The Phredde Collection

by Jackie French

  ‘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 y
ou 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.

  Mrs Olsen looked up from the textbook. Her mouth hung open so you could see her long vampire fangs. (Most of the time you hardly notice them at all.)

  ‘What’s that?’ she demanded.

  Bruce, who sits just in front of me now, jumped up onto his desk and looked outside. ‘It’s this funny-looking giant and it’s headed this way!’ he croaked, sort of breathlessly. His eyes had gone all googly, but as he’s a frog this just meant they were a bit more googly than normal.

  ‘It’s what?’ cried Mrs Olsen.

  ‘Oh, it’s just Pru’s thingummy—I mean her ogre,’ said Phredde carelessly. She must have been pretty worried about it too, but she wasn’t going to show it in front of Bruce.

  ‘What ogre!’ demanded Mrs Olsen. I’d forgotten she’d come from Ruritania too. She’d know all about ogres.

  ‘One sort of followed me home yesterday,’ I explained, as the booming noise drew closer.

  Mrs Olsen frowned. Normally she’s a pretty cool teacher, but she’s very strict about school rules.

  ‘You know you can’t bring pets to school, Prudence,’ she said. ‘You’ll just have to tell him to go home again.’

  ‘But he’s not my pet and I don’t know how to get him to go home!’ I wailed.

  Well, that got Mrs Olsen all sympathetic. ‘There, there, Prudence dear. I’m sure it’ll be all right,’ she said.

  ‘It’s not all right!’ I hiccuped. ‘He’s big and he’s ugly and he smells and I don’t know how to get rid of him!’

  ‘Well, we’ll just have to send him on his way, won’t we?’ she said soothingly.

  ‘But how can you do that?’ I asked, blowing my nose.

  Mrs Olsen grinned. ‘Well, I AM a vampire,’ she said. And then she snarled.

  I’d never seen Mrs Olsen snarl before. It was pretty cool. I mean she looked just like a vampire in one of those old movies, but even worse, because after all, Mrs Olsen’s real.

  So Mrs Olsen dashed out to her coffin in the storeroom and came back with her long black velvet cape. It’s got dark red velvet lining, so I suppose it doesn’t get stained if she drips blood on it.

  And she put the cape on and snarled again, and we all cheered, even Amelia who sits in the front row and does everything perfectly, except for Bruce, who croaked by accident (he does that sometimes).

  I mean how could an ogre not be scared of a vampire like that?

  The boom! boom! booming! was getting pretty close by now.

  The books were falling out of the bookcase and all the posters were shaking off the walls. I was a bit worried about how the library was faring—I’m a library monitor, and just the thought of having to put all those books back on the shelves in the right order was making me even more depressed.

  ‘Follow me!’ announced Mrs Olsen with a sweep of her cloak. She swept out of the classroom, and we all ran after her. Well, most of us ran. Phredde flew and Bruce jumped, because he was still being a frog.

  And a few of the more timid kids were still hiding under the desks, but they were just the wimps (you get some in every class) so I forgot about them.

  The ogre looked sort of bigger in the school grounds. I mean I’d only seen him at the ruined castle before, which was sort of giant-sized, and at our castle, which is pretty enormous too. But here at school he towered over the science lab and even the library, a bit like that gorilla in King Kong, except not quite as hairy. I don’t suppose the gorilla used deodorant either.

  All the kids were piling out of the other classrooms too—all except those who were hiding under the desks—and most of the teachers, and I could see Mrs Allen peering out the window so she’d be here soon. And while I knew it wasn’t my fault—because it WASN’T—I couldn’t help feeling pretty nervous about her reaction.

  Headmistresses can blow things out of all proportion.

  And I was a bit nervous about the ogre too.

  ‘Halt!’ cried Mrs Olsen, waving her cloak around really dramatically and grinning to show her white fangs. ‘Halt or I’ll suck your blood!’

  The ogre stopped. But it didn’t look particularly worried.

  ‘Nice girl?’ it squeaked enquiringly. ‘Where nice girl?’

  I sort of hid behind Amelia.

  The ogre sniffed, a bit like a vacuum cleaner snorting in the corners. ‘Nice girl!’ it demanded again. ‘I smell nice girl! Where nice girl?’

  ‘She’s over here,’ offered Amelia helpfully, getting out of the way.

  ‘Thanks heaps, Amelia,’ I muttered. ‘Er, hi ogre! Howya going? How about going back where you came from?’

  ‘Nice girl!’ squeaked the ogre triumphantly. He lumbered towards me.

  ‘Halt!’ cried Mrs Olsen again. ‘Halt or I’ll stick my fangs in your neck!’

  The ogre paid no attention whatsoever.

  ‘Drat,’ said Mrs Olsen, lowering her cloak. ‘I don’t think he’s from Ruritania at all. He doesn’t recognise vampires. He just doesn’t realise he should be scared of us.’

  ‘Can’t you vampirise him anyway!’ I squeaked. My voice sounded just about as high as the ogre’s.

  Mrs Olsen shook her head unhappily. ‘You know I don’t do that sort of thing, Prudence. Besides, I’m not sure my fangs are long enough to stick in his neck…’

  ‘But…heeeeeeeeeellllllllp!!!!!!!!’ I screamed as the ogre bent over me. I could s
mell his stinky breath and his even worse armpits. ‘Don’t you ever take a bath?’ I shrieked. (You’d have thought his trip under the sea would have cleaned him off a bit but it still smelt like the inside of our garbage bin the day after Dad’s been eating prawns.)

  ‘Bath?’ squeaked the ogre. ‘What’s bath? Nice girl,’ he added, as one great hairy paw scooped me up off the playground and up into the air.

  The ogre didn’t clean his fingernails either.

  ‘Put her down you beast!’ cried Phredde, fluttering up beside me and trying to kick the ogre in the eye with her pink and silver jogger. ‘Let her go!’

  ‘Let her go?’ asked the ogre wonderingly. He looked like he was about to drop me so I yelled ‘No!’

  ‘Would it help if I vampirised his ankle?’ called up Mrs Olsen.

  ‘Croak!’ yelled Bruce as ferociously as he could, but as he’s a frog it wasn’t very ferocious at all.

  ‘Don’t panic! Don’t panic! I’ve called the fire brigade,’ yelled Mrs Allen, racing out of the office.

  ‘If you hurt my friend, I’ll kick you in the ear lobe!’ threatened Phredde.

  And all the while I was holding onto the ogre’s finger for dear life in case I fell. I mean it’s hard to get a grip up there.

  The ogre ignored everyone, except Phredde. He swatted her away like you’d swat a fly and she went tumbling through the air.

  ‘Phredde!’ I screamed, but a few seconds later she was back, yelling threats but keeping out of reach.

  The giant bent down towards me.

  I could see every pore in his skin, and let me tell you, I bet he didn’t use any of the soaps recommended in any of Mum’s magazines. His pimples looked like the volcano down in the playground, but not as clean. And his teeth…

  Well, maybe I’d better not tell you about his teeth, just in case you plan on eating something today.

  ‘Nice girl,’ said the ogre happily. ‘Nice girl. Nice chocolate cake?’

  And then it struck me. The ogre didn’t want me at all! It wanted more chocolate cake!

  ‘Phredde!’ I screamed. ‘A chocolate cake! Now!’

  ‘This is no time for morning tea!’yelled Phredde.