The Phredde Collection (15 page)

It was dressed in some sort of skin which was wrapped around its waist like a grubby furry bath towel, but the rest of it was bare, although it was pretty hard to tell because it was so hairy.

‘Glurp!’I said.

The giant didn’t say anything.

‘What is it?’ I whispered to Phredde.

‘I think it’s a thingummy,’ whispered Phredde. ‘You know—a whatsitsname—an ogre, that’s it. There were a few back in Ruritania, but I never saw one this close before.’

I sniffed. The thingummy—I mean the ogre—WAS very close. It didn’t wear deodorant either.

‘Are ogres friendly?’

‘Only if they’re not hungry.’

‘What do they eat?’

Phredde glanced down at me. ‘Anything,’ she said softly.

‘Anything? Like what?’

‘ANYTHING.’ Phredde repeated warily.

‘Like…like us?’

Phredde nodded without speaking.

I glanced at the ogre. It wasn’t saying anything. It wasn’t doing anything either. It was just staring at us.

‘How do we know if it’s hungry?’ I whispered.

‘If it drools.’

I watched a long gloop of spit dribble out of the ogre’s mouth, it landed with a splat on the stone floor of the castle.

‘It’s dribbling now!’ I informed Phredde.

‘That’s okay. Ogres always dribble.’

‘But you said they only dribble when they’re hungry!’

‘Ogres are always hungry,’ whispered Phredde.

That was a great comfort.

I looked back at the ogre.

It didn’t
look
starved at all. In fact it looked like it had been eating well for about the past two centuries. But it was staring at us awfully intently.

‘Hey Phredde,’ I whispered again. (I didn’t know if ogres understood English or not, but I didn’t want to take any chances. Or make any sudden moves either.)

‘What?’

‘Can’t you just magic it away?’

Phredde shook her head. ‘It’s already magic. You can’t magic magic.’

‘Why not?’ I urged.

‘You just can’t!’

The drool had made a small puddle now.

Great. So there we were, stuck on top of a ruined castle on a desert island with a (probably) hungry ogre, and Phredde’s magic was no use.

To make matters worse the only people who could rescue us were the pirates, who wouldn’t come unless we signalled them, which is hard to do if you’re in an ogre’s belly being slowly turned into a bigger and better ogre. And anyway, even if the pirates sailed back home to explain what had happened to us all they’d be able to say was ‘Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of ginger ale’, which somehow seemed a bit inadequate.

Not that I was complaining mind you. I mean it was a really great adventure for a Sunday afternoon.

But somehow adventures are more fun when you know you’re going to end them with all your arms and legs intact, instead of being marinated in an ogre’s digestive juices.

‘Nice ogre,’ I said soothingly to the ogre.

The ogre just stared at me.

What the heck do you say to an ogre?

‘Er…I’m very pleased to meet you.’ I offered.

The ogre still didn’t say anything. More drool dripped down its chin and plopped into the puddle on the floor.

‘My name’s Prudence,’ I tried brightly. ‘And this is my friend Phredde.’

The ogre blinked its tiny eyes. It looked at us like Mum gazes at a pavlova when she’s on a diet. But
somehow I guessed the ogre wasn’t really into diet magazines.

‘We’ve got to distract it,’ I whispered urgently to Phredde. ‘If we can just get it away from the stairs we can make a run for it!’

Phredde nodded.

‘It’s a lovely view up here isn’t it?’ I said brightly to the ogre. ‘Look, you can see our place from here!’

The ogre gave the view one brief glance, then resumed drooling at us.

‘Oh look!’ I said enthusiastically. ‘There’s an eagle.’

The ogre wasn’t interested in eagles either.

I gave up. There was nothing else up here that might distract it. But at least one of us might be saved…

‘You fly off while I keep it occupied down here!’ I ordered Phredde.

‘No!’ cried Phredde. ‘How about I fly past its nose, and while it’s trying to grab me in midair you duck under its shoulders and run down the stairs!’

‘No way! I’m not leaving you to a hungry ogre!’

‘Well, I’m not leaving you either!’ declared Phredde.

We glared at each other, then suddenly remembered the ogre again. I glanced back at it. It was still staring at us like it could just imagine us between a pair of hamburger buns.

Suddenly I had an idea.

‘I’ve had an idea,’ I whispered to Phredde.

‘The whole castle was your idea!’ she whispered back.

‘This is a better idea. There’s no time to explain now. But when I say “Run!”—fly…okay?’

‘Why not just say “Fly!” then,’ offered Phredde reasonably.

‘Because…oh, all right, “Fly!”then!’

Phredde nodded.

I bent down slowly to the remnants of our picnic. Slowly, very slowly, I picked up the giant chocolate cake.

Even more slowly I held it out to the ogre.

‘Chocolate cake,’ I said temptingly to the ogre, like I was speaking to a two-year-old. ‘Look, nice chocolate cake. YUMMY chocolate cake. Do ogres like chocolate cake?’

‘I don’t suppose it’s ever tasted one,’ whispered Phredde

‘EVERYONE likes chocolate cake,’ I whispered back. ‘MMMM! NICE chocolate cake!’

The ogre was looking a bit puzzled. It glanced down at the chocolate cake, then back at me, then down to the cake again.

‘Cake,’ it squeaked wonderingly. Its voice was like a mutated bat’s, small and squeaky—all wrong for the size of its body. Some more drool dripped down its chest.

‘Yummy chocolate cake,’ I said temptingly.

‘Yummy chocolate cake,’ slobbered the ogre obediently. Then ‘Nice chocolate cake,’ it slobbered a bit more firmly. ‘Nice girl. Nice NICE girl. Nice chocolate cake.’

It reached out to grab the cake.

‘Run! I mean fly!’ I yelled to Phredde as the giant smelly paws took the cake from my hands.

And we were gone, under the giant hairy armpits that really did need deodorant, flying down the stairs as the sounds of ‘Nice girl! nice cake!’ and a sort of chocolate cakey slobber floated down behind us.

Well, I was never so glad to be on a pirate ship in my life.

Phredde and I decided that we wouldn’t tell our parents about our adventures. Why get parents into a stress when they don’t need to be?

And after all, we were home safe and sound, and that was the end of it.

At least that’s what I thought till the next morning.

It was an ordinary sort of morning.

The sun streamed through the window like it always does in a magic castle when it’s time to get up. (It doesn’t stream through the window till two o’clock in school holidays.)

Gark (our butler) brought me my passionfruit and mango juice in bed, and laid out my school uniform for me (I was always losing my left shoe before we got a butler).

I showered under the waterfall in my bathroom and clumped out to the kitchen to see what was for breakfast.

There was Mum in her tacky dressing gown, as usual, trying to remember how to use the coffee pot (Mum isn’t at her best in the morning)…

…and there was Mark wolfing down muesli (not literally of course, because he wasn’t due to turn into a wolf for another four days)…

…and there was Dad munching Gark’s great pineapple and almond muffins…

…and there was the thingummy—I mean the ogre—peering through the kitchen window.

Of course all I could see of him was his big dark blue eye, but I guessed it was the ogre, because after
all, how many people can stare through a castle window that’s three stories high?

I had to find some tactful way of telling my family there was an ogre looking through the kitchen window.

‘Arrkkk! The ogre!’ I screamed.

And Mum shrieked ‘What!’ and dropped the coffee pot so the coffee splattered all over the floor.

Dad yelled, ‘What ogre?’

And Mark said, quite calmly really, considering, ‘That ogre,’ and went on slurping his muesli. Mark has a fast metabolism and doesn’t like to interrupt his meals for anything.

‘Good gravy!’ exclaimed Dad, as he caught sight of the ogre, or its eye at any rate. ‘What’s that?’

‘That’s my ogre.’ I admitted.

‘Your WHAT?’

‘My ogre. Well, he’s not mine exactly. He must have followed me home.’

‘Followed you home from WHERE young lady,’ asked Dad ominously.

‘Well, from down in the garden…well, sort of down in the garden,’ I hedged.

‘Exactly where down in the garden did you discover an ogre?’ demanded Dad.

‘Well, we didn’t discover him really. He sort of discovered us. We’d just gone for a sail on the pirate ship over to this really cool desert island…I mean it was all quite safe…and this ogre found us, so we came home. I mean there was no danger at all.’

‘Just when did all this happen?’ Mum wanted to know, in this really cold voice.

‘Well, er, actually yesterday afternoon.’

‘You mean when Splendifera gave you and Phredde permission to come over here as long as you didn’t leave the garden?’

‘Well, we didn’t really leave the garden,’ I argued. ‘The beach is joined onto the garden, and the sea is joined onto the beach, and the desert island’s in the sea…’

‘I see,’ said Mum, in this voice that meant she didn’t really see at all. ‘Well young lady, you’re grounded until…’

That’s when the ogre said ‘Nice girl’ and tried to scoop me out the kitchen window.

Well, luckily castles are pretty solid, because the wall didn’t break, but it did spoil breakfast.

We all scurried into the hallway where the ogre couldn’t see us and started arguing about what was the best thing to do about a stray ogre, because after all you couldn’t just call the pound and ask them to pick him up—all of us except Mark, who’d brought his bowl and the packet of muesli with him and just kept on eating.

When Mark had finished his muesli and had time to think about something other than shovelling food down his gob he announced:‘It’s simple.’

‘Oh yeah?’ I said. You get a bit sick of big brothers knowing everything, and I was a bit upset at missing breakfast—those muffins smelt great.

And having an ogre outside the window wasn’t doing my temper much good either.

‘Well,’ said Mark, in that superior older brother sort of voice, ‘if the ogre has followed Pru home then all she has to do is disappear and maybe it’ll go back to where it came from.’

Mum blinked. ‘But where is she going to disappear to?’

‘To school, of course,’ said Mark, in his bored ‘isn’t it obvious?’ voice. (Older brothers do that to parents too.)

I brightened up at that. I even gave Mark a kiss, which he sort of tolerated.

‘That’s a great idea!’ I cried. ‘I’ll give Phredde a ring now and get her to PING! me over to school. I bet the ogre’ll just lose interest if it has to hang around here all day.’

Then I raced off to phone Phredde before Mum remembered she was going to ground me.

‘What I want to know,’ I asked. ‘Is where did the ogre come from in the first place?’

‘I suppose he was living in the castle,’ said Phredde. ‘It’s big enough for twenty ogres to live in.’

We were sitting in the tree at school, waiting for the volcano to explode to tell us it was time for the first lesson.
⁴
I’d missed breakfast of course, but Phredde had brought me some of hers—phaery bread (which ISN’T bread sprinkled with hundreds and thousands) and a bottle of lemon blossom nectar.

‘But
you
magicked up the castle,’ I protested. ‘How come you magicked up an ogre too?’

Phredde shrugged. ‘These things happen,’ she said airily. ‘I just tried to imagine the castle you were describing and I suppose the ogre sort of came with it.’

Which didn’t really answer anything, but I knew from past experience there was no point arguing with Phredde any further. Phaeries get a bit vague when you press them about the details of their magic.

Sometimes I wonder if they really understand what’s happening at all. I mean, I don’t know exactly
what happens when I see things—I just open my eyes and do it. Maybe it’s like that with magic for phaeries.

‘How do you think he got across the sea?’ I wondered. ‘Do you think he has a boat?’

Phredde shook her head. ‘He probably just waded across.’

‘He’d drown!’ I protested.

‘Nah,’ said Phredde. ‘Ogres don’t need to breathe so they don’t use boats. They don’t use anything much. They’re pretty dumb.’

‘What do they do all day then?’ I asked.

‘Eat,’ said Phredde.

‘How do you think he found me?’ I asked glumly.

‘He must have smelt you. Or where you’d been, and followed the trail.’

‘I don’t stink!’ I protested.

‘No, of course you don’t stink,’ soothed Phredde. ‘But ogres have an incredible sense of smell.’

‘Oh great,’ I muttered. That was all I needed—a monster thingummy with an incredible sense of smell who’d fallen in love with me or something. I mean it was all getting really embarrassing.

‘With a bit of luck it’ll be gone by the time I get home,’ I said hopefully. ‘I’ll probably never even see the ogre again.’

‘Maybe,’ said Phredde doubtfully. ‘Ogres can be awfully persistent.’

Phredde was right.

It had to happen in the middle of geography class.

I mean, I’m really bad at geography anyway—my feeling is that none of those countries are disappearing
anywhere, so if I want to know where Swaziland is or something all I have to do is look at a map. I mean why find out where Swaziland is before you need it?

But anyway, like I was saying, there we were in geography, with Mrs Olsen droning on about the River Danube or something—I don’t THINK that’s in Swaziland—when the school began to shake.

Well, it wasn’t time for the volcano to explode, and anyway there’s only a tiny skinny sort of earthquake when it does.

This was a big fat earthquake. A sort of
boom! boom! boom!
earthquake.

Except after about ten
booms!
I realised it wasn’t an earthquake at all.

It was my ogre.