The Phredde Collection

by Jackie French

  Not that I supposed it really mattered, because Phredde could give my cold to a tree or a bicycle, or even Amelia. (I grinned to myself.)

  So anyway, we were FINALLY walking home after school. (Hey, I just had a thought—I wonder if Phredde could make school time pass faster. Must ask her.)

  Sorry about that—anyway, we were walking home from school, and Phredde blew her nose for the three thousandth time, and said, sort of wistfully, ‘How long do colds last?’

  ‘A week or ten days.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Phredde. Then she asked, ‘How do you get rid of them? Without magic, I mean.’

  ‘You don’t,’ I said. ‘There isn’t any medicine that’ll get rid of a cold, though you can take some stuff to make you feel better. Colds go away by themselves in about a week or ten days. You just have to keep warm and rest and drink lots of fluids.’ (Mum drums all this stuff into me every time I sneeze.)

  ‘Oh,’ said Phredde again. Then she said casually, ‘Maybe I’ll just keep the cold till tomorrow morning. I mean even if you visited Antarctica you wouldn’t want to stay TOO long, would you?’

  ‘Nope.’ I said, sort of grinning to myself.

  And I thought that was the end of it.

  Weekends are usually great at our castle.

  Dad makes his special scrambled eggs, if he gets up in time, and Gark our butler makes muffins or waffles with mango sauce or chocolate mousse.

  I know most people don’t have chocolate mousse for breakfast, but this is magic mousse. It’s good for you. For someone who only eats magpie tucker like worms and dead cats on the side of the road, Gark’s a really good cook.

  Then Dad and I go down and feed the piranhas in the moat.

  I gave Dad the piranhas for Christmas. Dad likes anything South American—you should have seen his face when I gave him that jaguar last year!

  But I think he likes the piranhas best, and feeding them is something we can do together. You know, that father-daughter bonding stuff.

  So anyway, there we were throwing scraps of scrambled egg and bacon and pineapple muffin into the moat, and the piranhas were leaping about guzzling them, but a bit wistfully, like they’d really rather be eating a dead cow or something.

  It was peaceful in the sunlight, with just the splash of the piranhas and the burps of Phredde’s dragon as it circled the turrets (it had been tucking into the rubbish bins during the night and, as Dad says, a burp from a dragon like that can singe the hair from your nostrils) and the sound of the bees in the roses.

  You know, just me and Dad sharing some real weekend quality time.

  ‘Hey Dad,’ I said.

  ‘Yes Pru?’ said Dad.

  ‘Did you know that a school of piranhas can skeletonise a cow in ten minutes?’

  ‘We don’t have any cows, Pru,’ said Dad, sort of thankfully.

  ‘Yeah. Pity,’ I said. ‘Hey Dad?’

  ‘Yes Pru,’ said Dad cautiously.

  ‘How long do you think it’d take them to skeletonise a leg of lamb?’

  ‘I don’t know, Pru. But I think Gark’s going to cook it for dinner.’

  ‘Oh.’ I said.

  ‘I think your mother would be annoyed if that leg of lamb went missing, Pru,’ said Dad.

  ‘Oh,’ I said.

  We sat in silence for awhile.

  ‘I think your brother is really attached to his guinea pigs too,’ said Dad finally.

  How did Dad know I was thinking about feeding Mark’s guinea pigs to the piranhas? Parents astound me sometimes.

  ‘Yeah, I guess so.’ I agreed.

  ‘What are you thinking about now, Pru?’ asked Dad a few minutes later. He sounded a bit worried.

  ‘Not about piranhas,’ I told him honestly. ‘I was just wondering what to get you for your next birthday.’

  ‘Don’t wonder too hard,’ said Dad earnestly. ‘Just a pair of socks will do.’

  Sometimes I don’t think parents realise how much fun it can be thinking up really good presents for them.

  After breakfast and the piranha feeding I made my bed, which takes hardly any time because it’s made of rose petals, so all you have to do is ruffle them around a bit. Then I went over to Phredde’s.

  You can walk to Phredde’s from our place if you want to, or catch a bus.

  In fact you can get there any way you want to, because her castle’s magic and our castle’s magic, so they’re really anywhere you want them to be.

  Today was so calm and sunny I thought I’d sail over in my pirate ship. So I signalled to the pirate captain from the beach at the bottom of our backyard, and the first mate rowed me over to the ship, and by the time the captain had said ‘Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of ginger ale’ fifteen or so times I’d had enough, so we pulled in at the next bay, and there was the road up to Phredde’s, naturally.

  I said it was magic.

  Phredde’s dad, the Phaery Valiant (except he’s usually called Jim) answered the door.

  ‘Hi, Prudence,’ he said. ‘Ethereal’s up in the study. She’s showing her mother how to use email.’

  ‘Uh oh,’ I said.

  I remembered what had happened when I tried to show my mum how to use email. (It’s really disastrous to try to teach your parents anything, because they get all cranky and just don’t listen half the time.)

  Anyway, I reckoned Phredde’d need a hand by now, so I raced up the six flights of stairs to the turret where the study was (you get really fit living in castles) and there was Phredde and her mum fluttering above the computer.

  ‘No, no, Mum,’ Phredde was saying. ‘All you have to do is move the cursor up to “Send”. Then all you have to do is…no Mum, don’t press that, you’ll…’

  ‘Hi!’I said.

  Phredde looked around in relief. ‘Hi Pru,’ she said.

  ‘Hello Prudence,’ said Phredde’s mum. She looked a bit relieved to be interrupted too. ‘How are you, ahhhhhhhtchhhhoooooo!’

  Maybe all phaeries have big sneezes.

  So after I’d helped pick all the computer paper up I said, ‘I’m fine. But it sounds like you’ve caught Phredde’s cold.’

  The Phaery Splendifera nodded. ‘I think you’re right. But never mind. It’s gone now.’

  ‘What did you give it to?’ I asked curiously.

  ‘What? Oh, the cold? I gave it to the computer of course.’

  That’s when the computer sneezed.

  ‘Ahhhtchooo!’

  It didn’t send the paper flying all round the room, of course, because computers don’t have any breath.

  But it sure had a loud sneeze.

  In fact it sounded sort of funny, a computer sneezing. Phredde and I glanced at each other and started to giggle.

  And that’s when it struck us.

  ‘Mum, no!’ gasped Phredde.

  ‘Not the computer!’ I breathed.

  Phredde’s mum stared at us. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

  ‘Don’t you understand Mum!’ cried Phredde. ‘You’ve given the computer a virus!’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Splendifera, puzzled. ‘I gave it my cold. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Computers aren’t like bicycles!’ exclaimed Phredde. ‘If you give them a virus they don’t work properly. Everything goes wrong!’

  ‘Well, there’s no need to get upset about it,’ said Phredde’s mum a bit crossly. ‘I’ll just take it away again.’

  There was a gentle PING! all around us.

  ‘There you are,’ said Phredde’s mum. ‘I’ve given the virus to the walls. Are you satisfied now?’

  ‘Oh Mum,’ groaned Phredde. ‘Haven’t you been listening to anything I’ve been telling you?’

  ‘Of course I’ve been listening, Ethereal,’ said Phredde’s mum, even more crossly. ‘There’s no need to take that tone with your mother.’

  ‘But don’t you see Mum—this computer has a modem, so it’s connected to all the other computers that have modems. As soon as you gave this computer a virus it would have spr
ead to the other computers…and then to more computers…and then to more and more…’

  Phredde’s mum blinked.

  ‘The whole world’s computers are going to get a cold!’ wailed Phredde. ‘And it’ll be your fault. Planes will crash! Power systems will fail!’

  ‘All because of silly little computers?’ said Phredde’s mum a bit unbelievingly.

  ‘Mum, the whole world runs on computers now!’

  ‘Oh,’ said Phredde’s mum.

  ‘If the computers fail everything’s going to go phut!’

  ‘Oh,’ said Phredde’s mum again. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure!’ wailed Phredde. ‘I should never have let you touch a computer…’

  ‘Can’t you just magic the virus away from the world’s computer network?’ I asked.

  Phredde’s mum shook her head slowly. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I can’t magic something I don’t understand. And I certainly don’t understand this computer network thing. And it’s my virus, so I’m the only one who can undo it.’

  Phredde and I looked at each other. I mean, what can you say when it looks like the whole of civilisation’s going to crash?

  We’d be okay, of course, living in magic castles and all that. But what about everyone else? Food would stop arriving at the supermarkets and water would stop coming out of the taps, and there’d be no more TV…

  No more TV! I mean this was really serious.

  ‘Maybe you magicked the cold away before it got emailed to any other computers,’ said Phredde hopefully.

  ‘Yeah. Maybe,’ I said doubtfully. ‘We could always check my computer.’

  Phredde went PING!, and suddenly my computer was on the desk beside Phredde’s.

  There was another PING! and all the school computers were hovering above mine.

  ‘Well, go on,’ I urged. ‘Turn them on.’

  ‘I’m scared to,’ whispered Phredde. ‘I mean at least now we don’t KNOW they’re infected.’

  ‘All this fuss about a tiny little virus,’ said Phredde’s mum again.

  ‘Mum…’ said Phredde. She glanced at me, then shrugged.

  I crossed my fingers, and my toes too. Or at least my big toes and the ones next to them…do you know how hard it is to cross your toes?

  The room went PING! again

  I crossed my fingers even harder.

  ‘Bzzzzoooom,’ said the computers, as they started up.

  ‘See,’ said Phredde’s mum, relieved, ‘there’s nothing wrong with them! All that fuss…’

  ‘Ahhhtchoooo…’

  I looked around, just in case it was Phredde who’d sneezed, or her mum, or maybe someone with a cold had just come through the door.

  But of course it wasn’t.

  It was my computer.

  ‘Ahhhtchoooo!’ sneezed my computer again. Then suddenly the one above it started sneezing too, and the one next to that and the one after that…

  ‘Ahtchooooo! Ahhhtchooo! Ahhhhhchooooo!’

  Have you ever heard fourteen computers sneeze at once? I found myself automatically reaching for my hanky (yeah, my mum’s one of THOSE).

  But before I could start wiping the noses computers don’t have, Phredde PING!ed, and they were gone again. Only the echoes of their sneezes remained.

  ‘See, Mum,’ said Phredde reproachfully.

  ‘But…but…’ said the Phaery Splendifera.

  ‘There must be something we can do!’ I demanded, stuffing my hanky back in my pocket and hoping no one had noticed I’d been about to wipe a computer’s nose. ‘We can’t let the world’s computers crash and not do ANYTHING!’

  ‘But what?’ cried Phredde’s mum helplessly.

  ‘I don’t know.’ I glanced at Phredde, and she looked back at me.

  Phredde shrugged. ‘Neither of us knows enough about computer viruses or the worldwide web. If we knew how it all worked we could explain it to you, then maybe you could undo the spell.’

  ‘Well who does know about all that stuff?’ demanded Phredde’s mum.

  ‘I don’t know…Miss Richards maybe. She’s the librarian at school.’

  ‘Then we’ll ask her!’ cried Phredde’s mum.

  ‘But Mum, she’s not at school today. It’s Saturday,’ Phredde pointed out.

  ‘Then we’ll go to her home!’

  ‘Mum, I don’t know where she lives!’

  ‘Then we’ll find her!’ insisted Phredde’s mum. You could see she was starting to get a bit worried about civilisation collapsing.

  And that was how I found myself on a magic carpet three minutes later, with two phaeries clinging on beside me, speeding down the castle stairs to find Miss Richards and save the world.

  It wasn’t really a magic carpet. It was just the mat in the study magicked for the occasion because I don’t have any wings and Phredde’s mum said they’d have to rearrange my shoulders to give me some, which I wasn’t too keen on, as it sounded a bit like major surgery, even if she did put me back the way I was later.

  Or maybe all carpets in phaery castles are really magic ones.

  ‘Whoopee!’ yelled the Phaery Splendifera, as we zipped down the stairs and out the castle door.

  ‘Mum!’ yelled Phredde, over the sound of rushing air. ‘How long since you’ve driven one of these?’

  ‘Not since I was a teenager!’ the Phaery Splendifera yelled back. ‘Aren’t they fun!’

  The flying carpet zapped down the castle road like it was the last roll on a roller coaster.

  ‘Eeerrrp.’ I said.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ yelled Phredde.

  ‘I feel carsick!’

  ‘But this isn’t a car!’ yelled Phredde.

  ‘Carpet-sick then! Er…could you stop for a minute?’

  ‘No time!’ yelled Phredde’s mum. ‘We have to save civilisation!’

  I gulped, then gulped again. ‘Er…Could you sort of magic up some carsickness…I mean carpet-sickness tablets?’

  ‘No worries!’ yelled Phredde. And suddenly there they were in my hand, with a glass of water in the other.

  So I swallowed them, then had to drop the glass of water and grasp the side of the carpet really quickly, because we’d zapped around a corner. Don’t EVER try to stay on a magic carpet with no hands when the Phaery Splendifera is driving!

  The carsickness…sorry, carpet-sickness…tablets must have been magic ones, because suddenly I felt fine. Well, worried of course, in case the world’s computer system and everything else was collapsing already.

  But at least my stomach was okay.

  I gazed around. The street flashed past—the post office, the video store…

  Everything looked normal. I wondered how long it’d take before things really started to go wrong…

  ‘There’s the milkbar,’ yelled Phredde. ‘Slow down Mum! Maybe Miss Richards has dropped in for a bucket of chips.’

  The magic carpet slowed down infinitesimally.

  ‘I’ll just duck inside!’ called the Phaery Splendifera.

  ‘Mum, no, there isn’t room…’

  ‘Of course there’s room!’

  The carpet zapped into the milkbar doorway, leapt over the head of the bloke trying to shove some chips into a bag, and hovered over the drinks machine.

  ‘Any sign of her?’ demanded the Phaery Splendifera.

  ‘No!’ I yelled back. The smell of hot chips was doing funny things to my stomach again.

  ‘Gloop,’ said the guy at the counter. His mouth hung open, and his eyes looked like Bruce’s, sort of googly from shock.

  The customers were staring too. I gave them a sort of reassuring wave, then ZAP! the carpet was reversing out into the street.

  ‘Where next?’ yelled Phredde’s mum.

  ‘How about the supermarket? She might be doing her weekend shopping!’

  ‘Good thinking! No point going house to house unless we have to!’

  The carpet lurched down the street again, screamed round the corner and galloped over the car pa
rk towards the supermarket.

  ‘Hey Mum! People are staring at us!’ yelled Phredde.

  Staring at us? One poor guy dropped his groceries and this fat little corgi tried to run under a car in terror, which was okay because it was a parked car, except the corgi dragged its owner along with it.

  ‘Can’t you make us invisible or something!’ screamed Phredde.

  The Phaery Splendifera shook her head. ‘If we go invisible we won’t go so fast!’ she yelled. ‘Remember the Law of Conservation of Magic?’

  ‘Oh sure,’ said Phredde. ‘For every magic there has to be an equal and opposite magic. But can’t you…’

  The rest of what she said was swallowed up by the noise of people screaming as we zapped through the supermarket door and down the aisle marked JAMS AND CEREALS. I mean I know we looked a bit unusual, but that was no reason for people to stress out. It was just a magic carpet and a couple of phaeries. And me, of course.

  ‘Is she here?’ yelled the Phaery Splendifera.

  ‘Can’t see her,’ I screamed back, over the noise of falling baked bean tins (Phredde’s mum had taken the last corner a bit fast). ‘Hey, look out for the bananas!’

  ‘What bananas! Oh, those…’ Phredde’s mum glanced back at the mess on the floor. ‘Never mind. I’ll magic them up again.’

  There was a gentle PING! behind us, and someone fainted over by the cheese.

  ‘I don’t think she’s here!’ cried Phredde, as we zoomed over the tomato display. (We only knocked a few over. They hardly squashed at all.)

  ‘A house to house search then,’ decided the Phaery Splendifera, neatly avoiding a baby sitting in a trolley.

  ‘Big bee!’ cried the baby. (Boy, some kids are dumb.) Its mother just stared at us.

  ‘But that’ll take ages, Mum! We have to hurry! Planes’ll be crashing and the banks won’t work and…’

  ‘Then we’ll just have to go faster…we’ll start at the school then go in circles around it. Look out for the sliced salami!’

  Well, we got out of the supermarket sort of safely. (I hope that old guy who fell into the lamingtons was okay.)

  We did accidentally pick up a few apples and a whole roast chicken, which made me feel a bit guilty, as we hadn’t paid for them, but Phredde’s mum said she’d magic some money into the till.