The Phredde Collection

by Jackie French

  ‘Well, we’re going to have dinner soon,’ I said.

  ‘That wasn’t the sort of hungry I meant,’ said Phredde, perching on my shoulder and staring over at Tobias thoughtfully. ‘Look at him! He’s gazing at Amelia like she’s a hamburger with extra cheese and beetroot.’

  I followed her gaze. ‘So what if he’s drooling a little?’ I said defensively. ‘He probably just wants to ask her to dance.’

  ‘Amelia!’ hooted Phredde.

  ‘Well, maybe he likes smug know-it-alls,’ I said. ‘You’re just prejudiced against werewolves.’

  ‘What’s there to be prejudiced about? They’ve got long fangs, bad breath and eat small creatures like phaeries.’

  ‘Werewolves don’t eat phaeries!’ I declared.

  ‘Only because we’re too fast for them,’ stated Phredde, glancing over at sort-of-cousin Tobias again.

  ‘Why bother flying away?’ I said. ‘You can just PING! them if they threaten you, can’t you?’

  Phredde shook her head. ‘Magic doesn’t work on werewolves. Not during a full moon, anyway. A full moon itself is sort of magic, which counteracts the spell…’ she wrinkled her nose. ‘It’s complicated. You wouldn’t understand it.’

  Phredde always says that when I ask any questions about magic. It makes me want to strangle her sometimes.

  But she’s my best friend, and I didn’t want to quarrel with her—not tonight anyway—so I just said, ‘Huh!’ and then, to distract her, I said: ‘Hey look! There’s the food!’

  It was a pretty good distraction. This great long table had appeared like magic—well, okay, it was magic—along the edge of the lily pond.

  The table was covered in a long, white tablecloth, but you could hardly see it, there was so much food on it. Plates of pizza at one end and on the other end, everything you could ever want on a hamburger—tomato, cheese, onion rings, four kinds of sauce, beetroot, pickles, sour cream, lettuce, coleslaw, pickled nightingale’s tongues, four kinds of buns, beef patties, grated carrot, fried moths, singed sausages, lentil burgers, gryphon burgers, chicken patties—you could add whatever you wanted.

  And in the middle, there were about 10 000 different sorts of icecream, all kept magically cold, plus every sort of fruit I’d ever heard of, and a lot I hadn’t but couldn’t wait to get my teeth into and…

  ‘Er, Bruce?’ I said, examining the coleslaw carefully.

  ‘Mmmm?’ said Bruce, busily assembling a hamburger.

  ‘How much of this stuff has got flies and mosquitoes as an extra ingredient?’

  ‘None,’ said Bruce, adding sour cream and barbecue sauce to his hamburger.

  ‘What about caterpillars?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Beetles?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Fresh or dried maggots?’

  ‘Nope,’ said Bruce. He lifted up the tablecloth and there was a whole bucket of flies and…well, at that stage I decided I didn’t want to look closer.

  ‘I just add my own,’ said Bruce, shooting his tongue down into the bucket and bringing up a tongueful of…well, you don’t want to know either, but at least it was covered quickly by the bun of the hamburger. ‘I promise, everything on top of the table is creepy-crawly free. Except the fried moths. But really, they just taste sort of nutty.’

  ‘Yeah, nuts to them,’ I muttered. I grabbed a plate and started assembling, keeping well clear of the moth section. (The plate was magic too, which meant I could fit as much on it as I liked.)

  I was up to my twelfth scoop of icecream (passionfruit and rose flavoured) and wondering whether I’d rather have tomato and eggplant pizza or prawn and pineapple, or maybe both, and some black olive and pickled onion pizza too, when someone bumped my arm.

  ‘Opps!’ I said, grabbing at a few slices of watermelon that were headed groundwards.

  ‘Sorry,’ sang out Amelia, not sounding sorry at all. She smiled at me smugly. ‘Look who I’ve met!’

  I looked down. There was sort-of-cousin Tobias, with his great hairy paws, sitting at her feet and gazing up at her and panting.

  Phredde was right, I thought uneasily. He did look a bit hungry.

  ‘I bet he’s a handsome prince in disguise,’ declared Amelia. ‘Just like Bruce.’

  ‘He’s not a handsome prince at all,’ I informed her. ‘He’s my sort-of-cousin Tobias. He’s a werewolf.’

  Amelia blinked. ‘But he can’t be!’ she protested.

  ‘Take a close look at him Amelia,’ I advised. ‘See? Long fangs. Doggy drool. Perky ears. Hairy coat. Fleas. Doesn’t that sound a bit like a werewolf to you?’

  ‘But…’ said Amelia. She shook her head. ‘Prudence, he just CAN’T be a werewolf. Look up at the sky!’

  ‘Why should I? Alright then, ALRIGHT!’ I said, just to settle the whole thing. I squinted up into the sky.

  ‘Now what can you see?’

  Black sky…starlight…a few moths (fresh and unfried) carefully keeping out of reach of Bruce’s tongue.

  ‘I can’t see anything,’ I told her. ‘Just a few stars.’

  ‘See!’ said Amelia.

  ‘See what? I don’t under…oh!’ I said, as the light finally dawned in my head. ‘Oh!! Oh—oh…’

  It wasn’t what I could see up in the sky that was important. It was what I couldn’t…

  ‘The moon hasn’t risen yet…’ I said slowly.

  ‘Yep,’ said Amelia.

  ‘And werewolves don’t change into wolves till the moon has risen.’

  ‘Nope,’ said Amelia.

  ‘Which means that sort-of-cousin Tobias isn’t…’

  ‘Woof,’ said sort-of-cousin Tobias. Except he wasn’t was he?

  ‘Er…does that mean he’s a real wolf?’ I stuttered. ‘But…but he can’t be! Real wolves don’t go running around the suburbs!’

  That’s when the moon started to rise. The glow in the east grew brighter, then suddenly a wide, goldorange rind appeared above the horizon. It grew bigger and bigger.

  And sort-of-cousin Tobias—except he wasn’t cousin Tobias at all—began to change.

  He sat up straighter. And straighter.

  His nose grew shorter. His head grew longer.

  He began to stretch and stretch, and his fur began to fade.

  Sort-of-cousin Tobias stood up on his long human legs and stretched his arms. ‘Grrrfffffff,’ he rumbled, in the longest, meanest growl I’ve ever heard.

  ‘He’s…he’s…’ I stuttered.

  ‘He’s a reverse werewolf!’ shouted Bruce, leaping onto the table in alarm, scattering tuna and potato pizza all over the place.

  ‘And he’s…and he’s…’

  ‘He’s naked!’ shrieked Amelia.

  ‘For goodness sake don’t worry about that!’ I cried. ‘Look at his eyes!’

  ‘Look at his fangs!’ shrieked Phredde, fluttering up as far out of his reach as she could.

  ‘Look at his—’ began Amelia until Bruce interrupted her.

  ‘Stand back everyone!’ he ordered. ‘Stand back!’

  Well, he didn’t have to tell us twice. I mean this was one mean-looking wereman. I suddenly remembered Mrs Olsen telling us last term about how humans are the nastiest species on this planet. Well, sort-of-cousin Tobias—or whoever he was—looked like he combined all the meanest bits of human and all the fiercest bits of wolf.

  ‘Grrrrooooowwwwwwlllll!’ rumbled sort-of-cousin Tobias again, showing his long, yellow, gleaming fangs. His golden eyes gleamed in the magic lamplight. He raised his paws and leapt!

  Phredde zoomed even further upwards, her wings fluttering like they were electric-powered. Bruce gave a terrified ‘Croak!’ and dived into the lily pond. I leapt under the table (I managed to avoid Bruce’s bucket of food additives).

  I peered out cautiously. Most of the class had escaped, and were huddling together at the far end of the lily pond, with the lily pads shuddering in sympathy under them. There was no sign of Phredde or Bruce. But there was sort-of-cousin Tobias, gri
nning down at me evilly. And in his arms he held…

  ‘He’s got Amelia!’ I shrieked.

  ‘Hellllp!!!!!’ hollered Amelia. ‘Helllppp, hellppp, helllpppppp!’

  Phredde fluttered cautiously down towards me. ‘What should we do?’ she whispered.

  ‘I don’t know! Can’t you magic him or something?’

  ‘But I can’t magic werewolves! Or reverse werewolves either! Not at full moon! I told you!’

  ‘But we’ve got to do something!’ I yelled above the noise of Amelia’s screeching.

  ‘Why?’ said Phredde reasonably. ‘It’s not as though we like her or anything.’

  ‘Phredde!’ I hissed.

  ‘Alright, alright,’ grumbled Phredde. ‘I was only joking. Shut up Amelia!’ she yelled. ‘How can we concentrate on rescuing you if you keep screaming! How about we take him by surprise!’ she said to me. ‘I’ll kick him in the eyeball and you tackle him around the knees…’

  ‘And I’ll jump SPLATT! onto his back, all cold and clammy, and maybe he’ll drop her,’ put in Bruce, peering out from under a lily pad.

  I glanced over at the rest of the class. They were still as far away as possible, shivering in fear. It looked like the rescue was up to us.

  ‘Well…okay…’ I said hesitantly. ‘When I say “three!” okay? One, two, three!’

  Phredde zoomed, Bruce leapt and I dived into the football tackle that Mark had once shown me (brothers are useful sometimes).

  Wham! went Phredde’s foot in sort-of-cousin Tobias’s eye.

  Splatt! went Bruce onto his back.

  Whump!! went my arms around his legs.

  ‘Arrrrrrrrrkkkkkkk!’ shrieked Amelia as sort-of-cousin Tobias dropped her onto the ground.

  For a moment, I thought we had him, then whack! Sort-of-cousin Tobias had kicked me back under the table. Gloop! He’d plucked Bruce off his back and thrown him back into the lily pond. Wham! Bang! Biff! He tried to punch Phredde out of the air, except she was too quick for him and rocketed out of the way.

  ‘Heeeelllp meeeee!’ screamed Amelia as he slung her back over his shoulder.

  ‘Grrrrooowwwwlllll!’ snarled sort-of-cousin Tobias, staring around and baring his fangs at us, as though daring us to come any closer.

  And that’s when it happened.

  All at once, there was a small, brown streak way over the other side of the lily pond. It grew closer, closer, closer…

  ‘It’s another werewolf!’ shrieked Phredde from somewhere up towards Mars.

  ‘A real one!’ I added from under the tablecloth.

  ‘Just what we need,’ groaned Bruce from the lily pond.

  The new werewolf paid no attention. It leapt from lily pad to lily pad towards us, growling under its breath. Then it was launching itself at sort-of-cousin Tobias, snapping at his throat.

  Well, after that, it was all over very quickly. Sort-of-cousin Tobias—or whoever he was—screamed. He dropped Amelia and made a grab for the werewolf, who bit his ankle. Sort-of-cousin Tobias shrieked again and crumpled to the ground.

  ‘Tie him up someone!’ yelled the werewolf, but it was sort of muffled because his fangs were around his enemy’s throat again.

  I looked around for a rope but there wasn’t one. Then suddenly PING! there was one in my hand (apparently Phredde could magic rope at full moon, just not werewolves). I crawled out and looped it around sort-of-cousin Tobias’s feet and pulled it tight, and then around his arms, then I strung them both together just like the hero did in that great movie I saw last Saturday. Then I shoved a few fried moths into his mouth, just in case he felt like a snack, and gagged him with a bit of tablecloth.

  Well, by this time Phredde had descended and was perched on the table between the pizza and the caramel icecream with pecan brittle, Bruce had hopped out of the lily pond, and the rest of the class were all crowded around trying to peer over each other’s shoulders to see what was going on. Even Amelia had stopped screaming and was just snuffling against a leg of the table.

  ‘Wow!’ I said to the werewolf. ‘That was some rescue!’

  ‘Think nothing of it,’ said the werewolf modestly. ‘I’m your sort-of-cousin Tobias, by the way. You must be Prudence.’

  ‘Er, hi,’ I said. I wondered if I should try to explain the mix up to him, but then decided not to bother. ‘Er…how did you get here?’

  ‘Uncle Ron took longer mowing the lawn than he thought he would,’ explained the real sort-of-cousin Tobias. ‘So we were late getting to your place. Your mum gave the Phaery Splendifera a ring and she PING!ed me over here…’

  ‘Just in time too,’ croaked Bruce.

  ‘My hero!’ breathed Amelia from the table leg, but luckily no one heard her except me. How embarrassing can you get? I mean, that’s no way to thank someone who’s just saved you from a wereman.

  Anyway, Bruce’s parents turned up about then (I suppose they finally noticed all the commotion). They helped us haul the wereman down into the castle dungeons, where he would stay until they worked out what they were going to do with him.

  Then we all had supper and went back to dancing. Like I said, it was a really cool party, and the real sort-of-cousin Tobias had a really great time, which is what he deserved after defeating the wereman. (Although, he did keep well away from Amelia. Maybe he HAD heard what she’d said back there.)

  Actually, Amelia seemed a bit shaken by it all—she hardly said anything the rest of the night. But Phredde and I reckoned that was an improvement.

  ‘Did you have a good time?’ Mum asked later that night, as I dragged myself off to bed.

  ‘Really great, Mum,’ I said.

  ‘And there weren’t any problems with the lily pond?’

  ‘Of course not, Mum,’ I said. ‘I told you it was perfectly safe.’

  And I wasn’t lying, was I? It wasn’t the lily pond that was the problem…After all, there are just some things it’s better for mothers not to know.

  Anyway, Mum has asked the real sort-of-cousin Tobias if he’d like to stay with us during the next school holidays, which is okay by me, because even if he is a bit younger than me and Phredde and Bruce, he’s pretty cool for a little kid. I mean, even Phredde has to admit that someone who knows how to go for the jugular like that can be a pretty handy wolf to have around.

  Oh, as for the wereman, Bruce’s parents decided to send him to dog-obedience classes, plus charm school during the full moon. He’s much better-behaved now, and he has learnt to bring the newspaper inside in the morning, and how to heel and all sorts of useful things.

  Of course, Phredde still won’t admit that werewolves are just like the rest of us except for the fur and fangs and pointy ears. Phaeries can be awfully stubborn, just like that time I was kidnapped by the Tooth Phaery…

  But that’s another story.

  Prudence and the Tooth Phaery

  ‘Errrraaaaahhhhhh!’ screamed Mrs Olsen. The note from Mum dropped from her hand, and fluttered down onto the classroom floor.

  ‘Er…’ I said.

  Mrs Olsen covered her face with her hands. ‘Oh, my dear,’ she muttered. ‘Oh, my poor dear child…’

  ‘But Mrs Olsen—’ I said.

  ‘It’s horrible. Simply horrible!’ sobbed Mrs Olsen. ‘And you’re so young too!’

  ‘But it’s just—’ I said.

  Mrs Olsen took her hands away from her face and grasped my hands. ‘You’re being so brave about it, Prudence! So terribly brave!’

  ‘It’s only—’ I tried again.

  ‘We’ll all come with you!’ promised Mrs Olsen earnestly. ‘You shan’t face this alone, Prudence!’

  ‘I don’t want the whole class coming to the dentist with me!’ I protested.

  ‘The dentist!’ groaned Mrs Olsen. ‘That place of vile torture! Why, I remember when my Aunt Griselda had one of her fangs removed! I’ve never forgotten how…’

  It suddenly occurred to me that maybe a visit to the dentist was a lot worse for a vampire than it was for a hu
man.

  ‘Er…Mrs Olsen…’ I said.

  ‘And then we mopped up the blood and…Yes, Prudence?’ said Mrs Olsen, still kindly gripping my hand.

  ‘It really isn’t such a big deal going to the dentist.’

  ‘But…’ Mrs Olsen picked up the note from Mum in a trembling hand. ‘Your mother says you have to have a tooth out! One of your dear little fangs!’

  ‘Yeah, the dentist says my mouth is too crowded and if I don’t have a tooth out now the rest’ll grow all crooked.’

  Actually, I thought it was a bum deal. I mean, I’ve brushed and brushed every night and every morning too, and sometimes even at lunchtime if we’ve had something sticky like pavlova with cream and passionfruit and raspberry sauce, or vanilla icecream with cracked almond toffee through it (especially if Mum nags me about it for half an hour).

  I mean I don’t deserve to lose a tooth. But it was no big deal.

  ‘It’s no big deal,’ I assured Mrs Olsen again.

  Mrs Olsen shuddered. ‘Oh, Prudence…’ she began again.

  Well, it took about half an hour to get Mrs Olsen sorted out. I had just enough time to gulp my lunch with Phredde before I had to trot off to the dentist.

  ‘Have you ever been to the dentist?’ I asked Phredde, as I finished off my banana and cream cheese focaccia with black olives and walnuts (our butler, Gark, makes great focaccia).

  Phredde considered. ‘No,’ she said. ‘But I have met the Tooth Phaery.’

  ‘What? Really? But I thought the Tooth Fairy—I mean Phaery—was just pretend!’

  ‘Of course not!’ said Phredde, surprised. ‘Whatever gave you that idea? The Tooth Phaery is…’

  Beeeeeeep! Mum was on the other side of the road, hitting the car horn impatiently. So I had to run.

  Anyway, that got me thinking. (There’s not much else you can do when you’re perched in a dentist’s chair waiting to get your tooth hauled out. Well, I suppose there are other things you can do, like shriek ‘Get away from me!’ or, ‘One step closer and you’ll get my foot in your mouth, buster!’ But thinking about something is actually a lot more practical.

  So, there was I, thinking as hard as I could about what WASN’T happening to me, when I got this idea.