer and…I blinked. Was that Bart Simpson peering round from behind a gryphon? Phaeryland must finally have got TV.

  And there was the Phaery Queen, on her giant pearl and diamond throne, with her husband, Dwayne, beside her, reading the paper.

  I glanced around the hall and my jaw dropped open.

  EVERYONE was there. I mean EVERYONE! There was Mum in a lime-green ball dress with the Phaery Splendifera, Phredde’s mum, and Bruce’s mum too, and Dad in a pair of blue velvet knee breeches! (He looked a bit embarrassed, to be honest.) There was Mark with his fur brushed and fangs gleaming, and Bruce’s dad and Mrs Olsen in her best vampire cloak and Amelia looking sour (because her ball dress wasn’t half as sparkly as mine), Edwin picking his nose and Alexandra and Claudia and Annabelle and Emma from the Elf Orchestra with Jessica the Bogey person hiding behind them. There was even Miss Richards, our librarian in a really tight leopardskin evening dress, and Snow White and her seven quite short software engineers all around her…

  …and there were the ghosts, looking more solid than I had ever seen them, even though it was still day, and Prince Peanut and the Phaery Daffodil and King Menes…

  ‘Wuff,’ said a voice and I looked round to see Willie peeing near a pillar. But he didn’t leave a puddle because things like that don’t happen in Phaeryland.

  Everyone I’d ever met was there!

  Phredde grinned at me. ‘That’s why we had to vanish,’ she said. ‘It took AGES to get everyone here.’

  ‘And we couldn’t invite them too early,’ added Bruce. ‘Or someone might have let the cat out of the bag.’

  ‘What cat? What’s this all—’ I began. But the Phaery Queen was beckoning to us.

  ‘Shh,’ Phredde whispered. She curtseyed way down low and Bruce bowed.

  ‘Curtsey, dumdum,’ hissed Phredde over her shoulder at me. So I curtseyed as well. It didn’t quite work, to be honest—I wasn’t sure which foot went where. But it must have looked all right because the Phaery Queen smiled at me. Or maybe she was laughing. It was a friendly sort of a laugh, anyway.

  ‘Welcome,’ she said. ‘Ethereal, Filbert, Prudence.’

  ‘Filbert?’ I hissed.

  ‘Shut up,’ muttered Bruce.

  Prince Dwayne put down his newspaper. ‘Hi,’ he said kindly.

  ‘Er, hiya, Your Majesties,’ I said.

  Phredde and Bruce stepped back into the watching crowd. I was about to follow them when the Queen beckoned. ‘Come forward, Prudence,’ she said.

  So I did.

  It was the longest walk I’ve ever taken, clumping towards the throne in those glass slippers, afraid I was going to trip in front of everyone. I could just imagine Amelia’s delight, and Phredde and Bruce would be embarrassed by their clumsy human friend and wish they’d never brought me.

  Why HAD they brought me?

  And suddenly I was there.

  ‘Kneel,’ said the Phaery Queen.

  For a moment I thought she’d said ‘Neil’ and was looking round for a Neil-looking kind of a guy. But then I realised. So I kneeled, and my skirts sort of billowed round me, and I thought, Heck! What now?

  ‘Since time began,’ said the Phaery Queen, her voice echoing all around as if she was speaking into a microphone, but I suppose you don’t need a microphone if you’re the Phaery Queen, ‘humans have envied phaeries, envied their power, envied their magic.

  ‘Magic is difficult for humans to understand. The most dangerous person in all the world would be someone who only wanted magic for its power to do good for others. If you can’t use magic to create joy in your own life, you are likely to make a mess when you try to make happiness for other people.’

  The Great Hall was so quiet you could have heard an emu drop. I bet Edwin had even stopped picking his nose.

  ‘Despite the differences between humans and phaeries, many of our subjects have chosen to live in what humans call “the real world” rather than our Land of Phaery. As all here know, I’m sure, most choose to live in Ruritania, a land not unlike Phaeryland in many ways. But Ruritania is no longer safe for those of our kind. People have always hated others who are different. Hatred breeds more hatred, especially when there is fear as well.’

  I remembered when I’d first seen Phredde sitting on that fence and angry at the world. She and her parents had only just arrived in Australia. I’d been as strange to her as she was to me. Had it really only been a year ago?

  ‘It isn’t easy to begin a new life with new friends,’ said the Phaery Queen. Her quiet voice echoed everywhere and suddenly she sounded like a real queen. The sort who leads people into battle, I mean. ‘It isn’t always easy for the friends either. But there is one human who has been a true and steadfast friend to all the phaery people she has met. Phaeries, frogs,’ the Phaery Queen smiled at Bruce, ‘zombies, vampires. A person without prejudice, who opens her heart to all the world.’

  Wow, I thought, this person sounds COOL! I wonder who she can be talking about.

  And then the Phaery Queen said, ‘Prudence, please rise’, and I realised she was talking about me!

  Something sparkled in the air above me. It was a wand, like one of those long sticks with a star on the end that little kids play with, but a million billion times more beautiful. And the star came down onto my head and I could hardly see for sparkles.

  And something changed.

  I didn’t know what it was at first. Just a feeling about the shoulder blades and a sort of…power…behind my eyes. Then I reached back over my shoulder and I had WINGS! And somehow I knew that if I looked a certain way the world would go PING! and things would happen just the way I wished…

  The Phaery Queen smiled at me. Forget about any movie star you’ve ever seen. When the Phaery Queen smiles at you, you stay smiled!

  ‘Your friends, the Princess Ethereal and Prince Filbert, both earnestly beseeched me to grant this boon,’ she said. ‘They even offered a third of their own magic to make up enough for you. But I said no. Phaeryland has magic enough to share with its friends. Only once in 50 years does a human become a phaery, and only a human who has shown that they can use phaery power as well as any phaery. Welcome, Prudence.’

  ‘Wow,’ I said. Then felt totally dumb because all I could think to say next was, ‘Hey, is this okay with Mum and Dad?’

  Prince Dwayne grinned. ‘Don’t worry, kid,’ he said. ‘The Phaery Queen cleared it with your mum and dad first.’

  ‘Oh, Prudence,’ said Mum tearfully behind me. There was a flash as Dad took a photo.

  And then it was over.

  * * *

  9See A Phaery Named Phredde.

  10See Phredde and the Temple of Gloom.

  Chapter 21

  Not the End at All

  ‘Oh wow,’ I said. It was all that I’d been able to say for the last ten minutes. ‘Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.’

  ‘You sound like a pigeon,’ said Bruce.

  Phredde kicked him. ‘Give her time to get used to it, Frog-face,’ she said.

  ‘Hey, how big will I be when I get back home?’ I asked suddenly.

  ‘Same size you always were,’ said Phredde. ‘The Phaery Queen just made you a phaery, she didn’t change your size.’

  I felt relieved. I mean, none of my school uniforms would have fit, or my new fancy underpants.

  ‘And I can PING! just like you?’

  ‘Yep,’ said Phredde.

  ‘Only once we’re out of Phaeryland,’ Bruce
reminded me. ‘No one can use magic in Phaeryland except the Phaery Queen. Except to leave or get here, of course.’

  I was just beginning to realise what this meant. When Phredde and Bruce went off for their magic training, I’d be going too! And there was something else as well…

  ‘So next time we’re captured by skull-juggling trolls I can be the one to PING! us free?’

  ‘Be our guest,’ said Phredde happily.

  ‘Oh wow,’ I said again.

  I looked at them, my two good friends. Then I glanced over at Mum and Dad. They were chatting with Prince Dwayne. The leprechaun musicians were tuning up. Soon there’d be old-fashioned dancing and a feast on the tables on the lawn. The smell of roast gryphon wafted from the palace kitchens and sweetmeats too. I wondered if Cookie was in there helping the phaeries with the feast.

  Phaeries. Just like Phredde and Bruce…and me.

  Suddenly I could see the future. Not magically see it, because I hadn’t even tried to PING! yet. Just a sort of knowledge that there was something wonderful coming for the three of us, years and years of laughter and adventures together.

  ‘You know,’ I said carefully, ‘if we were to PING! ourselves away, just for a little adventure, maybe we could PING! back again before they’d noticed we’d left.’

  Phredde grinned. ‘Yep,’ she said.

  ‘Too right,’ said Bruce.

  He held out his froggy paw. I grabbed it, then took Phredde’s hand in my other hand.

  ‘One, two, three,’ I chanted.

  PING!!

  Phredde and the Zombie Librarian and Other Stories to Eat with a Blood Plum

  Jackie French

  Dedication

  To the ‘piranhas’ with much love…Sarah and Laura Bennett, Melissa Robinson, Anna Skidmore, Nathan Stone and Chelsea Pattinson.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  A Bit About Stories

  Prudence and the Mummy

  The Curse of the Zombie Librarian

  Saturday Night Werewolf

  Prudence and the Tooth Phaery

  Phredde and the Boa Constrictor

  A Bit About Stories

  There are stories that move you, that become part of you, that make you think and dream…

  Then there are the sorts of stories you read when school has stretched out like a long, flat road and you’re feeling totally brain dead and just want to read and laugh and eat a banana.

  These are stories for those times.

  Escape stories. Silly happy stories.

  Stories to eat with a banana, a watermelon…or a blood plum.

  PS…Yes, I do mean eat.

  Some people READ stories—mostly when they’re told they HAVE to go and read a story.

  And some people EAT them—the way they eat potato chips or cherries…

  or blood plums.

  Prudence and the Mummy

  The pyramid walls disappeared into the dark surrounding us. Slime dripped slowly from the ceiling. Plop! Plop! Plop! A drop hit my nose, then dribbled down my chin.

  ‘Turn off the torch!’ whispered Bruce urgently.

  ‘But…’ I began.

  ‘Quickly! It might see the light!’ hissed Bruce.

  I clicked the switch on the torch. Darkness swallowed us, thick and evil-smelling. I stood there panting, frozen with terror.

  ‘Do you think it knows where we are?’ I whispered.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ croaked Bruce. ‘I think we outran it. Now all we have to do is…’

  And then I heard it.

  Clomp, clomp, clomp.

  ‘It knows where we are!’ I hissed.

  ‘Shhh!’ breathed Bruce. ‘Maybe it’ll turn down another passage!’

  Clomp, clomp, clomp.

  It was coming closer, closer, closer…

  ‘It’s nearly here!’ I squeaked.

  ‘Maybe if we keep really still it’ll miss us in the dark,’ said Bruce hopefully.

  Clomp, clomp, clomp. It was nearer now. Much nearer.

  ‘I think we should keep running!’ I hissed.

  ‘But if we run it’ll hear us…’

  Clomp, clomp, clomp.

  Too late! Suddenly light flared in the darkness. The mummy’s face leapt out of the shadows towards us, all dirty bandages and staring eyes.

  ‘Found you!’ it shrieked triumphantly.

  It lifted up one heavily bandaged arm and then it…

  Maybe I should start at the beginning.

  It was an ordinary sort of school day. The only sounds were the scratch of chalk on the blackboard, and the buzz of flies against the window—and the thuck of Bruce’s long tongue as he snaffled another one.

  Only kamikaze flies visit our classroom. Bruce has the fastest tongue in Australia. If there were a fly-sucking contest at the Olympics, Bruce’d win it hands down. But then, he’s a frog—or he is at the moment—so he’s got an advantage.

  It was hot and it was boring. It was the type of day that any normal kid would much rather spend outdoors fighting invading aliens on a pirate ship or throwing water bombs from the castle battlements, than sitting in class doing maths. But then again, I suppose every day is a bit like that.

  But it was hot.

  ‘And when the Nile overflowed each spring, the silt would fertilise the fields,’ said Mrs Olsen, taking another sip of chilled blood from the Thermos on her desk.

  (I was glad the blood was in a Thermos. I mean, I know there’s nothing wrong in being a vampire, not as long as you have an arrangement with the abattoir, and I know there’s really no difference between eating blood that is contained in a nice, grilled steak or having it extracted for you at the abattoir. But somehow, when you see the blood all red and thick and gluggy in a glass, with frozen blood iceblocks, it puts you off your lunch, even when it’s pineapple pizza-day at the tuckshop.)

  ‘Can anyone tell me why the Nile would flood in spring?’ continued Mrs Olsen, looking like she’d rather be flapping around a nice, cool castle instead of trying to get us interested in Ancient Egypt. ‘Bruce?’

  ‘Gullup,’ said Bruce, hurriedly swallowing another fly. (We’re not supposed to eat in class.) ‘What was that, Mrs Olsen?’

  ‘Why did the Nile flood in spring?’ repeated Mrs Olsen patiently.

  ‘Er…because everyone washed their cars, and the water went down the drains and into the river?’ hazarded Bruce.

  Mrs Olsen shut her eyes for a moment. She looked really tired. (She said it had been too hot in her coffin to have a decent nap at lunchtime.) ‘No, Bruce,’ she said. ‘We’re talking about five thousand years ago. Amelia?’

  Amelia smirked. She’s a real pain in the neck sometimes. Okay, all the time. ‘Flooding would occur when the winter snow in the mountains of Numidia melted,’ she said smugly.

  ‘I bet I’d have thought of that if I’d been paying attention,’ Bruce whispered to me.

  Mrs Olsen glanced at the clock and sighed with relief. ‘Nearly time to go home,’ she said. ‘Alright everyone, your homework for this weekend is a joint project on some aspect of Ancient Egyptian society. It is due first thing Tuesday morning. I want you all to choose a partner, then one of you is to come up the front and pick out of my coffin a piece of paper with your topic on it.’

  Phredde glanced at me. I nodded. Phredde’s my best friend, so it made sense that we’d be partners.

  ‘Has everyone got a partner?’ inquired Mrs Olsen.

  Bruce gave an embarrassed croak. ‘I haven’t,’ he admitted.

  Amelia batted her eyelashes at him. ‘He can join me and Shirlee, can’t he, Shirlee?’ she said sweetly.

  Bruce croaked again, deep in his throat. ‘Hey,’ he whispered to me. ‘Can I join you and Phredde? Please!’

  ‘But—’ began Phredde.

  Phredde isn’t so keen on Bruce. Not because he’s a frog or anything—Phredde hasn’t got anything against frogs—but it’s just that her mother sleeps with The Directory of Ha
ndsome Princes beside her bed, and the only phaery prince anywhere around here is Bruce. The feeling is mutual because the last thing Bruce wants is to be kissed by a phaery princess and turned back into a prince. I mean, Bruce likes being a frog.

  ‘Sure,’ I said, giving Phredde a nudge. Phredde and I have been through a lot with Bruce, what with the girl-eating rose bushes and sleeping beauty and the ghostly knight.1 The least we could do was keep him out of Amelia’s clutches.

  I put my hand up. ‘Bruce is with me and Phredde,’ I informed Mrs Olsen.

  Bruce flashed me a damp, brown grin. Amelia looked disappointed. (I think she has a crush on Bruce, which is probably why Bruce keeps well clear of her. Amelia isn’t a phaery princess—she isn’t ANY sort of princess—but I bet Bruce doesn’t want to take any chances.)

  ‘Alright then,’ said Mrs Olsen. ‘Phredde, if you’d like to come up and pick out the first topic.’

  Phredde fluttered up from her perch on the back of her chair, gave a swift karate kick to a passing fly, and flew out to the front of the classroom. She perched on the edge of the coffin (it’s made of this really cool dark wood—mahogany, I think it’s called—and has red satin lining and everything) and picked out of bit of paper.

  ‘Draw a plan of a pyramid,’ she read out.

  ‘Hey cool, that’s easy,’ I said. ‘You just draw a triangle and fill it in with bricks.’ Which would leave most of the weekend free for fooling around on my pirate ship with Phredde, or fighting ogres and stuff like that.

  Amelia snorted. ‘Pyramids weren’t made of bricks!’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Mrs Olsen kindly. ‘I’m afraid your project is a bit more complicated than that, Prudence. I want you to draw a plan of the inside of a pyramid, not the outside.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. Bruce started to stick his tongue out at Amelia but grabbed a fly with it before it got there. (I had never realised how long a frog’s tongue was till I met Bruce.)