Brigid Lucy and the Princess Tower

by Leonie Norrington

  (Which is a big fat fib because, really, she only wants to sit next to Biddy so she can touch the witch’s handbag.)

  ‘Shhh!’ Mum says. She gives Matilda Ellen’s rattle to play with.

  Matilda stops crying and hits the window with the rattle. Bang! Bang!

  ‘No, Matilda, darling. Just shake it nicely,’ Mum says.

  The witch snorts and tuts and rolls her eyes. Then she reaches into her handbag and pulls out her mobile phone, which has just started to ring.

  ‘Hello,’ she yells into the phone. ‘Yes! Sorry, I can’t hear you. There’s a child here making an awful racket. I’ll have to ring you back.’

  While all this is going on, I’m sitting up on top of Biddy’s head cracking up laughing because I know what Biddy’s thinking. Me and Biddy totally dislike people who are rude and nasty. We always work out ways to get them back.

  So I smile and wait.

  And wait.

  And wait. But Biddy doesn’t do anything.

  I crawl down her fringe and look into her eyes. She’s just staring out the window, ‘being-good’.

  ‘Biddy!’ I yell, pointing to the witch. ‘This witch is being mean!’

  Biddy’s eyes slide up to look at the witch from under her eyelashes. I can see she is thinking of ideas. Yes! But then she just shakes her head, puts her thumb in her mouth and looks out the window again.

  I hate it when Biddy does that! Mum does, too, because she thinks Biddy is ‘too-old-to-suck-her-thumb’. But I hate it because Biddy goes into her own little thumb-sucking world. And then she never does imagining, and never ever has any exciting ideas.

  ‘Biddy!’ I yell. ‘I know you promised to be good, but this is ridiculous!’

  But she can’t hear me, so she just ignores me.

  ‘Well, fine, then,’ I say. ‘If you are going to be good, I’ll just have to get back at the witch all by myself.’

  Chapter four

  taking revenge

  But what can I do to get back at the witch? Mmmm! I’ll have to have a closer look.

  I slip off Biddy’s shoulder, and tiptoe down her arm to the edge of her sleeve. The witch’s sparkly red handbag is on the seat next to Biddy’s backpack. And what’s that? There is a piece of thread dangling down from under one of the red sequins. I bet that string ties all the jewels onto the bag.

  I wonder what would happen if someone pulled on that string? Would it unravel, so all the jewels and sequins fell off? Then, the witch’s handbag would be plain and boring.

  Everyone would be able to see the evilness inside it. And then they would know that lady is an evil witch. Yes! That would definitely get her back for being mean to children.

  All I have to do is tie the string from the witch’s bag to one of the straps on Biddy’s backpack. Okay. I creep further down Biddy’s arm, past her elbow, onto her wrist. Now all I have to do is jump onto Biddy’s backpack …

  I lift my arms and bend my knees.

  I say, ‘Ready? Get settie. Go!’

  But I can’t jump.

  It’s not that I’m a sooky scaredy-cat chicken-heart or anything. I just don’t like leaving Biddy when we are away from her house. Because, what if we get separated? What if she gets lost and I can’t find her?

  I don’t want to be an all-alone, no-best-friend person. What if I never saw Biddy again in my whole entire life? That would be a disastrous catastrophe.

  So, instead of jumping, I yell, ‘Biddy, you have got to help me.’

  But Biddy ignores me and keeps sucking her thumb.

  Now the train is slowing down. The witch is looking around, ready to get off at the next stop.

  ‘Biddy, look!’ I yell again. ‘If you don’t help me, that witch is going to get away with being mean to your little sister and every other kid in the whole wide world!’

  At that moment, Mum notices that Biddy is sucking her thumb.

  ‘Brigid,’ Mum says in her soft-but-angry voice. She motions for Biddy to take her thumb out of her mouth.

  Biddy doesn’t want to stop sucking her thumb. She takes it out of her mouth for just a moment. Then she turns around and cuddles up against the back of the seat, so Mum can’t see her face any more. Then she puts her thumb back into her mouth.

  But, as she looks down at the seat, she notices the loose thread on the witch’s handbag.

  And she reaches down, picks it up and starts playing with it.

  ‘Yes! Thank you, Biddy,’ I yell, running across her wrist and onto her hand. I grab one end of the loose thread and hold onto it, waiting, ready.

  Then, the minute Biddy stops playing with it and drops the thread, I run to tie it to a strap on her backpack.

  Then, quick as a sunbeam, I run up Biddy’s arm, and burrow safely into her hair, to watch what happens next.

  The witch stands up, pursing her lips. Her eyes narrow as they glide over Biddy and Matilda and baby Ellen. Then she picks up her handbag and swings it over her shoulder. The string stretches between the backpack strap and the witch’s handbag.

  Zippp! The string unravels.

  The witch walks away.

  Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle! The red jewels and sequins rattle to the floor.

  The train stops. The carriage doors open.

  The witch steps out.

  I scramble up to the top of Biddy’s head to look out of the train window. I can see the witch! All the jewels on her bag are gone. The evilness is showing through.

  I’m jumping up and down. ‘Look, Biddy! Look!’ I yell, pulling Biddy’s fringe to make her turn her head around and look out the window. ‘We did it!’

  But Biddy doesn’t turn around, and now the train is moving again.

  ‘No!’ I yell. ‘Please wait a bit longer, train!’

  But it doesn’t, and I don’t see any more.

  Now the witch is gone, Mum lets Matilda climb down from her seat.

  ‘Piddy,’ Matilda squeals, seeing the jewels sparkling on the carriage floor.

  ‘Look, Mummy. Piddy,’ she says, and flops down on the floor to pick them up.

  Mum smiles and looks down, but when she sees the jewels, her eyes go all big and guilty. ‘Oh, Tilly, don’t touch,’ she says, jumping up quickly to stop Matilda playing with the jewels.

  I can tell Mum knows straightaway that the jewels came from the witch’s bag. She looks around in case the witch is still there, ready to pounce on Matilda. But the witch is gone.

  Then Mum sees the fine string stretched between the jewels to Biddy’s backpack. ‘Brigid Lucy?’ she says.

  ‘Yes, Mum?’ Biddy says quickly, taking her thumb out of her mouth and looking around.

  ‘Did you——?’ Mum begins.

  But then baby Ellen starts crying, so Mum has to pick her up and put her over her shoulder. And then Mum’s mouth is so busy going, ‘Shhh!’ that she forgets all about the string on Biddy’s backpack. She even lets Matilda collect a whole pile of beads and sequins from the floor.

  So me and Matilda and Biddy play and play and play with the jewels. We make piles, and lines, and all sorts of wonderful patterns on the seat.

  It is too much fun!

  Chapter five

  the princess tower

  Biddy gets bored of playing with the glittery jewels after a while. She goes back to looking out of the window. I do, too, because playing with beads is really a little kid’s game. We watch the backs of millions of houses flicking past, with their brightly coloured walls, and their gardens, with plants and spiky weeds and flowers.

  Then …

  Wizz-bang-le-flab!

  There is a tower! An ancient stone tower, as tall as tall can be! It reaches up into the clouds, and it’s all covered with ancient green moss. Right at the tip of the tower, sitting on top of the rippling orange stone, is a cross.

  ‘Wow!’ Biddy says. ‘That’s a Princess Tower.’

  And she’s right. Of course the tower is a Princess Tower. What else could it be?

  ‘Mum! That’s where Rapunzel l
ives,’ Biddy says, jumping on the seat. ‘That’s where Rapunzel hangs down her hair,’ she continues, pointing to a tall slit-of-a-window that is cut into the sides of the Princess Tower.

  Mum says, ‘Will-you-sit-down-Brigid.’ And, ‘Don’t-put-your-shoes-on-the-seat.’

  ‘But, Mum, look!’ Biddy says. ‘It’s a real-life Princess Tower.’

  ‘Brigid Lucy!’ Mum says in a do-be-quiet whisper. ‘It’s not a Princess Tower. It’s a cathedral, where people go to pray and talk to God.’

  Which is the silliest thing we have ever heard. Of course it is a Princess Tower. That shows grown-ups don’t know everything. But it is no use trying to convince them, especially when you are trying to be good.

  So me and Biddy watch the Princess Tower getting closer and closer and bigger and bigger. Until it is so close, we have to press our faces against the coolness of the window to see the pointy tip of the cross.

  But then we have to stop looking, because Mum is calling us.

  Mum packs Ellen into the pram, and tells Matilda to ‘hold-on-tight’. Then she tells Biddy to ‘concentrate’, and ‘no-daydreaming’, and to ‘stay-close-all-the-time’.

  We’re getting off the train.

  Biddy does try to concentrate, she really does. She walks right beside Mum all the way through the station and out onto the street. She ‘hangs-on-tight-to-the-pram’. She doesn’t suck her thumb or daydream. She can’t! Mum is carrying Matilda and walking very fast. Her high heels sing, ‘Hur-ry, quick-ly, do-not-stop’. Biddy has to run to keep up.

  But then, right in front of us, the traffic lights flash red, and call out, ‘Tick! Tick! Tick!’ Which means, in robot language, ‘Stop! Be safe! Do not cross!’

  This is the first time me and Biddy have had a chance to look for the Princess Tower since we got off the train.

  There it is! Right there, on the other side of the road. Not the way Mum is heading. The other way. Across the road.

  I so wish we could go that way!

  ‘Mum, look!’ Biddy says. ‘There’s the Princess Tower.’

  But Mum can’t hear her. She is too busy looking at her watch. ‘Come on, quickly,’ she tells the traffic-light robot. ‘We’re late. We’re in a hurry.’ She is being very impatient.

  Me and Biddy don’t care that the lights are taking simply ages. We love looking at the Princess Tower. It’s got all these white curves around the doors, and wonderful coloured glass sparkling in the windows.

  But then a horrible grown-up person goes and stands right in front of us. We can’t see! So Biddy leans right over sideways, trying to look around him. But then another grown-up person just comes and blocks our way. And then so does another, until there are heaps of people crowded all around us. We can’t see anything! We are going to miss out on looking at the Princess Tower altogether if we don’t get in front of them.

  So Biddy lets go of Ellen’s pram, just for a second. And then she slips between the people, to the edge of the road, where we can see clearly again.

  The Princess Tower is standing tall and magnificent, rising up out of the street, right up to the sky. It has great wooden doors and there is a sign out the front that says ‘W-E-L-C-O-M-E’.

  WELCOME! We’ve got to go in! We’ll probably never, ever, ever get another chance.

  Biddy wants to go in, too, and she does try to tell Mum. ‘Mum,’ she calls behind her, ‘we can go in! It says “Welcome”. We’re allowed.’

  But, at that exact moment, the robot lights go green and say, ‘Tick-tick-tick-tick,’ very fast. They are telling everyone to, ‘Walk quickly! Walk quickly!’

  And all the people behind Biddy surge forwards. They take us with them across the stripy lines, and we leave Matilda and Ellen and Mum behind.

  Chapter six

  the great hall

  I don’t tell Biddy to run away to the Princess Tower. I really don’t. And she doesn’t tell herself, either. Both of us know we should stop, and yell out to Mum. To tell her there has been a mistake. That she should come and get us.

  But we know Mum will be angry. And we don’t want to make her even later for her very-important-appointment. And neither of us has ever been in a Princess Tower before. Never in our whole entire lives.

  So we don’t call out to Mum. We just keep crossing the road, until we are standing on the other side, just outside the Princess Tower.

  When Mum’s robot light goes green, she hurries off down the street. ‘Quick-ly-quick-ly-don’t-be-late,’ say her high heels. She doesn’t notice we’re not there.

  Me and Biddy walk past the WELCOME sign, and skip up the stone steps at the entrance of the Princess Tower. Then we go through the huge wooden doors at the top of the steps.

  Suddenly, we’re in a ginormous archway. It is all carved with special protection beings, like shamrocks and crosses and angels. This tower must be a very important place to have so much magical protection.

  We walk through the archway and into a massive hall. The hall has ceilings higher than the sky. It is as big as a supermarket, or a whole block of houses.

  ‘Oh!’ Biddy lifts her arms up. ‘It’s the Great Hall,’ she whispers. ‘All Princess Towers have got to have a Great Hall. It’s where the balls and dances are held.’

  Biddy must be right. Why else would this place be so big? See, those huge marble pillars that stretch up to infinity? Well, they must be for the ladies to lean against when they’re tired from dancing. Or from waiting for the prince to fall in love with them.

  The windows have coloured pictures of old kings in them, with their gold staffs and pointy king-crowns. And on the other side in the windows there are queens in veils and long dresses, just like Amira Hassan’s mother—she’s a Muslim lady. Each queen is holding a little prince or princess.

  Today the hall is filled with seats. Perhaps the king is about to make a proclamation, and the seats are for all the people of the land to sit on while they hear him speak.

  I can feel Biddy tremble with excitement.

  ‘And when the princesses are not at a ball,’ Biddy whispers, ‘this Great Hall is where the people come to see the king. There’s his throne and that table is for …’ she hesitates, ‘… his stuff.’

  Behind the table is an alcove filled with flowers and gold ornaments and candles. There is also a passageway that must lead into the king’s private chamber.

  Biddy wants to go and see the king’s private chamber. I do, too.

  But, then, we see a tiny, little, just-big-enough-for-one-person balcony. It is snuggled against the wall. And it’s made out of a huge kind of bird statue. His claws are clutching the wall beneath him, and his wings are spread up and out behind him, to make a little railing. On the railing is a shelf. And on the shelf is the biggest book in the whole wide world.

  ‘A griffin!’ Biddy whispers.

  ‘A griffin?’ I ask. Of course it is a griffin. Why would they have a griffin holding a book? Griffins are the most important magical creatures in the universe. They protect sacred things.

  Oo-laa-coo-laa-stinky-pooh-laa!That book must be really special.

  Biddy loves reading. I do, too. So we run towards the book. Biddy’s shoes go tink, tink, tink! on the stone floor. And then they go tap, tap, tap! up the steps into the little balcony.

  The balcony is so high up, we can see the whole Great Hall. But the book is even higher up than we are. Biddy stretches up on tippy-toes, trying to see the words in the book, reaching, stretching.

  She can just touch the edges of the book with her fingertips. But she can’t see it properly, so I go and look for her.

  I run up her arm to the ends of her fingers and touch the pages. They are so soft. And they’re covered in thousands and millions of words, all in neat rows. And running down the middle of the pages is a long silky red ribbon, like a giant bookmark.

  Biddy wants to see the book for herself. She holds onto the sides of the shelf.

  Then she uses her feet against the wall to pull herself up, up, up …

/>   ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ a huge deep voice booms from down in the Great Hall.

  Biddy spins around and ducks down behind the griffin. I run back up her arm, dive into her hair and hide.

  ‘That is definitely not a good idea,’ the huge deep voice booms again.

  What if the person speaking is the king? What if this is his most secret sacred book that no one is allowed to look at? What if he finds me and Biddy here, and locks us in a cell high up in the tower for the whole of infinity?

  Chapter seven

  a dark and terrible secret

  ‘This door must stay locked,’ the huge deep voice says next.

  Biddy sneaks up and peeks around the griffin’s wing, so we can see who is talking. The owner of the huge deep voice is a tall man in a long dress, like a king. He and another man have just come out of a door in the side of the Great Hall. There is a sign on the door which says ‘Tower Staircase’.

  ‘No one must have access to the tower,’ the king-looking person says. ‘Princess Rapunzel must stay gagged and hidden until the time is right.’

  ‘Yes, Your Grace,’ the other man nods. He closes the door and locks it tight.

  Then he hides the key on a hook behind a tapestry on the wall.

  Your Grace? I think. Do they call kings ‘Your Grace’? They must do.

  Oh look! The king-looking person is holding out his hand, and there is a huge sparkling ring on it. The second man bows and kisses the ring! The king-looking person must really be a king. Kings often have magic rings. And people do kiss them. I’ve read about that. And see how the other man keeps his head bowed until the king turns away and then he walks behind.

  This is too scary. Kings with magic rings are incredibly dangerous. If this king catches us reading his book, he will use his magic ring to turn us into toads or stars or pieces of infinity. The oldest of the terrible scoriaks from the Great Bushland can do that just by looking at you with their evil eyes. I’ve seen people who have been turned into pieces of infinity.