The Phredde Collection Page 11

  or watermelons.

  A Frog Named Bruce

  It was an ordinary day at our castle.

  I was dangling my legs over the battlements, watching the piranhas in our moat lurking under the drawbridge in case a cow fell in (did you know that piranhas can skeletonise a cow in ten minutes? I wonder how long it’d take them to eat a guinea pig?) and Gark our butler was sweeping up the werewolf hair on the terrace down below.

  The werewolf hair was from my brother Mark.

  Whenever Mark turns into a werewolf he gets fleas, and whenever he gets fleas he scratches himself.

  It drives Mum crazy, but not half as crazy as it does when he lifts his leg on her geraniums. Brothers…

  What was I saying? Oh, about the battlements.

  Battlements are those bits on top of castles which you stand behind to pour boiling oil down on your enemies.

  Not that I had any enemies, unless you count Edwin at school, and he’s really improved since Phredde turned him into a corgi, even though Mrs Olsen made her turn him back into a snotty kid ten minutes later.

  What was I saying? Oh yeah, it was an ordinary day at our castle.

  I was dangling my legs over the battlements watching Gark and the piranhas, and my pirate ship swaying with the waves down in the bay (our castle should really overlook the boring grey road and the shopping centre, but it’s a magic castle so it doesn’t). The sky was blue like it always is above magic castles unless you want it to rain, and the waves were going swish swish swish and I wasn’t thinking about anything much, certainly not about my homework, but then again it was only Saturday and there was no need to stress about homework for ages…

  When suddenly there was a PING! beside me, and there was Phredde in bright pink joggers and matching hair…

  ‘What’s up?’ I demanded, alarmed.

  Phredde’s a phaery, and can PING! anywhere she wants to.

  But phaeries have really good manners and normally knock at the door like everyone else…well, not quite like everyone else because they’re only about as big as your hand and have to fly up to the door knocker to knock, but you know what I mean. Phredde would never just PING! right beside me, unless there was something REALLY wrong.

  Phredde hovered in mid-air like an out-of-control sparkler.

  ‘Pru, you’ve got to help me,’ she gasped.

  ‘Sure,’ I said. After all, Phredde’s my best friend and something terrible must have happened to upset her. Obviously it wasn’t just some minor little problem, like wondering how to tell her parents her dragon had burnt down her bedroom again (parents always have a major stress attack about silly things like that). ‘What’s up?’

  ‘It’s Aunt Petunia,’ cried Phredde, and then she started to cry, which really worried me. I’d never seen her cry before.

  Phredde doesn’t cry. She just gets mad. If you think a wasp is fierce when it gets mad, you haven’t seen Phredde.

  ‘Phredde, settle down,’ I said soothingly, patting the battlements beside me. ‘I can’t help if I don’t know what it’s all about.’

  Phredde sniffed twice then zoomed down onto the battlements, her wings drooping. ‘You know my Aunt Petunia,’ she began.

  ‘No,’ I said. I’d met Phredde’s mum, the Phaery Splendifera, and her dad, the Phaery Valiant, and her uncle Mordred who was mostly a dragon. But that was all, I was sure. I mean phaeries tend to stick in your mind.

  ‘Oh. Well, Aunt Petunia’s Mum’s aunt really,’ explained Phredde. ‘Aunt Petunia’s fantastic, even better than Uncle Mordred. She doesn’t even ask how school is or dumb stuff like that, but she does get a bit…well, sort of vague sometimes. And now she’s really in trouble! Everyone’s angry with her, and Mum says that if she doesn’t stop making a muddle of things she won’t even ask her to Christmas dinner, because who knows what she might do, and…’

  ‘But what’s Aunt Petunia done?’ I cried.

  Phredde sniffed again. ‘It wasn’t her fault,’ she said defensively. ‘She just wanted to help, that’s all. Aunt Petunia’s always trying to help.’

  ‘Phredde…’ I said warningly.

  ‘It’s all Aunt Dandelion’s fault anyway…’ sniffed Phredde.

  I blinked. It was getting hard to keep all these phaery relatives straight.

  ‘Who’s Aunt Dandelion?’ I demanded.

  ‘She’s Mum’s aunt on her dad’s side. You see Aunt Dandelion had a baby called Pinkerbelle…’

  ‘You mean Tinkerbelle,’ I corrected.

  ‘No, Pinkerbelle,’ insisted Phredde, fluttering her wings like a berserk bee…she always does that when she’s upset. ‘Tinkerbelle’s my second cousin on Dad’s side of the family. She’s a real pain. She’s got a crush on this really dumb boy…’

  ‘Not Peter Pan?’ I interrupted.

  ‘Yeah. How did you know?’ demanded Phredde, surprised.

  ‘I just guessed. Anyway, go on about Pinkerbelle.’

  ‘Well, Aunt Dandelion asked Aunt Petunia to be Pinkerbelle’s Phaery Godmother, because if you’re a Phaery Princess you have to have a Phaery Godmother.’

  ‘How come she’s a Phaery Princess?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, everyone on Mum’s side of the family is a Phaery Princess,’ said Phredde reasonably. ‘I thought you knew.’

  ‘No.’ I said. ‘Hey, are you a Phaery Princess too?’

  Phredde looked mutinous. ‘I can’t help it. If you tell anyone, I’ll spit!’

  ‘I think it’s cool,’ I began, then stopped when I saw Phredde’s expression. ‘Okay, okay! you’re a Phaery Princess but I’ll keep quiet about it. Continue with the story.’

  ‘Well,’ said Phredde. ‘Aunt Petunia gave baby Pinkerbelle a magic gift, just like Phaery Godmothers always do…’

  Phredde suddenly looked like she was about to burst into tears again.

  I was beginning to see where all this was heading. ‘What sort of magic gift?’ I demanded.

  ‘A really nice gift,’ sniffed Phredde. ‘A sensible gift. Everyone’s always saying that Aunt Petunia’s never sensible, so this time she thought she’d choose something really…’ Phredde’s voice died away.

  ‘Out with it, Phredde,’ I said.

  ‘It was a spell so that as soon as Pinkerbelle turned twenty-one she’d always get a good night’s sleep,’ said Phredde defensively. ‘You know how important a good night’s sleep is. Mrs Olsen’s always telling us.’

  (Mrs Olsen’s a vampire and sleeps in her coffin, mostly in short naps during the day, but like all teachers she’s really good at giving kids advice.)

  ‘Well, what’s wrong with that?’ I asked.

  ‘The spell went wrong,’ said Phredde in a small voice. ‘Aunt Petunia used too much phaery dust.

  ‘And now Pinkerbelle’s twenty-one, and she’s fast asleep, and no one can wake her up and her roses are growing wild all over the castle…did I tell you Pinkerbelle breeds roses? Magic roses…and Mum’s furious and says that Aunt Petunia has really done it this time and no one can come up with a counter spell because Aunt Petunia can’t remember her original formula and she’s my favourite aunt and I’m soooo unhappy!’ wailed Phredde.

  Well, the whole story was starting to sound familiar. I mean really familiar.

  ‘Er, Phredde,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ sniffed Phredde.

  ‘Have you ever heard of the story of Sleeping Beauty?’

  ‘No,’ sniffed Phredde.

  ‘Well, it’s all about this evil phaery…’

  ‘My Aunt Petunia’s not evil!’ sparked Phredde.

  ‘Shhhh. Just listen will you? It’s just a story…This phaery casts a spell on this kid so that when she turns twenty-one she’ll prick her finger on a rose thorn and then she’ll sleep for a hundred years.’

  ‘That’s sort of like what happened,’ agreed Phredde. ‘Hey, how did you know about the bit with the rose thorn?’

  ‘It’s part of the story. It’s a really old fairy…I mean phaery…story. You know, one of those soppy
stories parents always read little kids.’

  ‘But what happens in the end?’ demanded Phredde, entranced.

  ‘Well, it all turns out happily.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah, sure. Because this other fairy, I mean phaery, turns up, and she says she can’t undo the spell, but she’ll cast another one to make it all better in the end.’

  ‘Good thinking,’ agreed Phredde.

  ‘And this new spell makes this handsome prince turn up and hack his way through the roses to the castle and kiss the sleeping beauty…’

  ‘Oh yuk!’ cried Phredde.

  ‘And she wakes up and they get married and live happily ever after,’ I concluded.

  I expected Phredde to be really cheered up by this. It WAS a happy ending, after all.

  But she looked at me with horror. ‘A handsome prince?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘And he KISSES her?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Urrk! And she wakes up and they get married and live happily ever after?’

  I nodded.

  Phredde surged to her feet, then kept on surging till she was fluttering high above me. ‘We have to save her!’ she yelled, her wings buzzing like a maniac mosquito.

  ‘Save who?’ I blinked.

  ‘Sleeping Beauty…my Cousin Pinkerbelle! We can’t let that happen to her. Not handsome princes and all that stuff!’

  Phredde has a thing about handsome princes. It all comes from her mum keeping The Directory of Handsome Princes by her bedside table, and reading out entries to Phredde at breakfast. You know the sort of thing—Prince Ethelready, 23 mm tall, well-built, own castle, hobby: phaery dancing on toadstools by moonlight, seeks Phaery Princess with a love of moonbeams and dandelions.

  Phredde doesn’t want a Phaery Prince. She wants to go to uni with me. We plan to study zoology, which we’ve both been really interested in since Uncle Mordred gave Phredde her dragon.1

  So as I was saying, ‘Handsome Prince’ is a sort of dirty word to Phredde. Okay, two dirty words, if you want to be fussy.

  ‘But Phredde,’ I protested. ‘It’s just a fairy…I mean phaery story!’

  ‘No it’s not! It’s true!’

  ‘But…’ I hesitated.

  Suddenly I couldn’t see where the real story ended and the phaery story began. But that sort of thing happens when you have a phaery like Phredde for a best friend.

  Phredde perched on my shoulder and folded her arms and tucked her wings neatly behind her back so they wouldn’t flutter in my eyes and blind me by mistake.

  ‘Come on!’ she cried.

  ‘Where to?’ I demanded.

  ‘To Cousin Pinkerbelle’s castle! We have to save Sleeping Beauty from the Prince!’

  Well, last year, before I met Phredde, if I’d decided to hoon off somewhere to save Sleeping Beauty, I’d have had to get permission from Mum, who probably wouldn’t have given it to me anyway.

  ‘Where do you think you’re off to?’ she’d have demanded.

  ‘Off to some magic castle,’ I’d have said airily. ‘I don’t know when I’ll be back. I just have to save a Phaery Princess from a handsome prince.’

  And Mum would have given me that look and said, ‘What! You’re not going anywhere young lady until you’ve finished your homework and I want to know exactly where this castle is and how you plan to get there and when you’re going to get home…’

  But like I said, none of that matters now.

  For one thing, Phredde can PING! back and forward in time as well as space, which means that even if it took us three whole weeks to save Sleeping Beauty I could still be back only five minutes after I left, so Mum wouldn’t even notice.

  And anyway, Mum realises I’m a lot more responsible now than I was a year ago.

  I mean I’ve been to Phaeryland and survived, and fought in a battle with my pirate ship against a mob of rival buccaneers (I haven’t told you about that one yet. Come to think of it, I haven’t told Mum yet either).

  Nowadays if I’d told Mum I was off to rescue a sleeping princess she probably wouldn’t have stressed at all. Or not much anyway.

  But like I said, we’d be back even before Mum knew I’d gone, so there was no point interrupting her in the middle of her crossword, especially as she and Phredde’s mum are best friends too and Mum might tell the Phaery Splendifera, and then…

  So we just went.

  Phredde went PING!!!! (a sort of bigger than normal PING!) and that meant I PING!ed too, and when we’d finished PING!ing I opened my eyes, and there we were at the bus stop.

  ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘I thought we were going to Cousin Pinkerbelle’s castle!’

  ‘Sure,’ said Phredde.

  ‘Then how come we’re at the bus stop?’

  ‘Because I’m Australian now, and that’s how you get places in Australia. On the bus.’

  ‘But Phredde, wouldn’t it just be easier…’

  ‘Hurry up,’ warned Phredde, as the bus drew up to the curb, ‘or you won’t get a seat.’

  So I paid my fare, and Phredde paid hers…with real money too, even if she does carry it in a magic wallet so it doesn’t weigh her down when she’s flying.

  Phaeries never magic money, just gold and castles and unicorns and space time dimensions and stuff like that.

  The bus lurched off like it always does just as you’re aiming for a seat, and I sort of fell onto this great big woman with three laps, six hairs on her chin, and a handbag the same size as her bosom.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said.

  I tried to sit on the four millimetres of seat left next to her, and she glared at me.

  At first I thought it was because I was taking up four millimetres of seat, but then I realised she was scowling at Phredde who was sitting on my shoulder with her wings neatly folded and her hands in her lap.

  Some people are really prejudiced against phaeries and werewolves and even vampires. I mean even Mum had a major stress for a while about Mrs Olsen, just because she’s a vampire, till I explained about this really cool arrangement she has with the abattoir…but that’s another story.2

  Or maybe the fat lady just wasn’t impressed by Phredde’s pink joggers with turquoise laces and matching hair.

  Anyhow, I was really glad when Phredde poked me in the earlobe with her elbow and whispered, ‘We get off at the next stop.’

  So we lurched down the aisle again…well, I lurched and Phredde fluttered…and got off the bus, and I looked around.

  A milkbar (why do people call them milkbars when they mostly sell cola and potato chips?) and a newsagent and a video store and a sagging wire fence with a sign on it saying: RINCE’S PLANT NURSERY in big faded letters with a few half-asleep plants sort of choking in the car fumes, and a long grey footpath and lots of houses…

  But there was nothing that looked like a phaery castle. I mean it’s pretty hard to miss phaery castles if they’re around.

  ‘Er, Phredde,’ I said. ‘Are you sure we got off at the right stop?’

  ‘Of course,’ declared Phredde impatiently. ‘ANY stop is the right stop when it’s a magic castle.’

  ‘Then why did we have to get the bus at all?’ I protested.

  ‘I told you. Because it’s Australian.’

  Sometimes I think Phredde overdoes this ‘Australian’ stuff. I mean I’m as Australian as bushflies in your eyes, except for Dad’s side of the family that are werewolves too, but even they’ve been here for generations, so they’re Australian werewolves—and if I don’t want to ride in a stuffy bus then I don’t see why I have to.

  But Phredde’s stubborn about some things. Like Phaery Princes.

  ‘The castle’s up there!’ said Phredde.

  She went PING! again, and suddenly there was the road to the castle, weaving up through the bus fumes to the sky.

  It was pretty much like the road to our castle, and to Phredde’s castle too.

  It was long, and curved, and reached up into the sky, except our road looks like i
t’s made of solid silver and moonbeams.

  But this road was pink. Very, very pink. Pink like musk sticks, only pinker. And up at the top of it was this great mass of green stuff leering down at us with even more blobs of pink dotted around.

  ‘Er, Phredde,’ I said ‘What’s that?’

  ‘What’s what?’

  ‘That pink and green stuff at the top of the road.’

  ‘That’s Cousin Pinkerbelle’s garden,’ said Phredde casually.

  ‘That’s a garden?’ I demanded.

  ‘Sure,’ said Phredde.

  ‘It looks hungry,’ I said.

  ‘Cousin Pinkerbelle’s been asleep for over a week. She hasn’t been able to fertilise it.’

  I hesitated.

  That garden didn’t look like it wanted fertiliser. It looked like it wanted meat. Preferably alive and bleeding.

  ‘What are those pink things?’ I insisted.

  Phredde wrinkled her nose. ‘Roses. I told you Cousin Pinkerbelle breeds roses. The garden’s just a bit out of hand, that’s all.’

  Out of hand? That garden looked like it had bitten off any hand that had ventured near it, then spat out the bones. Or maybe it had chewed them up and digested them.

  ‘Cousin Pinkerbelle’s been breeding these really tough, vigorous roses,’ said Phredde. ‘She says they’ll survive in any garden at all, no matter how little care you give them.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I just bet they will.’

  So we stared walking—well, I walked, and Phredde winged her way beside me…up the pink road and past the smog layer, through a couple of frisky clouds that looked like they were playing catch across the sky, and suddenly there we were.

  Not at the castle of course. You couldn’t even see the castle yet.

  All you could see was the garden, and by garden I mean roses, and by roses, I mean ROSES.

  I like gardens as much as the next kid. In other words, I can take them or leave them, which mostly means leave them, because who wants to spend good daydreaming/reading/hunting pirates time messing around with gardens?

  But Mum likes gardens and Phredde’s mum likes them and even Dad likes them now he doesn’t have to mow the lawn. (Magic lawns never need mowing.)

  But I wonder what they would have made of a garden like this.