The Phredde Collection (9 page)

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 really 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.

‘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.

‘Are you expecting anyone?’ I asked Phredde.

She shook her head. ‘Maybe it’s someone from Neighbourhood Watch. Or Mark and Tracy.’

‘Mark wouldn’t bang like that! Tracy either.’

‘Hurry up can’t you!’ yelled a voice outside.

Phredde giggled. ‘I know what’s wrong. They’re standing out in the snowstorm…’ She magicked the door open just before we reached it.

…and the snow whirled in, just like you’d expect in a snowstorm. (You could only just see the turrets of the castle it was so thick, and bats whirling round in the wind. I wondered if they were the Olsen family, come to play in the snow just like Mrs Olsen’s ancestors did back in Ruritania.)

There on the drawbridge was a snow-encrusted delivery truck and on the doorstep in front of us was this really furious bloke with snow melting down the collar of his uniform and the most enormous box at his side, and you know something? The bloke didn’t look cold at all, because there was steam rising from the box. In fact, he looked sort of hot, or maybe it was just fury.

‘Took your time, didn’t you?’ he snarled. ‘Here, sign this.’

He thrust a receipt up at Phredde hovering in the doorway.

‘But maybe it’s not for me!’ said Phredde. ‘I’d better call Mum or Dad.’

The delivery man squinted up at the docket. ‘It’s for The Phaery Ethereal—I can’t read the last name. You her?’

‘Of course you can’t read the last name,’ Phredde said with dignity as she signed the docket. ‘Humans can’t pronounce our last name. But yes, my name’s The Phaery Ethereal.’ (The Phaery Queen would have been proud of her.)

‘Then you take this,’ said the delivery man.

He shoved the box and a small pile of snow through the door (which made the box smoke even more).

‘What…’ began Phredde, but the delivery man wasn’t listening. He dived back through the snowstorm to his truck and backed it off the drawbridge, skidded twice, then accelerated down the shimmering driveway to the normal road below.

Phredde shut the door. We looked at the box. The snow around it had melted like an iceblock on the bench when you’ve forgotten you took it out of the freezer, and the steam from the crevices had stopped.

‘Wow, is that really for you?’ I breathed.

Phredde nodded. ‘It’s from Uncle Mordred. It says so on the docket.’

‘Grahah,’ said the box.

We jumped back. I mean, I jumped. Phredde dived upward so fast she hit the ceiling and came down in a triple somersault.

‘Er, Phredde,’ I said. ‘I think that box is alive.’

Phredde grinned suddenly and turned another somersault in mid-air—only this time she meant to. ‘Hey, I bet it’s my birthday present. I thought Uncle Mordred had forgotten to send me one!’

That made it sort of better. Uncle Mordred wouldn’t send Phredde anything dangerous.

Maybe.

The box began to steam again.

‘Why didn’t he just magic it here?’ I asked.

Phredde shrugged. ‘Uncle Mordred’s trying to do things the human way, that’s all. He wants to try to fit in.’

Considering that the last time I’d seen Uncle Mordred he had been a dragon, I didn’t think he was doing a very good job of fitting in. But on the other hand, if more people turned into dragons, the world would be a much more interesting place.

I looked at the box, still gently steaming. Dragons…

‘You know, Phredde…’ I began, then stopped. I mean, I didn’t want to spoil her surprise when she opened it.

‘We’d better take it into Mum and Dad,’ said Phredde, her wings flickering almost too fast to see. (They are really pretty wings, like rainbows except rainbows, never move as fast as Phredde’s wings). ‘This is
so
exciting!’

Phredde wafted the box up in front of us as we raced back past the suits of armour and the stuffed ogre along the hall.

‘Anthropophagi!’ Phredde’s mum was saying as we came in. ‘And if that doesn’t fit, how about…’ She stared at the box and the steam that was gently rising from it.

‘Ethereal darling, what’s that?’

‘Grahahahahah,’ said the box.

‘It’s from Uncle Mordred!’ Phredde danced about the room in excitement, her flashing joggers almost touching the top of the couch and the table. ‘It must be my birthday present. Look, there’s a letter taped to the side!’

‘How sweet of him,’ said Phredde’s mum, flapping her wings in a sort of I’m-considering-getting-angry fashion and looking warily at the box. A large black spot was slowly growing on one side. ‘Ethereal darling, don’t put your feet on the furniture. Or the ceiling! Maybe you should open it outside…’

‘Graaahaha!’ said the thing inside the box, and suddenly there was no need to open it at all. The room filled with this incredible burning smell (or stink, or stench, or odour) and the black spot grew and grew and grew. A flame flickered across the top and suddenly there was no box at all.

Just a dragon, sitting on the mat next to the fire.

‘Grahaha,’ said the dragon, a bit crossly.

It was a small dragon—well, small for a dragon—about the size of a really gigantic Alsatian dog, or my brother Mark when he turns into a werewolf at full moon.

The dragon had gold scales (really pretty ones, all shiny), and a long muzzle a bit like a dog’s, but flatter,
and spikes along its tail just like you see in drawings of dinosaurs sometimes. But this definitely wasn’t a dinosaur. It was a dragon. An annoyed-looking dragon, too. I mean, how would YOU like to be cramped up in a box for ages?

‘Grahhhhhhh!’ burped the dragon suddenly. A small arrow of flames leapt across the room and burnt a hole in the tablecloth.

‘Er…Ethereal dear,’ said her dad. ‘Maybe you should take your dragon…’

‘Grahhha’ said the dragon again. The tablecloth was just black ashes now.

‘He’s hungry!’ announced Phredde.

‘Then take him outside and feed him!’ declared her Dad, more firmly this time (I think he was getting over the shock—I mean it’s not every day your daughter gets given a dragon).

‘Grahhhhhaaahahahahaha!’ announced the dragon.

Phredde shook her head. ‘He doesn’t want to go outside. He says its cold outside. Dragons don’t like the cold. He wants to go to my bedroom.’

‘How do you know?’ asked Phredde’s mum suspiciously. (My mum and dad hadn’t said a word. They were still sitting there with their mouths open).

‘I just do,’ said Phredde, landing on the back of the sofa and folding her arms. ‘After all, he’s my dragon.’

‘Well, take him somewhere!’ cried her dad. ‘I’ll come up in a minute and…er…fireproof your room for you. Or something.’

‘Okay,’ said Phredde. ‘Come on dragon.’

‘Grahaha,’ said the dragon happily. It trotted off as Phredde flew in front of it.

‘Well!’ said Mum.

‘My word,’ said Dad.

Phredde’s dad shook his head. ‘Isn’t that just like your brother,’ he said to Phredde’s mum. ‘Sending a child a present like that. Surely he could have conjured up something more suitable? A goldfish or a flock of penguins or even a guinea pig.’

‘My brother has always been fascinated by dragons,’ said Phredde’s mum slowly. She was reading Uncle Mordred’s letter. ‘That’s why he keeps changing into one. That’s where he is now, he says. He’s on a dragon hunting expedition.’

‘I don’t care where he is! He can take his magic dragon and change it into…’

‘But that’s just the trouble!’ Phredde’s mum raised her eyes from the letter. ‘It’s not a magic dragon! This is a real one!’

Things looked like they were getting awkward after that, so Mum and Dad made their excuses and we went home.

I would have liked to stay and see the dragon again, and maybe help feed it and make it a bed—the only other dragon I’d met was Uncle Mordred, and as I said, he wasn’t a REAL dragon—and this one had been awfully cute. But it didn’t seem the time to say so.

Phredde was late for school the next day. The volcano had exploded half an hour ago and we were all in class bent over our geography books (well, most of us), when Phredde soared across the playground (I happened to be looking out the window at the time), dumped her bag on the verandah and swooped through the door…with the dragon clumping right behind her.

‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ apologised Phredde, diving down into her seat.