The Phredde Collection (53 page)

It was a great dance. There weren’t any teachers now that Mr Ploppy Bottom had gone. (I KNEW that no one with a name like
Plothiebotham
would ever be dumb enough to become a teacher—or at least not without giving some pretty heavy-duty thought to changing his name.) So we could have the music up as loud as we liked, especially since Phredde PING!ed a sound barrier outside so none of the neighbours could hear.

You should have seen those mosquito-suckers dance!

We danced for hours—Phredde had PING!ed it so time would stay at eight o’clock as long as we wanted it to.

I was the happiest pumpkin in the world! Almost totally happy, anyway. I danced with Zac, and then with Shaun. And then with EVERYBODY.

Except Bruce. Bruce didn’t ask me to dance once. I sort of watched him out of the corner of my eye. He danced with Amelia. (Huh! I thought, that ankle got better pretty quick.) Then he danced with one of the
vampires, and then Amelia again…

And I didn’t care. Not a bit.

Or not much.

Hardly at all, really…

It had been eight o’clock for about three hours, and I was thinking I might have some supper, if the big, bad wolf had left any scones, when suddenly there was a croak behind me. ‘Pru?’

I didn’t turn around. ‘What do you want?’

‘Would you like to go for a walk?’

I kept my gaze on the pikelets with strawberry jam. And the big, bad wolf
had
left some date scones as well, so I picked one up and took a bite out of it. ‘Why?’

‘Because it’s too noisy to talk in here.’

I hesitated. If there had been a teacher around we wouldn’t have been allowed. But there wasn’t. ‘All right,’ I said at last.

PING!

I looked around. ‘Where are we?’

‘Next to my lily pond at home.’

It was a pretty cool lily pond. It went on for kilometres, with lilies and water slides and moonlight shining on Bruce’s castle way in the distance.

‘Pru?’

‘Well? What do you want to say?’

I wasn’t sure whether to be angry or grateful to him about the Phaery Godmother stuff. I know he’d meant well. It was a really nice thing to do, in fact. But it hadn’t been what I’d WANTED him to do. I’d wanted him to be a normal kid, just for my birthday.

But Bruce was…Bruce. A frog. And even if I hadn’t really liked frogs since I accidentally sat on one in Year
Three, it looked like he wasn’t going to stop being a frog any time soon. Even for me.

Or if he was, I thought slowly, did I really want him to? Did I really want a friend who’d change who he was, just because some girl asked him to?

Did I want to be the sort of friend who’d ask?

I turned to look at him. His big, googly eyes shone in the moonlight, and his skin looked damper than ever.

‘You know how you turned into a bat with Shaun?’ croaked Bruce slowly.

I blinked. Whatever I’d expected him to say, it wasn’t that! ‘Yes,’ I said cautiously.

‘Was it fun?’

‘Yes,’ I said, even more cautiously.

‘I just wondered,’ said Bruce slowly.

‘Wondered what?’

‘If you’d like to try being a frog,’ said Bruce with a gulp.

I stared at him. Me? Be a frog? But that was…that was…

It wasn’t SUCH a crazy idea, I thought suddenly. At least we’d be the same species. And I trusted Bruce. If I didn’t like being a frog he’d turn me back into a pumpkin.

‘Well,’ I said.

‘Well, what?’ asked Bruce anxiously.

‘Well, maybe…’ I began.

PING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

‘…And those are gnats,’ said Bruce happily. ‘They’re really tiny but they’re even sweeter than flies.’

I plopped onto the next lily pad and glared at him. ‘I’m NOT eating a fly!’

‘Try a gnat then. Just one. You’ll like it. Really.’

‘Well, maybe…just one.’ I looked at the gnat cautiously. Suddenly my tongue shot out, almost by itself. It kept on going and going and going.

Zap. My tongue was back in my mouth. So was the gnat. I crunched it nervously.

‘You’re right,’ I said in surprise. ‘It tastes like…like peanuts, with a hint of crab cakes.’

‘You wait till you taste mosquitoes!’ said Bruce eagerly. ‘There’s a lot of good eating to be had from mosquitoes! And you know what the very best thing about mosquitoes is?’

‘No.’

‘Where there’s one mosquito there’s hundreds! Come on!’

I watched as Bruce splashed from lily pad to lily pad across the pond. The moonlight glinted off the water and onto our brown pulsating skins.

I took a deep breath and…but that’s another story
¹⁹
.

Jackie French

To Alexandra, Claudia, Annabelle and Emma: may your lives be filled with music, lots of love, Jackie.

Title Page

Dedication

Cast of Characters

Chapter 1 The Will

Chapter 2 The Trouble with Phaeries

Chapter 3 Prix’s Mansion

Chapter 4 Mysteries…

Chapter 5 Prudence Faces the Future

Chapter 6 The Vanishing Underpants

Chapter 7 Stranger and Stranger…

Chapter 8 Jack the Clipper

Chapter 9 Prudence Looks for Answers

Chapter 10 Uncle Carbuncle

Chapter 11 Phredde and Bruce’s Secret

Chapter 12 Alone!

Chapter 13 Pru’s Busy Day

Chapter 14 Trapped!

Chapter 15 Not Even a Dungeon!

Chapter 16 Rescue!

Chapter 17 The Ghost Train Arrives

Chapter 18 A Long Dark Night

Chapter 19 Things are Always Flat when an Adventure Ends

Chapter 20 A Surprise in Phaeryland

Chapter 21 Not the End at All

‘You mean it’s all MINE?’ I yelled.

Mr Nahsti, the solicitor, nodded.

‘A mansion in the bush with a great big park around it and…what was all that other stuff?’

Mr Nahsti read from his list. ‘A lake, two hundred hectares of land. And…’ he gave a slight cough,’a small graveyard.’

I was so happy I stopped staring at the dead rat on his head. ‘How hot is that?’ I shouted. ‘My very own graveyard!’

‘Is there any money too?’ asked Dad hopefully.

Money has been a bit tight at our place lately. Okay, we live in a castle, but that’s only because Phredde’s mum PING!ed it up for us. But phaeries can’t PING! money or anything else that changes the world too much, like doing well in a geography exam or peace on earth, just castles and glass slippers and time tunnels to Ancient Egypt.

‘There is some money,’ said Mr Nahsti. ‘Enough invested to cover rates and other costs.’

‘I suppose Pru could rent the mansion out and make money that way,’ said Dad thoughtfully. My brother Mark is going to uni next year and that’s going to cost our family heaps. Plus if I want to go to uni too, in a few years’ time, that’s going to cost even more.

I tried to stop bouncing in my seat. My own mansion! I couldn’t wait to see my classmates’ faces at school. NO ONE has their own mansion!

Mum looked worried. Why do mums look worried over the least little thing, like being kidnapped by a zombie librarian,
¹
or going out without my hat on, or being left a mansion and a lake and my own graveyard?

‘But how can Prudence inherit all these things?’ she asked.

‘You weren’t listening, Mum! My Uncle Carbuncle left them to me.’

‘But you don’t HAVE an Uncle Carbuncle,’ protested Mum.

‘Course not, ‘cause he’s dead,’ I said.

‘You don’t even have a dead one,’ said Dad.

‘I must have,’ I pointed out, ‘because he left me a mansion!’

Mr Nahsti shook his head. I waited for the dead rat to fall off, but it didn’t. I wondered how he stuck it on so tight. ‘Actually, Prudence, your mother is right.’ He smiled at me, one of those grown-up ‘kids-suck’ sort of smiles. ‘Mothers are usually right, you know. Mr Carbuncle was your father’s fifth cousin four times removed. He stated in his will that his property should be left to his nearest female relative.’

‘And that’s me?’

‘Well, no.’ Mr Nahsti looked a bit embarrassed. ‘There were actually 56 closer female relatives than you. You see, there is one condition you have to fulfil before you can inherit.’

‘What’s that?’ I asked happily. I could hardly wait to tell Phredde and Bruce. My own graveyard!

‘You have to spend two nights in the house…with no other human being.’

‘Is that all?’ I yelled.

‘Prudence, lower your voice,’ said Mum. ‘Please excuse her, Mr Nahsti. Exactly why didn’t the other, er…56 females manage to spend two nights in the house?’

Mr Nahsti shook his head again. He didn’t look like any solicitor I’d seen on TV. As well as the dead rat on his head, he was short and fat and had a red face and a soggy cornflake left over from breakfast on his collar. Or maybe it had been the rat’s last breakfast, and he was keeping it for a snack later.

‘I’m afraid I’m not allowed to tell you,’ he said. ‘That’s one of the terms of the will too. But I really must advise you not to take up this offer. It might be quite, um, distressing if you even try.’

Mum took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry, Prudence, there’s no way I’m letting you spend two nights alone in a deserted mansion!’

‘Look, Mum, stop worrying!’ I turned to Mr Nahsti. ‘Those 56 other chicks—the house didn’t kill them, did it?’

‘No,’ said Mr Nahsti cautiously.

‘Their legs didn’t drop off, did they?’

‘No,’ admitted Mr Nahsti. ‘But I really do advise you not to—’

‘See, Mum?’ I said. ‘There’s absolutely nothing to worry about!’

‘What happens to the place if Pru doesn’t inherit it?’ asked Dad. ‘Do you try another relative?’

Mr Nahsti shook his head. ‘There are no other female relatives. If Prudence doesn’t accept the inheritance, the house and its land will be sold, and the money sent to,’ he consulted his notes again, ‘the Society for the Improvement of Children’s Manners.’

‘And I get nothing?’

‘That’s right,’ said Mr Nahsti. He gave a fake ‘I-really-love-kids’ smile. ‘But of course it’s a very good cause. I’m President of the Society, you know,’ he added modestly.

‘That settles it,’ I announced. ‘I’m taking it!’

‘Impossible,’ said Dad firmly. ‘Pru, you are not spending two nights by yourself in a house that has scared off 56 other girls!’

I grinned. ‘But I won’t be by myself.’

‘I’m afraid the will is very strict,’ said Mr Nahsti. ‘With no other human being whatsoever, it says.’

‘Who said anything about human beings? Phredde and Bruce can come with me,’ I told him. ‘They’re phaeries!’

Mr Nahsti stared at me as though I was the one with a dead rat on my head. ‘Phaeries?’

‘Yep,’ I said happily. ‘Well, Bruce is a frog most of the time, because he likes being a frog better than being a phaery prince. But, you see, there’s no danger at all, because they can PING! me out of any sort of trouble.’

‘Phaeries,’ muttered Mr Nahsti, in the same sort of voice I’d use to say,
oh-oh, maggots in my sandwich.
‘I really don’t think…’ He saw me looking at him and stopped.

‘Phredde is my best friend in all the world,’ I told him. ‘And so is Bruce. Even if he is a frog.’

‘Oh, of course, of course,’ said Mr Nahsti quickly. ‘I’m the last person to be prejudiced against, ahem, phaeries or…or other creatures, I mean, ahem, people. We’re all the same really, aren’t we? I mean…’

‘Of course we’re not the same! Phredde’s only 30 centimetres high and Bruce eats flies and—’

‘Er…under the skin, I mean,’ said Mr Nahsti hurriedly.

‘No, we’re not,’ I informed him. ‘Mrs Olsen, that’s our teacher, says humans and phaeries and frogs have quite different circulatory systems, and she should know as she’s a vampire.’

‘A vampire!’ cried Mr Nahsti, casting Mum and Dad the sort of look that says
what sort of dumb parents are you, letting your kid go to school with vampires and phaeries?

Then Dad said, ‘I have always been very proud of Prudence and her friends.’

I could have hugged him!

Then Mum said, ‘And Mrs Olsen is the best teacher Prudence has had. Her work has improved in leaps and bounds.’

‘Especially in anatomy,’ I added. ‘I know all about the jugular, and how humans have eight pints of blood but cows have—’

‘That’s enough, Pru,’ muttered Dad.

‘But I was just explaining to Mr Nasty,’ I began.

‘That’s enough!’ roared Dad. ‘Mr Nasty, I mean Nahsti, doesn’t need to know how much blood a cow has got.’

‘Exactly,’ said Mr Nahsti coldly. ‘Well, as I was saying, if Prudence was my daughter I would never dream of
letting her stay in the house for two nights, especially in the company of two, ahem, phaeries! Phaeries. Those creatures think they can walk all over us normal people.’

‘Fly,’ I put in.

‘What?’ demanded Mr Nahsti.

‘Fly,’ I said. ‘They fly all over us, not walk.’

Mr Nahsti glared at me, then at Mum and Dad. ‘Really! I am beginning to think your daughter badly needs the services of the Society for the Improvement of Children’s Manners herself.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with Pru’s manners!’ said Dad. ‘Much,’ he added honestly.

‘Nothing at all!’ put in Mum.

‘If you take my advice,’ began Mr Nahsti angrily.

‘Take your advice, you prejudiced twit? I’d rather go swimming with Pru’s piranhas!’ Dad declared. ‘Pru, if you want to stay in that house for two nights, of course you can!’

‘Certainly,’ said Mum. ‘You’ll be quite safe with Phredde and Bruce!’ She gave Mr Nahsti the kind of look she usually keeps for leftover banana peels that have fermented at the bottom of my school bag.

‘Very well,’ said Mr Nahsti. ‘But don’t come whining to me and say I didn’t warn you!’ He handed me a set of keys and some documents. ‘You will find all you need to know in here. Good day.’

‘By the way,’ Mum added, ‘that hairpiece on your bald spot looks like a dead rat!’

‘So that’s what it is!’ I exclaimed.

Mum swept out. Dad and I followed her.

‘Stupid prejudiced old #**@!!!’ said Mum as soon as we were in the corridor. I stared at her. I didn’t think Mum even KNEW a word like that! And then I grinned.

‘I’ve got a mansion of my own! And a lake! And a graveyard!’ I yelled.

Mum and Dad looked at me, then at each other.

‘Oh dear. What have we agreed to?’ whispered Mum.