“SNOW!!!!!” everyone cried as they ran and skipped and played in the little white beany snow droplets. “IT’S SNOWING IN BILBY CREEK!”
As the bean snow mingled with the baubles and tinsel and all the decorations and thickened on the ground, magic filled the air. Elizabella looked around at everyone. Miss Duck collected the bean snowflakes from her hair, put them in her hands and then blew them away. Then she jumped about as they fell back down on her head. Ava and Evie were synchronised skiing in their sandshoes from one end of the playground to the other, while Sandy spun around in circles like an ice skater. Elizabella saw her dad, dancing with Leanne in the snow. He gave her a big dip like in the movies. Even Toddberry was holding the hair curtains away from his head, and his eyes were wide as party pies as he took in the sight.
Minnie descended the monkey bars and walked through the playground watching everyone play. She was glad to have made everyone so happy. And there was just one person she wanted to talk to about it.
“So?” said Minnie, bounding up to Elizabella. “What do you think?”
Elizabella couldn’t hide how impressed she was. And she didn’t even really want to.
“Minnie, it’s amazing. You’ve made the whole of Bilby Creek happy. And the logistics alone . . . how long have you been planning this?”
“Since you told me you’d never seen snow before,” said Minnie, smiling.
Elizabella stared. “But that was on your first day!”
“Yep. I could tell you were cool from when I first met you. And I wanted to do something nice for you.”
Elizabella couldn’t believe it. “You did all this . . . for me?” she asked.
“Yep,” said Minnie.
The girls smiled at each other.
“Well, you and Mr Gobblefrump,” said Minnie, gesturing towards the middle of the playground where Mr Gobblefrump was on the ground rolling about in the snow.
“He looks like the happiest puppy in the world,” said Elizabella.
“Yeah,” said Minnie. “Who needs romance when you have a playground full of beanbag snow to play with?” And with that she lay down on the ground and started moving her arms and legs out from side to side. “Come and make snow angels with me!”
Elizabella giggled and lay down next to her friend. They both moved their arms and legs from side to side, making snow angels on the ground and laughing and cracking jokes as the moon shone down on the first and last ever snowy summer night in Bilby Creek.
Once upon a time in a world without internet dating, a prince – let’s call him Barry – was having difficulty finding true love. Even though there were plenty of funny, intelligent and attractive women in his kingdom, he hadn’t quite found that certain za-za-zoom with any of them.
It was a stormy morning, one where the sky made all sorts of strange sounds and it was so dark it could have been night-time. Prince Barry was sitting at one end of his extra-long and fancy dining table eating breakfast. His mum (the Queen), who he lived with, was sitting down the other end. They always sat like this, even though it made it very hard to have a conversation.
“Will you pass the salt, Barry?” asked the Queen.
“What??” shouted Barry.
“I SAID, WILL YOU PASS THE SALT?” she screamed back.
“NO, I DIDN’T SEE A THUNDERBOLT,” he shouted back, looking out the window.
“Oh, forget it,” said the Queen.
“WHAT?” Barry shouted again.
“I said you’re a grown man and it’s high time you found someone and moved out of my house!” the Queen said, taking advantage of the fact that Barry couldn’t hear her to get something off her chest. But Barry had just cleaned his ear with a napkin, which, although gross, had gone a long way to improving his hearing.
“I heard that, Mama,” he said.
There was a sound at the door. It was the extremely obnoxious doorbell they’d just had installed, which played the “Happy Birthday” tune. It was the Queen’s idea.
“I know it won’t make sense ninety-nine per cent of the time, but imagine how happy it will make people who come to the door when it really is their birthday?” she’d explained to Barry when she’d had it installed.
Now who could be visiting? They certainly weren’t expecting anyone . . .
Barry got up and threw open the door.
There, standing completely sodden on the doorstep, was a woman.
Barry stared at her. Her shoes were untied and her stockings were laddered. Her hair had a mind of its own, and roamed wet and curly all over the place.
She is . . . The One! Barry thought.
“Are you going to just stand there and stare or are you going to let me in? It’s wet out here!” said the woman.
“I’m so sorry!” said Barry, embarrassed. “Allow me to introduce myself, I’m Barry, Prince of–”
“Yeah, yeah,” said the woman, letting herself into the castle.
“And you’re . . .?”
“Sheila. Princess Sheila,” she grabbed a curtain and started drying herself off. “Nice grub!” she said, looking at the table that was sagging under the weight of loads of fancy things with unpronounceable names.
“Please,” said the Queen, “tuck in.”
Now perhaps it had something to do with how badly the Queen wanted to have her giant castle to herself, but she saw some special qualities in this unexpected visitor . . .
After Princess Sheila made her way through ten croissants, eleven pieces of toast and a fistful of ham, she popped one final berry into her mouth and sighed. “I’m pooped!”
“Of course,” said the Queen. She bustled into one of the three thousand guestrooms in the house and started assembling an extra special bed for Princess Sheila.
Meanwhile, Barry and Sheila chatted.
“So, Barry, what’s your favourite animal?”
“The house mouse!”
“Well, that’s boring.”
“I’m sorry.”
Luckily the Queen didn’t take too long, as the conversation wasn’t exactly flowing. “Your boudoir awaits,” the Queen exclaimed, and led her guest into the newly prepared room.
“Crikey!” Princess Sheila said, craning her neck up in an attempt to see the top of the bed. “There must be twenty mattresses there!”
“There are,” the Queen said. “I’ll leave you to your slumber now.” She drew the doors closed behind her.
Several hours passed. Barry did some French knitting in one of the castle’s eighty-three parlours, while the Queen attempted to teach herself how to sing and play “What Makes You Beautiful” by One Direction on the piano. How unfortunate, Prince Barry reflected, that of all the eighty-three parlours at their disposal, they had both chosen the same one for their respective afternoon activities.
Suddenly, the doors to the parlour flung open.
Princess Sheila stood there, looking incredibly underslept.
“My dear!” said the Queen. “Is everything all right?”
“It’s not!” said Princess Sheila. “That bed is rotten!”
The Queen gasped, injured by this remark.
“I haven’t slept a wink!” Princess Sheila continued. “There was something very hard pressing into my back. After tossing and turning forever, I climbed down, shoved my hand right under the bottom mattress and found . . . this!”
Princess Sheila produced a single pea.
“And I know why you put it there!”
The Queen and Barry looked at Princess Sheila, confused.
“What are you on about, dear?” said the Queen.
“Clearly you wanted to see if I was sensitive enough to be a real princess, thus making me an eligible bachelorette for Prince Barry. So you placed this solitary pea under twenty mattresses to see if I could feel it! And I have proven myself!”
“No,” said the Queen, “I just tried to make you a nice tall bed for the ultimate in dozing bliss, but I see now my efforts were in vain.” The Queen looked sad.
“We
ll, what’s the deal with this pea, then?” asked Princess Sheila.
“I don’t know!” said the Queen. “It’s a big house to clean, I must have missed that pea.”
“Oh . . . right,” said Princess Sheila.
Prince Barry had thought Princess Sheila was The One, but could he really marry someone who would make such a fuss about a pea under twenty mattresses?
Princess Sheila turned to Barry. “So, we getting married or what?”
Barry thought about this. Maybe the pea situation was a warning – could she be like this all the time? Or perhaps it was just a one off . . . At this point it was impossible to know.
“I think we should go on a few dates first,” he concluded.
Princess Sheila shrugged. “Makes sense, we’ve only known each other for like three hours and I was trying to sleep for two of them.”
With that, Prince Barry called Princess Sheila a Horse-Uber and she went off into the day.
And the Prince and Princess decided to date for at least a year before making any drastic decisions about the rest of their lives.
To Mama and Dad for thinking we could do anything and to Mark and Sam for exactly the same.
And Maja and Ned, you kids are all right.
And to our Rufus, of course.
Filakia, we love you.
ZOË NORTON LODGE is a writer, actress and television presenter, known for her work on ABC TV’s The Checkout and the live storytelling night and podcast Story Club, as well as her collected short stories Almost Sincerely. Elizabella Meets Her Match is her debut children’s novel.
By day, GEORGIA NORTON LODGE leads her branding team at a Sydney-based design agency. By night, she moonlights as an illustrator with her side project Georgia Draws a House, where she delights people with deliveries of their hand-drawn homes. She’s also Zoë’s younger sister. This is their second book together.
First published in 2018
by Walker Books Australia Pty Ltd
Locked Bag 22, Newtown
NSW 2042 Australia
www.walkerbooks.com.au
The moral rights of the author and illustrator have been asserted.
Text © 2018 Zoë Norton Lodge
Illustrations © 2018 Georgia Norton Lodge
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.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia
The illustrations for this book were created digitally
Elizabella Meets Her Match Page 10
