The Phredde Collection (66 page)

‘Not exactly,’ said Miss Snagglethorpe gently. ‘Now if you’d just sit down here Prudence dear, next to my bookshelf.’

‘Well, okay,’ I said dubiously. I sat down, then sniffed.

‘Er, Miss Snagglethorpe?’

‘Yes, dear?’ said Miss Snagglethorpe as she rummaged in the drawer of her desk with her remaining arm.

‘Can you smell something?’

‘Ah, yes, the wonderful scent of books. Old books, new books…it’s a lovely smell, isn’t it, dear? Just hold this will you?’ Miss Snagglethorpe said as she pulled a piece of rope out of the drawer.

‘Well, actually, it smells like rotting meat,’ I replied, taking one end of the rope Miss Snagglethorpe was holding.

‘What a silly idea,’ said Miss Snagglethorpe, with a little giggle. ‘You don’t find rotting meat in a library.’

‘You don’t?’ I asked. For some reason, I was starting to feel a bit nervous.

‘Of course not. What a silly idea. No, that smell is just my little friends, I’m afraid. A slight problem with bad breath. Sometimes, they don’t clean their teeth after eating. I remind them and remind them, too,’ said Miss Snagglethorpe sadly.

I frowned at the rope in my hand. Something wasn’t right here. In fact, I had this feeling that something was really wrong.

Suddenly Miss Snagglethorpe lunged.

‘Hey, what’s going on?’ I yelled, as Miss Snagglethorpe twisted the rope round and round me, tying me to the chair. ‘Help! HELLLLPPPPPP!’

‘You see, that’s why I needed your help this afternoon, Prudence,’ said Miss Snagglethorpe, smiling down at me gently and she pulled the rope tight with her remaining arm. ‘I need you to help me feed my books.’

That’s when her other ear fell off.

Bruce was right, I thought, watching Miss Snagglethorpe carefully sweep her ear up with a dustpan. There really was something very odd about Miss Snagglethorpe.

Well, this wasn’t what you’d call my favourite way of spending the afternoon of a long-weekend Monday. Here I was, trapped next to a shelf of girl-eating vampire books, with bits of librarian scattered all over the place.

‘Miss Snagglethorpe?’ I asked politely. (It was possible, I thought hopefully, if I was really really polite, she just might let me go.)

‘Yes, dear?’ said Miss Snagglethorpe gently.

‘Why do bits of you keep falling off?’

‘Well, it’s only natural, dear,’ said Miss Snagglethorpe kindly. ‘You see, I’m a zombie.’

‘You mean…you mean you’re really just a dead body someone’s called up out of a grave?’ My voice choked on that last bit.

‘Not just someone,’ said Miss Snagglethorpe, reproachfully. ‘My dear little books called me up.’

‘But…but books can’t do something like that…’ I protested.

‘These ones can,’ said Miss Snagglethorpe proudly. ‘They’re special books.’

‘You mean magical books?’ I asked hopefully. I mean, what with Phredde and Bruce for friends, magic and I got along like a house on fire. I mean, surely, magic books wouldn’t eat me.

‘No, dear. They’re reverse books. You know when you read a book it gives you a whole new world? How you feel really satisfied when you’ve read a good book?’

I nodded.

‘Well, these books suck new worlds in. They take your world instead of giving you new ones. They’re hungry books.’ Miss Snagglethorpe gave the bookshelf a tiny pat. ‘Poor little bookies,’ she crooned. ‘Were you all hungry-wungry over the long weekend? We’ll soon fix that, won’t we?’

‘That’s why we’ve all been losing our memories!’ I exclaimed.

‘How very clever of you to work it out,’ said Miss Snagglethorpe admiringly. ‘That’s what my books do, don’t you little bookies? They suck out your memory. And other bits of you too, of course.’

‘And now you’re going to chop me up and…’

‘Oh, no, I wouldn’t do that,’ said Miss Snagglethorpe.

‘You wouldn’t?’ I asked hopefully.

‘Of course not, dear—I wouldn’t want to make a mess in the library. All I have to do is leave you tied up in front of the bookshelf and they’ll feed themselves. They’re quite grown-up little bookies, you know. They’ve been feeding themselves for years.’

‘But…but what will happen to me?’ My voice was a bit wobbly by now.

‘Well, I’m afraid you won’t be you anymore,’ said Miss Snagglethorpe regretfully. ‘You’ll just be an empty shell. In fact, by tomorrow morning you’ll have totally faded away. It really is a pity. You were the best library monitor I’ve ever had.’

‘You won’t get away with this,’ I threatened. ‘Someone will come and investigate.’

‘On a long weekend? I don’t think so, dear.’

Well, there was only one thing to do. ‘Heeelllpppp!’ I screamed. ‘Helpp! Hellllpp! Hellppppp!’

Miss Snagglethorpe sighed. ‘I wish you hadn’t done that, dear,’ she said. ‘Now I’m going to have to gag you.’

Her remaining arm rummaged in the drawer again. I kept on screaming. And then I stopped, because it’s hard to scream and think too, especially when, behind you, there’s a shelf of books trying to suck away your essence.

I had to think. I had to plan. There had to be something I could do.

Maybe I could bite her when she put on my gag. I shuddered. As Mum is always telling me and Mark, you should never ever eat meat that isn’t absolutely fresh. I suspected Miss Snagglethorpe wasn’t fresh at all.

‘Ah, I knew I had one somewhere.’ Miss Snagglethorpe held up a long silk scarf the colour of overdone roast lamb.
Thomp, thomp, thomp,
went her big grey shoes as she trudged over to me. A fly buzzed, fascinated, around her ear.

Why hadn’t I listened to Bruce? I thought desperately. Just because he’s a boy—and a frog—it doesn’t mean he’s always wrong…

‘Just sit still, if you will, dear,’ said Miss Snagglethorpe
politely. ‘It’s just a little difficult to do this with one arm…’

Suddenly, deep in my brain, I heard the whisper of a plan. Maybe…maybe…

‘Yes, Miss Snagglethorpe,’ I said obediently.

Miss Snagglethorpe beamed at me. ‘Such a good girl,’ she crooned. ‘If only all library monitors were like you.’ She reached over me with the scarf and…

Whamp!
I kicked with both legs as hard as I could.

‘Ahhhhhkkkk!’ screamed Miss Snagglethorpe, as one of her legs shot out from under her. And when I say shot out from under her, I mean, it shot right across the library, about three metres away from Miss Snagglethorpe. She tried frantically to balance on one leg, then went down,
whump!,
in front of me.

Miss Snagglethorpe gazed up at me from the floor. ‘Now look what you’ve done!’ she said crossly.

‘You come near me and I’ll go for your other leg!’ I threatened. ‘Helllppp!’ I shrieked, as loudly as I could.

Miss Snagglethorpe dragged herself over to a bookshelf, and levered herself up onto one leg (the other one was jammed under ‘Non-fiction E-G’).

‘A missing leg will be a little difficult to explain tomorrow morning,’ said Miss Snagglethorpe. ‘But I’ll manage. All I need is a pot of good, strong glue. I’m sure I can manage you too, dear.’ She hopped towards me purposefully.

Suddenly, I had another idea. I rolled my chair over, then pushed myself up to my knees. With a bit of struggle, I could just stand up, sort of bent over, with the chair poking out behind me.

‘Arrrrrrrrr—Hi!’ I screamed, just like that bloke does in those kung fu movies (TV can be really
educational). I turned around so that the chair was facing Miss Snagglethorpe, then I belted it into her as hard as I could.

Then I reversed and rammed it into the bookshelf—just for good measure.

Well, the books fell on one side and I fell on the other, and Miss Snagglethorpe was screaming behind me and I was yelling ‘HELLLLPPP!’ at the top of my voice…

…and that’s when Phredde and Bruce arrived.

PING! There was Phredde in turquoise shorts and a purple boob-tube. Another PING! and there was Bruce, in his normal brown and yellow frogskin.

‘Don’t panic Pru! We’ve come to save you!’ croaked Bruce.

‘Huh!’ I panted. ‘I don’t need saving! I’ve saved myself!’

Phredde blinked, then settled herself on the top shelf of ‘Computer Science W-Z’. She gazed around the room.

‘If you’ve already saved yourself, how come you’re tied up to a chair in a locked library with a librarian spread-eagled on the floor?’ She looked at Miss Snagglethorpe critically. ‘Well, most of a librarian anyway. Where’s her leg?’

‘It’s by “Non-fiction E-G”, where I kicked it,’ I said. ‘And she’s not a librarian at all. She’s a zombie.’

‘I’ve never met a zombie before,’ said Bruce interestedly. ‘Where’s her arm?’

‘I don’t know. Her arm isn’t anything to do with me. She lost that before I got here. Phredde, okay, I admit I could do with a little help. Just untie me, okay? How did you know I was here anyway?’

‘I came over to ask you to my birthday party,’
explained Bruce. ‘And your mum said you were over at Phredde’s.’

‘But when he came over to our place I said I hadn’t seen you,’ added Phredde. ‘So we got worried.’

‘And I thought: what’s the most suspicious place around? And then I thought; the library and Miss Snagglethorpe! So we PING!ed over here first,’ concluded Bruce.

Well, that was about the end of that. One PING! and I was free. Another PING! and Miss Snagglethorpe was tied up instead of me—most of her anyway. (We didn’t bother with her leg. It didn’t look like it would be going anywhere by itself.) A third PING! and a couple of police arrived between ‘Hobbies A-L’ and ‘Natural History M-Q’. A fourth PING! and Mrs Allen was there, looking just a little stressed, plus a bottle of lemonade, a plate of lamingtons, a few slices of watermelon and some frozen bananas dipped in melted chocolate, peanuts and a bowl of frozen grapes—because, as Mrs Olsen told us last term, it’s good to have something sweet when you’ve had a shock and I reckon being attacked by a zombie librarian qualifies as a shock.

So, that was the end of Miss Snagglethorpe. Well, not quite the end. As soon as she was separated from the vampire books she became quite normal—well, normal for a zombie, anyway—and really ashamed of what she’d done.

It turns out that she really was a librarian. She’s quite happy now, looking after the library in the Centre for Delinquent Zombies.

I did wonder how long zombies live—well, sort of live (you know what I mean) but when I thought about it, I decided I didn’t really want to know.

And as for Miss Snagglethorpe’s ‘pet’ books…well, Bruce suggested we burn them. But when Miss Richards arrived back, she said, ‘What? Burn books? Never!’

But anyway, it turned out alright, because it seems that if you feed the books a few bones every lunchtime, they’re quite satisfied. In fact, I think they like bones even better than human minds. (The books haven’t let anyone read them yet, but Miss Richards says they just need a little time.)

Actually, it is a bit disturbing if you’re in the library at lunchtime and trying to concentrate, and the books are going,
crunch, crunch, crunch, burp!
behind you all the time. Now that Miss Richards has finished her ancient Tongan martial arts course, she’s quite capable of keeping the books in line if they get a bit stroppy.

Of course, Bruce said it all just goes to show that you can’t trust books…unless they happen to be about slugs, caterpillars or rare breeds of frog. But, as I told him, he doesn’t know what he’s missing.

Anyway, as library monitor, it’s my job to feed the books every Monday and Friday. I suppose I’ve forgiven them. Almost. And it’s just coincidence that the books seem to get indigestion on Monday and Friday afternoons. Me, squirt chilli and detergent, with just a touch of kitty litter, into the book food? Me?

And that’s about all that happened for absolutely ages (except for the incident with the giant squid and the pair of polar bears during Zoology) until Bruce’s birthday party.

It was an ordinary day at our castle.

Mum was working on her latest crossword, muttering ‘Smelly, stinky, begins with “f”, second letter “e”…’ and absently taking gulps of coffee to help her along. I was finishing up my breakfast (watermelon and ginger icecream, the magic kind that’s just as good for you as cereal).

Dad had just finished grooming his giant sloth.

Dad loves anything South American. Well, he used to anyway. Now that I’ve given him a jaguar, the piranhas and the giant sloth (I called her Dribbles, because that’s what she mostly does) he doesn’t seem as fascinated any more. I suppose when you’ve got the real thing, seeing it on TV isn’t the same.

‘Turn that thing off at once!’ he shrieked the last time
The Wonders of the South American Rainforest
flashed up on the screen.

‘But Dad!’ I protested. ‘You love anything South American!’

‘Me? No! I’ve gone right off it,’ Dad assured me earnestly.

‘You’re sure?’ I asked, dubiously.

‘Trust me,’ said Dad.

I looked at him speculatively. ‘How do you feel about Antarctica?’ I asked him.

Dad looked at me suspiciously. ‘There aren’t any jaguars in Antarctica are there?’

‘No, Dad.’ I said.

‘Or piranhas or giant sloths?’

‘No, Dad,’ I promised him. ‘Just penguins and krill and stuff like that.’

Dad looked relieved. ‘Well, now you mention it Prudence, I really am very interested in Antarctica. A few small fluffy penguins sound like a lovely idea. Or some nice little krill. Just what our moat needs.’

‘Sure thing, Dad,’ I said. You don’t have to hit me on the knee with a baseball bat for me to take a hint.

Of course, I’m not really going to get Dad a dozen dumb penguins or a few tonnes of krill for his birthday. For one thing, the piranhas in the moat would eat them. (If it takes a school of piranhas ten minutes to skeletonise a cow, I wonder how long it takes them to eat a penguin? Now THAT’s the sort of maths problem they ought to give us at school!) And anyway, I think presents should be a surprise. You should have SEEN Dad’s face when I gave him Dribbles!

‘Surprised, Dad?’ I’d asked him.

And he muttered, ‘Er…yes, Pru. You could say that. Stunned might be a better word.’

Maybe Dad would like a polar bear—even if they do come from the Arctic rather than the Antarctic.
Both are icy places, after all…He could keep the bear in his bathroom—after Phredde PINGS! the bathroom a bit bigger and puts in some really good giant icebergs, of course.

Anyway, Dribbles is a great-looking sloth—well, as much as a long, fat, hairy thing that slobbers all the time can be great looking. But she does need a lot of grooming.

Apart from that, she isn’t any trouble at all, except for wiping up her slobber. I mean, sloths don’t really do much. I suppose that’s why they’re called sloths.

All Dribbles does is lie on the shelf in the kitchen where Mum used to keep her cookbooks (until they got too soggy—I suppose Dribbles thinks the shelf is a tree branch) and slobbers gently into the bucket Mum put underneath her after Gark complained that Dribbles had flooded the kitchen a couple of times. Of course, sometimes she does move a bit, so the slobber misses the bucket but, like I said, apart from that she’s no trouble at all!

Anyway, Dribbles was dribbling, I was munching, Mum was crosswording and Dad was sort of sighing in the way he does a lot lately, when Mark said happily, ‘It’s full moon tonight!’

Mum looked up from her crossword. ‘Does that mean you’re going out?’ she asked hopefully.

Last time it was full moon and Mark changed into a werewolf, he had a bunch of his mates over. What with all the tail-sniffing, lifting their legs on Mum’s geraniums, howling on the battlements till 2 a.m., burying their bones under Mum’s roses AND the smell in the Great Hall where someone did SOMETHING on the carpet that it’s not polite to mention…well, I
could see why Mum was hoping they’d all go to some other werewolf’s place tonight.

Mark refilled his bowl with muesli. ‘Yeah, we’re all going over to Pete’s place,’ he said.

‘Are Pete’s parents werewolves too?’ I asked.

Before Mark had started growing the all-over type of whiskers every full moon, I’d thought that a person had to have werewolf parents to be a werewolf. But, as it turns out, being a werewolf can be passed down from a different part of the family tree altogether. (We studied all about it in Science last year.)

‘Yeah,’ said Mark, still wolfing down the muesli, except not literally of course, because he wouldn’t turn into a wolf till the moon rose tonight.

‘They’ve got this really cool house. Doggy flaps in every door so you don’t have to bother with the handles, and every month Pete’s dad orders a whole truckload of bones and buries them down the backyard so that they’ll be really ripe and stinking by the time the full moon comes round. I mean, it’s really cool.’

‘Yuk,’ I said.

Mark gave me a condescending big-brother-to-little-sister look. ‘You just don’t understand about werewolfing,’ he said. ‘And you know the really best thing about Pete’s place?’

‘What?’ I asked cautiously.

‘The people next door have just bought a pair of corgi puppies!’

‘Oh, how sweet,’ said Mum. ‘You’re going to let the little corgis play with you and share your bones.’

Mark grinned. ‘No way. They’re going to be dessert!’

‘Mark!’ shrieked Mum. ‘You wouldn’t!’

Mark gathered up his empty bowl and patted her head on the way out to the kitchen. ‘Just joking, Mum,’ he said.

Huh. I wasn’t so sure. Brothers!

Anyway, on Saturday afternoon I did my homework so that I’d be free to go out on my pirate ship with Phredde on Sunday. Then I helped Mum plump up the cushions in the living room and put out little bowls of peanuts, rice crackers and dog biscuits on the coffee table because Great Uncle Ron was coming over for dinner.

Uncle Ron often comes over to our place—especially during the full moon, when he is due to turn into a werewolf. Wolves like company, and I think Uncle Ron has been a bit lonely since his wife died.

Uncle Ron’s son, my cousin Jason, is a werewolf too, but unlike Uncle Ron, he’s keen on seeing how many lamp poles he can lift his leg on, and chasing cars, and all the other stuff that young werewolves are interested in.

So, Uncle Ron would come over to our place and we’d have dinner. Then, when the moon rose, he’d turn into a werewolf and Mum would scratch behind his ears while we watched one of these old black and white videos that Mum, Dad and Uncle Ron like so much (though it beats me why leaving all the colour out of a movie makes it so special). Then Mum and Dad would have a cup of something while Uncle Ron crunched a few bones out on the terrace. After that, Dad would clip on Uncle Ron’s leash (just in case anyone got a bit nervous at seeing a giant grey wolf on the prowl) and walk him home.

Just a nice, normal, family evening.

For once, though, I wasn’t going to have to sit through a whole Saturday night in black and white, with peanuts and dog biscuits, because it was Bruce’s birthday party.

‘Just tell me again where this party is supposed to be,’ declared Mum, fishing one of Mark’s bones out from under the sofa.

‘It’s on this really cool, totally giant lily pond in the garden of Bruce’s castle,’ I told her for the ten thousandth time.

‘But won’t the lilies collapse under your weight?’ demanded Mum worriedly.

‘No, Mum,’ I said patiently. ‘They’re magic waterlilies.’

‘And his parents will be there all the time?’

‘No, Mum! That’s the whole point!’

‘But what if—’ began Mum.

‘It’ll all be magically protected!’ I interrupted, before Mum could start imagining stuff, like: what if a mob of psychopathic axe murderers crashes the party, or what if there’s an earthquake and we’re all swallowed up into a hole in the ground—you know the sort of stuff mothers go on about. ‘It’s a magic castle for Pete’s sake! What can happen to us in a magic castle?’

Luckily, before Mum could come up with a hundred things that might happen, the phone rang. Mum answered it.

‘Hello?’ she said. ‘It’s Uncle Ron,’ she said to me with her hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Ron, how are you?’

There was a pause while she listened, and then she said, ‘Oh, what a pity Prudence won’t be here tonight. I’m sure she’d have loved to meet him…’

Another pause, while I made frantic gestures that meant, ‘Hey, consult me, would you, before you say I’d like to meet someone!’ and Mum made, ‘Go away, I’m talking!’ gestures back.

Then Mum said, ‘She’s going to a birthday party. Look, how about she takes little Tobias with her? I’m sure Prudence won’t mind…’

My gestures were so frantic now that I was about to become airborne, but, of course, Mum took no notice whatsoever.

‘No, I’m sure they won’t mind that he’s a werewolf,’ said Mum carelessly. ‘In fact, the boy who’s having the party is a frog—well, actually, he’s a phaery prince who’s turned himself into a frog—so they quite understand about things like that. See you soon, then.’

‘Mum!!!!’ I shrieked as she put the phone down.

‘Now, don’t you take that tone with me, Prudence,’ said Mum. ‘Or you won’t be going to this party at all.’

‘But Mum!’ I howled.

‘Uncle Ron’s wife’s grand-nephew Tobias is staying with him for a few days. Tobias is just a few years younger than you and doesn’t know anyone here. Surely, taking him to the party is not too much to ask.’

‘But Mum, he’s a werewolf!’

‘Your own brother is a werewolf, Prudence!’ said Mum sharply.

‘But Mum, phaeries are a…a bit nervous of werewolves!’

‘Sheer prejudice,’ said Mum, as if she hadn’t been nervous of werewolves too before she found out her son was one.

‘It’s not prejudice at all! It’s big sharp teeth and…’

‘That will be all, Prudence!’ declared Mum.

Well, I know what that tone of voice meant. So, I went off to get changed.

Well, anyway, come five o’clock, there I was, waiting on our castle drawbridge for Phredde and her mum, the Phaery Splendifera, to come and pick me up on their magic carpet. (I could have just gone on the bus, of course, but it’s more fun to arrive at a party with a friend, and the Phaery Splendifera said it’s much easier to find a magic castle if you travel there on a magic carpet. Also, a magic carpet is way cooler than a bus, especially the way the Phaery Splendifera flies it.)

‘Have you got your hanky?’ demanded Mum.

‘Yes, Mum,’ I said.

‘And you won’t let anyone else give you a lift home?’

‘No, Mum,’ I said. (Did she really think that if this crazy guy with a chainsaw whispered, ‘Hey, little girl, would you like a lift home?’ I was going to say, ‘Yes, please!’?)

‘And you won’t…geeeeaaawwwwphhhhh,’ shrieked Mum, holding onto the castle gates in an effort not to be blown away by the wave of displaced air that arrived ahead of the Phaery Splendifera’s magic carpet.

‘Hi, everyone!’ yelled the Phaery Splendifera.

‘Grawwwfffff,’ said Mum, trying to straighten her head.

‘Sorry about that! I miscalculated the landing!’ called the Phaery Splendifera. ‘Hop aboard, Prudence!’

‘Hi, Phredde,’ I said, seating myself next to her. ‘I like your skirt!’

As a matter of fact, this was the first time I had ever
seen Phredde wear a skirt voluntarily. It was a really great one—golden leather with fang marks on it.

‘It’s gryphon skin,’ muttered Phredde. ‘Mum had a fit. She says I’m too young to wear leather.’

I wrinkled my nose at her sympathetically. ‘Mothers!’ I whispered.

‘Yeah,’ Phredde whispered back.

‘And we’ll have her home by eleven!’ promised the Phaery Splendifera. ‘Now, girls, hold tight!’

Well, I’d been on a magic carpet with the Phaery Splendifera before, so believe me, I was already hanging on so tightly that my knuckles were white. (Someone should really invent seat belts for magic carpets!)

Then we were off.

‘Whoooppeee!’ sang the Phaery Splendifera as we roared down our driveway.

‘Mum, look out for the electric wires!’ shrieked Phredde.

‘There’s no need to yell, Ethereal, I can see them perfectly well…ooops, sorry about that,’ yelled the Phaery Splendifera. ‘I didn’t see that stroller…I’d better reverse and see if that baby’s alright.’

Whap zam whooosh
and back we went, zapping over a bicyclist and this kid on a skateboard. (There was no need AT ALL for him to make that gesture at us! We hardly touched him.)

The Phaery Splendifera peered over the edge of the carpet at the baby in its stroller.

‘Bufferfly! Big bufferfly!’ yelled the baby, pointing up at us.

‘Dumb kid,’ muttered Phredde.

‘Glooop,’ said the kid’s mum. She looked kind of white.

‘Sorry about that!’ beamed the Phaery Splendifera, ‘Glad there’s no harm done! We’ll just be on our way…’

‘Hey look at that enormous dog over there!’ said Phredde suddenly. ‘It looks just like a wolf!’

I followed Phredde’s gaze. She was right. The dog was almost as big as Uncle Ron, with golden-brown fur and a long wolf-like muzzle. It was peering at us, but then so was everyone else in the street, as if they’d never seen a couple of phaeries (and me, of course) on a magic carpet before.

‘I almost forgot!’ I yelled. ‘That’ll be my sort-of-cousin, Tobias!’

‘Who’s Tobias?’ asked Phredde.

‘He’s my Great Uncle Ron’s wife’s grand-nephew. He’s a werewolf,’ I explained. ‘And Mum wanted me to take him to the party with us tonight!’ I finished.

‘Well, of course he must come to the party,’ said the Phaery Splendifera, looking a bit nervously at the wolf. ‘He’s…er…he’s a very big werewolf isn’t he?’

I nodded. ‘But I’m sure he’s quite safe,’ I assured her. ‘I mean, as Uncle Ron says, a good bloke makes a good werewolf. Hey, Tobias! Over here!’

The wolf blinked at us.

‘I’m Prudence!’ I yelled. ‘Come on! We’re going to the party!’

The wolf seemed to make up its mind. It trotted across the road, then leapt up onto the carpet beside me and sat down on its haunches.

‘Hi, Tobias,’ I said. ‘This is my best friend Phredde, and this is her mother the Phaery Splendifera.’