The Phredde Collection Read online

  I didn’t know what to say. Really, it wasn’t so bad in Phaeryland, although I didn’t HAVE to come here, and I could see what she meant about the phaery prince and being a lady-in-waiting.

  But, let’s face it, Phredde ISN’T like everyone else. To start with, she’s only the size of my hand (except in Phaeryland), and she has wings, not to mention magic.

  Phredde was different. But so what? So’s Mark, my brother, and Mrs Olsen, the vampire, and Mum—anyone who’s hooked on crossword puzzles is WEIRD—and I’m different, too, for that matter. I mean, Phredde can magic things, but only things she knows. I can imagine things I’ve never seen before.

  But I suppose it’s different BEING really different, and having someone MAKE you be different when you don’t want to be.

  ‘I understand,’ I said.

  Phredde sniffed and I handed her my hanky (I was glad Mum had stuffed one in my pocket at the last minute).

  ‘What now?’ I asked.

  ‘Dunno,’ said Phredde.

  ‘What do you mean, you dunno?’ My voice rose a bit and I tried to whisper again. ‘Are they going to boil us in oil or turn our skins into doormats or throw us in the dungeons or…’

  ‘Not in Phaeryland!’ said Phredde indignantly. ‘We’re not like that in Phaeryland.’

  ‘What do you mean “we”?’ I demanded. ‘You just said…’

  ‘Phredde.’ Phredde’s mum’s voice was very quiet behind us. ‘The Phaery Queen would like a word with you.’

  Uh oh, I thought. Here it comes. I tried to smooth my hair down (the garland of diamond flowers was all crooked and had got twisted in my fringe) and look respectable. Phredde grabbed my hand for comfort.

  I don’t think time has ever passed so slowly for me as did those few steps over to the Phaery Queen. I mean not even Geography (I hate Geography) on the hottest day—you know those days when even the flies are falling asleep on the windows and you feel like every second is swollen with heat—well, even that was the speed of light compared to that walk in Phaeryland.

  There we were the two of us, hand in hand, and Phredde’s parents behind us sombre as kookaburras looking for worms in an asphalt playground. All the ladies-in-waiting had stopped gasping and coughing and were staring at us, and no one was saying anything. Anything at all.

  The lacy lady-in-waiting must have found a chair for the Phaery Queen—or had conjured one up—because she was sitting on it, her hands in her lap, quiet as anything, just watching us as we approached.

  Phredde’s dad nudged her from behind.

  ‘Apologise,’ he whispered. ‘At once!’

  ‘I…I’m sorry…’ began Phredde. ‘And…and Prudence had nothing to do with it. It was all my idea. I just…’ Her voice faltered.

  The Phaery Queen nodded slowly. ‘I’m sorry, too,’ she said, in that sort of cooing voice. ‘I…I had no idea you felt like that, Ethereal. If only I’d known.’

  There were tears in her voice now and tears in her eyes, too, like tiny pearls about to trickle down her face—and if you think pearls can’t trickle you’ve never been to Phaeryland.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Phredde again. ‘I couldn’t take it, that’s all. The dressing up and the tiara and…and…Handsome Princes and…and everything!’

  ‘We…just wanted to give you a birthday party,’ whispered the Phaery Queen. ‘I wanted it to be such a special day for you!’

  ‘I…’ began Phredde again.

  The Phaery Queen bit her bottom lip. ‘There’s no need to say any more,’ she said sadly. ‘You’ve outgrown us, that’s all. I’m old-fashioned and I know it. But at my age it’s so difficult to change—and I don’t want to change. This is my life, Ethereal, just as you have yours. But I did so want to give you a party…’

  Well, I swallowed a sob too—ten more seconds and I’d be howling—and Phredde was snivelling and all the ladies-in-waiting were sniffing.

  ‘Just a little party,’ said the Phaery Queen softly. ‘Just to wish you happy birthday. Just one day of the year. But if you don’t want it…’ She sighed, and it was like the rippling of the wind across those dangly trees down in the park…willows, that’s what they’re called.

  ‘I know it’s not your sort of party,’ whispered the Phaery Queen, and she sounded just like Miss Temerman back in kindergarten when I’d stamped on my bit of Playdough. Not angry at all, just so very, very sad. ‘We don’t have those stone band things or whatever you call them in Phaeryland. We don’t have pigburgers and…and things like that. All you young people find us so old-fashioned now.’

  ‘I don’t care about the hamburgers!’ cried Phredde, unable to take it any more. ‘Of course I’d like a party!’

  ‘Really?’ whispered the Phaery Queen, her eyes lighting up. ‘You’re not just saying that?’

  Phredde shook her head. ‘No. I’d love you to give me a party. ANY sort of party!’

  ‘A party!’ cried the Phaery Queen and clapped her hands. ‘We’re going to have a party!’

  All the ladies-in-waiting started cooing again—though I got the impression they weren’t cooing at us this time, just sort of cooing in general, and suddenly the butterflies were back, dragging a tent-like thing, all made of lace like spiders’ webs and glittering with jewels (you can really get sick of jewels in Phaeryland) and it sort of hovered over us like a canopy.

  ‘Music!’ cried the Phaery Queen, and clapped her hands.

  About ninety million red and white spotted toadstools popped up out of the grass at the edge of the canopy. Each one had an elf musician on it and they had violins and flutes and tiny double basses—but nothing cool like an electric guitar, or even drums, for Pete’s sake—and they started playing the sort of music that Mrs Hitchcock tries to make us enjoy in musical appreciation, only a bit faster so you could dance to it.

  ‘That was a nice thing to do,’ I whispered to Phredde under cover of the music.

  Phredde shrugged. ‘What’s one day a year if it makes the old girl happy?’ she said. ‘I hadn’t realised it meant so much to her. But if Mum gets out that list of Handsome Princes again I’m going to tear it up and put it in the cat’s tray.’

  Phredde’s mum was dancing with Phredde’s dad—a funny, sweeping dance where their toes didn’t quite touch the ground most of the time, and the lacy lady-in-waiting came over and nodded to Phredde, who sighed.

  ‘Might as well,’ she said, and she began to dance as well.

  You know, I hadn’t even known Phredde could dance like that! She looked like she’d been doing it all her life. Which she had, I suppose. She swooped and she fluttered and all the ladies-in-waiting were fluttering, too, and I had to admit it looked pretty, even to me—all that lace and wings and stuff.

  I glanced over at the Phaery Queen. She looked like Miss Temerman used to when she finally got us all colouring in and no one was throwing a wobbly or breaking someone’s pencils or wanted to go to the bathroom NOW.

  I suddenly wondered whether she’d planned it all this way? I mean you don’t get made Queen of Phaeryland for nothing.

  What if she’d known Phredde was sick of being a Phaery and had planned…

  But no. She was just a sweet old duck who wanted to give a party for one of her subjects. It had been really nice of Phredde to make her so happy.

  ‘Hey, your turn!’ demanded Phredde.

  ‘Me? I can’t dance like that!’

  ‘Sure you can!’ declared Phredde. ‘This is Phaeryland!’

  And you know something? I could! I swooped and I fluttered and it almost felt like I had wings. I nearly felt behind me to see if I’d grown some—in Phaeryland anything can happen—but I didn’t. There are some things it’s better not to know.

  So we danced and we danced, and I found out you can dance in glass slippers when your feet don’t touch the ground, and then the birthday cake was pulled out by six tiny dragons, and they all puffed at once and lit the candles.

  And even if the cake did have pink and white icing it was r
eally good.

  Then there were a million more things to eat—like moonbeam ice-cream, and stuffed toadstools (which aren’t poisonous in Phaeryland), and phaery cakes (of course) with cherry cream, and it was all delicious even if it was served on lacy doilies—and more dancing, and I even almost got to like the music after a while. I suppose it just needs getting used to, like Mrs Hitchcock says, but if you tell anyone I said that I’ll SPIT. I can just imagine what the other kids would say.

  Then Phredde got her presents. A jar of Phaery Dust from the Phaery Queen (I don’t quite know what Phaery Dust is, but I guess it isn’t like talcum powder) and she DID get a tyrannosaurus…a tiny one that fits in her pocket and it has fangs like razor blades which will be really useful for sharpening pencils at school.

  Then it began getting dark and suddenly there were a million candles in the trees, bright as the stars, or maybe the stars were candles too, and the Phaery Queen was smiling, smiling, smiling. I’ve never seen a smile so bright and I shut my eyes and…

  ‘Time to go home,’ whispered Phredde’s mum, and suddenly I was clinging to the butterfly again.

  I can’t remember much of the journey home. Just the strong beat of the butterfly’s wings in the night sky and the Phaery Queen’s laughter behind us—they were still dancing, I think—and the tiny musicians playing, but the music got softer and softer and further away and we landed gentle as a whisper.

  ‘Hold hands again, girls,’ said Phredde’s dad. ‘We’ll take Prudence home first,’ and whoosh, we were back on the drawbridge of our castle, and the others were all tiny again.

  I peered down at the city below. It all looked just the same. There was the milkbar and there was our school and…

  Hey! It wasn’t the same! It wasn’t the same at all!

  I came alive abruptly. ‘What’s happened?’ I yelled. ‘That’s not our school! It didn’t have that building there this morning and that fence is new and what have they done with the basketball court? And, hey, who put that block of flats at the end of the street?’

  Phredde’s dad laughed. ‘Relax, Prudence,’ he said. ‘You’ve been gone seven years, that’s all! Things change in seven years!’

  ‘Seven years!’ I squeaked. ‘No one told me I was going for seven years!’

  ‘But Prudence, six hours in Phaeryland is equivalent to seven years outside,’ said Phredde’s mum. ‘Didn’t you know?’

  ‘No!’ I yelled. ‘And what’s more, Mum and Dad didn’t know either! They’ll have been frantic! And…and all my other friends will have left school by now while I’m still…’

  ‘Shhh,’ soothed Phredde’s dad. ‘It’s easily fixed.’

  And we whooshed again. I looked down and there was the school all normal, and the block of flats was gone and we were back in the past again…I mean in the present…well, you know what I mean.

  ‘Thanks,’ I breathed, but he just laughed, like it was nothing at all to zap back seven years.

  ‘See you tomorrow,’ I said to Phredde. ‘And thank you for asking me to your party.’

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ said Phredde, and you could tell she wasn’t just being polite. ‘I…I don’t suppose you’d like to come next year?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘It was fun.’ And it had been too.

  ‘Does that mean you won’t argue about going to Phaeryland next year?’ asked Phredde’s mum.

  Phredde made a face. ‘I suppose not,’ she said. ‘But no more lists of Handsome Princes and I get to go to Uni if I want.’

  ‘We’ll compromise,’ said Phredde’s mum. ‘Just meet a few princes, that’s all I ask. I mean, you never know. Then if you don’t like any of them…’

  ‘I’ll NEVER like any of them,’ cried Phredde.

  ‘Then that’ll be the end of it,’ said Phredde’s mum.

  ‘You promise?’ asked Phredde suspiciously.

  ‘Of course I promise. After all, I didn’t marry a handsome prince, did I?’

  ‘Didn’t you?’ said Phredde, astounded.

  Her father grinned. ‘What do you take me for? My dad was a cobbler. You should have heard the fuss he made when I wanted to go to Uni and study Political Science.’

  ‘But you said…’ began Phredde.

  ‘We’ll talk about it later,’ said her mum.

  That’s when MY mum put her head out the door and asked if they’d all like to come in for a cup of ovaltine, but Phredde’s mum said no thanks, it was late and they’d better be getting home as it was school tomorrow, and I thanked them for having me and all the rest of it and I went to bed and didn’t wake up till the sun peered through the window, which it always does when it’s time to wake up in the castle.

  ‘Did you have a nice time?’ asked Mum the next morning. ‘We should have got you one of those disposable cameras to take with you.’

  ‘I don’t think they have them in Phaeryland,’ I told her. ‘Yeah, it was okay. Can I have some watermelon for breakfast?’

  So that was the end of Phredde’s birthday celebrations.

  Until Uncle Mordred’s present arrived.

  But that’s another story.

  Phredde’s Dragon

  ‘Stink!’ exclaimed Mum suddenly.

  ‘Or fetid, or maybe reek,’ answered Phredde’s mum consideringly. ‘No, they don’t have enough letters.’

  ‘How about musty?’ demanded Mum.

  ‘That’s not enough either.’

  ‘Stench!’

  Phredde’s mum shook her head. ‘It has to begin with P unless we’re wrong about twenty-five down being Pterodactyl—’

  ‘Pungent!’

  Phredde’s mum ran her biro down the crossword. (It was the smallest biro I’d ever seen, except for the one Phredde uses in class. Does some factory make special small Phaery size biros or do they have to conjure them up? I must ask Phredde).

  ‘And it ends in d,’ said Phredde’s mum.

  Mum peered down at her side of the crossword again. She’s getting awfully shortsighted but she won’t go and get glasses.

  ‘Impossible. There is no word in the English language that means “bad smell” that begins with p and ends in d. We really must have got pterodactyl wrong.’

  Phredde’s mum slowly flapped her wings, the way Phredde does when she’s considering something. ‘How about malodorous, fusty, tainted…’

  ‘Rancid, rank…’ muttered Mum.

  Dad looked up from the phaery chess game he was playing with Phredde’s dad. ‘Putrid,’ he said.

  Mum looked annoyed. She often gets miffed when Dad helps her with her crosswords.

  ‘I thought you weren’t listening,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not,’ said Dad. ‘Your turn Jim.’ (Jim isn’t Phredde’s dad’s name. It’s just what he’s called. Phredde’s dad’s real name is The Phaery Valiant…which is really embarrassing, even if it is a traditional phaery name, like Ethereal…so he decided he’d be called Jim instead.)

  We’d all come over to Phredde’s castle for dinner—well, all except Mark, who was over at Tracy’s.

  The snow was fluttering down outside the castle. It wasn’t fluttering down anywhere else, of course, just around the castle. Magic snowflakes look just like giant feathers—only spongier.

  There was a big fire crackling in their enormous fireplace—I suppose it was big enough to roast an ox, but I’ve never seen an ox. I don’t think they’re the same as bulls. I must ask Mrs Olsen, she knows things like that.

  (We’d had roast gryphon for dinner, not roast ox—there’s a phaery who has a gryphon farm just out of town. Gryphons taste like chooks, but better.)

  The flames were licking and snickering up the chimney and Phredde’s dad had conjured away the dishes (he and Phredde’s mum had had a discussion about whose turn it was to do the washing up).

  And after dinner, Mum and Phredde’s mum had got out their latest crossword and Dad and Jim had settled down to phaery chess (which is like ordinary chess, except the king and queen and stuff are real and there
isn’t a board—the pieces just hang there in mid-air till you put them somewhere else and I think the moves are different too—so I suppose it’s not really the same as ordinary chess at all).

  And Phredde and I were working on our Japan project for school. Phredde was conjuring up cherry blossoms to twine all through the information, which looked really pretty (we got 78% for it by the way).

  We were doing all this stuff because Phredde’s family don’t have a TV. I asked Phredde’s mum why they don’t have TV, and she just laughed and said, ‘Prudence dear. Phaeries can see whatever they want to! We don’t need TV. You won’t find a TV in the whole of Phaeryland.’

  So I didn’t tell her that they probably wouldn’t even get TV reception in Phaeryland, and that Phaeryland doesn’t have videos and roller-blading and netball courts and football and all sorts of other essential stuff either.

  I ALSO didn’t tell her that Phredde LOVES our TV and that she watches it every time she comes over to our place (you almost have to drag her down to the pirate ship or the beach sometimes), because Mum insists on me being polite and not contradicting my elders even when they say something totally dumb like not needing a TV. Where was I? I remember…

  Phredde and I were sitting there discussing how to spell Fujiyama (I THINK that’s it), but not really very interested, and Mum was muttering ‘word meaning teacher…let’s see—guru, instructor, educationalist. No, that doesn’t fit in. Dominie, abcedarian, school master, school mistress, lecturer. No blast, it begins with P—professor, preceptor…pedagogue! That must be it.’

  …when there was a knock at the door. A really loud knock, more like a hammering in fact, and it went on and on.

  ‘Get that will you, Ethereal?’ Phredde’s mum asked her.

  ‘I’ll come too,’ I said. It was getting pretty hot by the fire, and, anyway, any interruption was better than Mt Fujihama. (Fugiarma? Fujiahma?)

  We jogged down the hall, past the suits of armour and the stuffed ogre that some ancestor of Phredde’s had…but that’s another story. Well, I jogged, and Phredde swooped along above my left shoulder (she was wearing fluorescent green joggers today) and the banging kept going on and on.