Phredde and the Purple Pyramid Read online

  Dedication

  To Joan, Ella and Anna, with love.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Cast of Characters

  Chapter 1: The Volcano Erupts

  Chapter 2: The Secret Tunnel

  Chapter 3: Down the Tunnel

  Chapter 4: Further Down the Tunnel

  Chapter 5: The Wall of Nothingness

  Chapter 6: The Time Tunnel Ends

  Chapter 7: Out of the Time Tunnel

  Chapter 8: A Crowded Picnic

  Chapter 9: Through the Fields of Egypt

  Chapter 10: Inside the Palace

  Chapter 11: Food! (at last)

  Chapter 12: Two Princes and a Princess

  Chapter 13: Prince Narmer

  Chapter 14: Bruce is Tactless

  Chapter 15: Fluffy, Queen of the Nile

  Chapter 16: Fluffy’s Story

  Chapter 17: Pru Decides!

  Chapter 18: Prince Narmer Confesses

  Chapter 19: Breakfast

  Chapter 20: Decisions!

  Chapter 21: Imprisoned!

  Chapter 22: The Prince and Princess Arrive

  Chapter 23: The Mummy’s Curse

  Chapter 24: Rescue!

  Chapter 25: Back to the Palace

  Chapter 26: The Coronation

  Chapter 27: Through the Time Tunnel

  Chapter 28: The Volcano Goes Boom!

  Chapter 29: Back Home

  Author’s Notes

  Key to Hieroglyphs

  About the Author

  Books by Jackie French

  Copyright

  Cast of characters

  For those who came in late …

  Prudence: A normal schoolgirl who lives in a magic castle and has a fairy, sorry, phaerie, as her best friend. She likes feeding her piranhas, sailing her pirate ship and making sure her mum doesn’t find out what she and Phredde get up to.

  Phredde: A 30-cm-high Phaerie. Her real name is The Phaerie Ethereal but unless you want your kneecaps kicked by a furious phaerie, DON’T call her this unless you’re a teacher, parent or someone even Phredde acknowledges it’s not a good idea to kneecap! Likes any adventure that doesn’t involve wearing glass slippers or handsome princes.

  P.S. That’s PHAERIE, buster, not fairy. Don’t call Phredde a ‘fairy’ if you value your kneecaps.

  Bruce: A handsome phaery prince. Or he might be if he hadn’t decided to be a giant frog instead of a kid. (A Crinea signifera, if you want to be precise. Ask Bruce if you want to know more about Crinea signifera — or better still, look it up in the library, because Bruce will tell you EVERYTHING.) Bruce likes catching flies and collecting recipes for mosquito pizza. Holds the interschool record for the long jump and the high jump at the Athletics Carnival.

  P.S. Don’t called Bruce a fairy either. He won’t kneecap you but you might find dried flies in your muesli.

  Mrs Olsen: Pru, Phredde and Bruce’s teacher. Also a vampire, but don’t worry, she and her family have a friendly arrangement with the abattoir — the butchers get the meat and the vampires get the bloo …, er, red stuff. Keeps her coffin with the art supplies in the storeroom.

  Mark: Pru’s older brother. Also a werewolf every full moon, a trait inherited from his father’s side of the family. (Great Uncle Ron is also a werewolf.) Answers to ‘Dog’s Breath’ but don’t try it if you can’t run fast. Likes chasing cars, football. His favourite snack food is corn chips and corgis.

  The Phaerie Splendifera: Phredde’s mum. Loves crosswords, honeydew nectar and racing magic carpets. Wants her darling baby Ethereal to marry a nice handsome prince when she grows up. DO NOT mention this to Phredde.

  Amelia: In Pru’s, Phredde’s and Bruce’s class at school. You don’t really want to know anything more about her.

  Edwin: The same goes for Edwin.

  Sennufer: Ancient Egyptian Mayor, Guardian of the Royal Granaries, Keeper of the Royal Fields and Gardens and Protector of the Royal Oxen.

  Prince Methen: Oldest son of King Ka. Favourite pastimes are roasting hippopotamus and poisoning people.

  Princess Nut: Daughter of King Ka. Keeps crocodiles and poisonous snakes.

  Prince Narmer: Youngest son of King Ka. Likes ideas.

  Fluffy, Queen of the Nile: She’s a cat, right? A fluffy pussycat. Then why does she have skinny brown legs and her tail tied on with string?

  Chapter 1

  The Volcano Erupts

  It was NOT an ordinary day at our school.

  To start with, we were having a lesson about (gulp) SEX! Oh, and the school volcano was erupting, too.

  ‘Now, the first thing that happens before the male and female get together …’ instructed Mrs Olsen.

  I blocked my ears, and stared out the window at the volcano to take my mind off the yuk stuff.

  Phredde’s mum, The Phaery Splendifera, gave the school the volcano to replace the school bell — when you hear the volcano roar, it’s time to go into class. Usually you just hear this great ‘bang!’ and red-hot rocks leap into the air so you have to get into class FAST in case they drop on you.

  You can’t even see the lava inside the volcano unless you lean right over the rim, which is NOT a good idea, as that kindergarten kid discovered when a red-hot rock blew his new Spiderman cap off. But, hey, little kids need to learn, don’t they?

  Like I said, the volcano is usually pretty quiet except when it’s meant to explode to call us into class. But, even though we’d all come in from morning tea, black ash still drifted from the crater, and I could just see the ooze of red-hot lava at its rim.

  I blinked. Surely there was more lava than usual? That lava looked different, too. Angry looking …

  ‘… is that the male tries to attract a female,’ went on Mrs Olsen, taking a sip from the thermos on the desk next to her. Mrs Olsen is a vampire and needs regular doses of bl …, er, red stuff.

  I glanced out the window again. The lava was going glop! glop! glop! down the sides of the volcano. It wasn’t a really big volcano, only about the size of a rubbish bin. But that lava looked HOT!

  ‘… because if you want babies you need both a male and a female,’ stated Mrs Olsen.

  Glop! Glop! Glop! A dark red bubbling lake oozed away from the volcano.

  ‘Now there are many ways a male can attract a female,’ continued Mrs Olsen. ‘He can … Edwin, are you giggling down the back?’

  ‘No, Mrs Olsen,’ giggled Edwin.

  ‘Is there anyone else who finds this amusing?’ demanded Mrs Olsen, showing her fangs.

  No one answered.

  ‘Very well. A male usually attracts a female by singing to her …’

  Amelia giggled this time, right behind me. She poked me in the back. ‘Hope you’re listening to this!’ she hissed. ‘Hey, has Bruce started singing to you yet?’

  I pretended I was too interested in the volcano to hear.

  Glop! Glop! Glop! The lava crept across the netball court …

  I blinked. I really was interested in the lava now.

  It had never done that before.

  ‘Or croaks or in some cases gives a soft cluck,’ went on Mrs Olsen. ‘Then he grabs her from behind and this forces her to deposit the eggs in the water. The male frog then fertilises the eggs. The frog’s eggs float on top of the water to get the warmth from the sun … Prudence, are you listening?’

  I forced my gaze away from the glop of the lava. A horrid dark red tide was now slithering down into the hollow where we eat our lunch. ‘Yes, Mrs Olsen. I mean no, Mrs Olsen, because there’s this big wall of …’

  ‘I BET she’s listening,’ whispered Amelia behind me.

  I i
gnored her. Just because my boyfriend’s a frog — well, actually Bruce isn’t a boy, he’s a phaery, and he isn’t really a phaery most of the time because he’d rather be a frog, and he hasn’t actually said he’s my boyfriend, er, frog-friend, er, you know what I mean …

  ‘I bet Prudence is really interested in how frogs clawk! Clawk, clawk, clawk!’ squawked Amelia.

  I zapped round and stared. Phredde grinned at me from her perch on the back of her chair. Phredde is my best friend and a phaery and even if Phredde is only 30 centimetres high, you’d better not get on her bad side!

  ‘Clawk!’ shrieked Amelia again. ‘Cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck!’

  Mrs Olsen closed her eyes wearily. ‘Phredde?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, Mrs Olsen?’ said Phredde, ever so sweetly.

  ‘Turn Amelia back into a human.’

  ‘But Mrs Olsen, she looks much better as a hen …’ began Phredde, flapping her wings like a butterfly on steroids.

  ‘I am not having a purple hen with yellow toenails in my zoology class!’ insisted Mrs Olsen. ‘Turn her back! Now!’ Mrs Olsen showed her fangs again.

  ‘Yes, Mrs Olsen,’ said Phredde.

  PING!

  ‘Cluck, clu … How dare you?’ yelled Amelia, brushing a purple feather off her nose.

  ‘Shut up, beaky face!’ I said, shooting a quick look at the lava out the window.

  ‘Why should I shut up?’ demanded Amelia. ‘I’m going to tell my mum that Phredde turned me into a hen! And then my mum will …’

  ‘I said shut up!’ I screamed.

  ‘Why!’ Amelia shrieked back.

  ‘Because a wall of burning hot lava is going to crash into our classroom any second and we need to get out NOW!’ I yelled.

  And then the lava hit the school verandah and …

  Chapter 2

  The Secret Tunnel

  Five minutes later we were all assembled on the oval, watching the flames engulf our classroom. They’d engulfed our schoolbags too, which meant they’d also engulfed the ham and pineapple focaccia that was my lunch.

  On the other hand, the flames had engulfed my homework as well.

  And it had stopped the frog sex lesson, too.

  Phredde fluttered over and perched on my shoulder. ‘The volcano must have stuck,’ she remarked.

  I nodded. ‘But at least you PING!ed us all out of there in time.’

  Bruce hopped towards us. ‘I was enjoying that lesson!’ he complained. ‘We hadn’t even got to the really good bits, like the tadpoles turning into frogs and losing their gills so they can’t breathe underwater anymore and how frogs have trouble if their creek gets too salty. Why don’t we do more stuff about frogs at school?’

  I glared at him. I’d had enough frog talk for one day. ‘That’s because the rest of us are human!’ I informed him. ‘Like, you know, hands, not webbed feet! And we eat normal things like sausage and pineapple pizza with anchovies, not moths and flies and …’

  Zap! Bruce hauled back his long tongue and gulped down the fly guiltily. ‘Well, what would you have rather been doing?’ he demanded.

  I sighed. ‘I don’t know. Something INTERESTING.’

  ‘Frog’s eggs are really interesting …’ began Bruce.

  ‘Only if you’re a frog!’ I stopped as Mrs Allen, the headmistress, galloped towards us across the oval.

  ‘I’ve rung the fire brigade,’ she panted. ‘But they say they don’t do volcanic eruptions! And I called the plumber but he says he doesn’t do stuck volcanoes, either!’ She stopped to catch her breath.

  ‘I think Phredde should do something about the volcano,’ said Amelia virtuously. ‘It’s all her fault, anyway, because it’s her mum’s volcano.’

  Phredde gazed down at Amelia. I knew that look. Phredde was wondering what Amelia would look like as a slug or maybe as an Amelia-shaped pile of snot. Then she shrugged as though to say, nah, she’s not worth it.

  ‘That’s why I can’t stop the volcano,’ explained Phredde to all the rest of us. ‘Everyone knows a phaery can’t interfere in another phaery’s spell.’

  ‘Yeah, dimwit,’ I said to Amelia. ‘Everybody knows that!’

  ‘Well, I think …’ began Amelia.

  ‘Cluck,’ I said. ‘Cluck, cluck, cluck. Who wants to be a purple chickie, then?’

  Amelia shut her mouth before it turned into a beak.

  ‘And Mum’s gone to Phaeryland for the day,’ added Phredde. ‘So I can’t call her. There’s no mobile phone reception in Phaeryland yet.’

  Mrs Allen took a deep breath. ‘Well, at least the lava isn’t threatening the other classrooms,’ she said. ‘I’ve had a word with Miss Richards and she hasn’t got any classes in the library this morning. So I think the best thing is for you all to head down to the library and go on with your lessons as if …’ Mrs Allen took a deep breath (she’s been looking awfully hassled lately for some reason), ‘as if nothing had happened,’ she finished.

  ‘Oh,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Phredde.

  ‘Yeah from me too,’ said Bruce, watching the rest of the class straggle down to the library. ‘I bet Mrs Olsen starts talking about how butterflies lay eggs or something really boring now, and doesn’t say anything else about frogs at all.’

  ‘You know what I’d really like?’ I said wistfully.

  ‘What?’ asked Bruce, as we began to walk after the others. Well, I walked. Bruce hopped and Phredde fluttered through the haze from the volcano.

  ‘I’d like a giant tunnel to open up right in the middle of the oval and …’

  ‘What sort of a giant tunnel?’ asked Bruce, interested.

  ‘A long, dark mysterious one! And then …’

  You mean like that one?’ Bruce pointed with his froggy hand.

  ‘What?!’ I turned round.

  A long, dark tunnel gaped in the middle of the oval.

  ‘Cool!’ I yelled. I turned back to Bruce. ‘Did you do that?’ I was going to add ‘for me?’, but that would have sounded soppy.

  ‘No,’ said Bruce.

  ‘Really?’ I turned to Phredde.

  ‘It wasn’t me either,’ said Phredde, staring at the tunnel.

  ‘But … but why can’t anyone else see it?’ I gazed after the rest of the class, still trailing towards the library.

  ‘Oh, I did THAT,’ said Phredde proudly. ‘I PING!ed up a “can’t see the tunnel” spell. It’s our adventure, not theirs. We don’t want Amelia tagging down the tunnel after us, do we? Or Edwin?’

  ‘You mean you think we should,’ I gulped, ‘go down it?’

  Phredde stared at me. ‘Of course!’

  ‘That’s what giant, black, mysterious tunnels are for,’ agreed Bruce reasonably. ‘Anyhow, you said you wanted something interesting.’

  ‘But … but what if there are giant snakes down there, or … or … flesh-eating zombies?’

  ‘No worries!’ said Phredde airily. ‘I’ve got my full magic allowance. I can zap any zombies!’

  ‘Me too,’ said Bruce. ‘I’ve been saving up. I’ve got tonnes of magic.’

  ‘Tonnes?’ I demanded.

  ‘Well, kilos, anyway,’ amended Bruce. ‘And we can get back any time we want — I mean any time. I’ll sort of freeze everyone and make sure we get back a second from now and no one will know that we’ve been gone!’

  What can you do with friends like that?

  ‘Great!’ I yelled. ‘Let’s go!’

  Chapter 3

  Down the Tunnel

  Well, normally if you were going to go down a great, dark, mysterious tunnel that had suddenly appeared in the school oval you’d do a bit of preparation.

  But the lava had swallowed my bag AND my lunch AND my tracksuit top. (I was going to get heaps from Mum about that, even if it wasn’t my fault that the volcano had got stuck. It hadn’t been my fault when my last tracksuit got all covered in dinosaur doo-doo either.1 Mothers NEVER realise that sometimes things just happen.)

  Um, where was I? Oh, yeah,
the tunnel.

  Anyway, it didn’t matter that I didn’t have any lunch to bring OR a torch because Phredde or Bruce could PING! up a sausage and pineapple pizza with extra anchovies or a couple of watermelons and a light any time they wanted to.

  I was a bit nervous to tell the truth. Just a little bit. That tunnel looked awfully big and black, and it smelt too. Not like dinosaur doo-doo or even the school rubbish bins when the cleaner forgot to empty them that weekend after we’d had a prawn feast on Friday. It just smelt, well, BIG and cold and sort of ancient.

  And it was very, very black.

  I glanced back behind me. The school looked nice and safe and normal. There was the library with our posters in the window, and the rest of the class sort of frozen in time and the lava flames licking at the blackened skeleton of our classroom.

  Well, okay, not totally normal. But more normal than a great black hole in the ground.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ demanded Phredde, fluttering into the darkness.

  ‘Come on,’ said Bruce, hopping in front of me.

  So I followed them.

  Two steps into the tunnel and I noticed the dust. Deep, grey, cold dust on the floor, like it had filtered down for thousands of years. I looked up at the ceiling, and it was grey too, with these long pillars of rock like ancient teeth about to close on us.

  PING!

  Suddenly a light appeared, floating above us.

  ‘That’s better,’ said Phredde.

  I shivered. It wasn’t better really. Now I could see way down the tunnel and it was all grey, the smooth horrid floor and the sharp grey rocks above and strange smooth walls like they’d been carved by some long dead hand.

  ‘Um,’ I said.

  Umumumumumumum, went the echo.

  ‘What?’ asked Phredde, fluttering up to the ceiling to examine one of the rocks. ‘Hey, it’s wet!’

  ‘That’s how caves are formed,’ said Bruce. ‘The water seeps down and dissolves the limestone rock. Those things on the ceiling are called stalactites. They’re made up of lots of drips of dissolved rock. And when they drip on the floor they grow to be stalagmites.’

  ‘But there aren’t any on the floor.’ Phredde pointed out.