The Phredde Collection

by Jackie French

  I was glad to see the tills were still working. That meant that the world hadn’t collapsed yet.

  And suddenly the school was below us—the library and the lab and the volcano in the playground, and a crowd down at the oval watching the junior soccer.

  ‘Better check down there!’ I yelled. ‘Maybe she’s watching the game.’

  Then I grabbed the edge of the carpet again, as we dived down.

  There was no sign of Miss Richards, but we helped our school team score a goal, because everyone at our school is used to strange things happening, what with Phredde and the volcano, not to mention the ogre and the dragon, while the other side got a bit distracted by a magic carpet flying all over the place.

  Finally we started to do what we’d known we’d have to do all along—zoom along each street, peering into every house we passed, in case Miss Richards was in one of them.

  ‘What sort of house does Miss Richards live in?’ yelled the Phaery Splendifera.

  ‘I don’t know!’ I yelled back. ‘But I bet it’s all neat like the library and really quiet.’

  One house…two houses…three houses…I was starting to imagine all the prison doors opening as the computer security systems failed…maybe power systems were failing and no one could turn on the lights or cook dinner…and traffic lights would stop and…

  ‘Mum, it’ll take forever at this rate!’ yelled Phredde. ‘We have to go faster!’

  So we did.

  One minute we were zooming along next to the houses and hoping the edges of the carpet weren’t going to get tangled in the rose bushes, and the next the world was this blue and red blur, and then there was this giant CRACK! as we broke the sound barrier (at least I guess that’s what happened, I’ll have to ask Mrs Gridly our science teacher on Monday) and the world was even more blurry…

  ‘Slow down Mum!’ screamed Phredde.

  ‘But you said…’ began the Phaery Splendifera.

  ‘This is TOO fast! We can’t see anything!’

  ‘Oh, all right…’ The carpet slowed down…and down…and down…

  ‘How’s this?’ asked Phredde’s mum.

  ‘Er…okay.’ I said. I looked around.

  Something just didn’t seem right.

  ‘Hey Phredde, do you know what that bird is?’ I asked as casually as I could. I mean I didn’t want to panic anyone.

  Phredde looked down. ‘Which one?’

  ‘The fat black and white one.’

  Phredde considered. ‘I think it’s a penguin,’ she decided. ‘I think all the rest of them are penguins too.’

  ‘That’s what I thought it was,’ I agreed. ‘You know, I didn’t think there were any penguins near our school.’

  ‘Maybe they escaped from the zoo and got lost,’ said Phredde hopefully.

  ‘Er…maybe,’ I said doubtfully. ‘But what about that iceberg? Do you think it got lost too?’

  Phredde stared down at the iceberg. It was big and blueish white and there were seals sliding down its edges.

  ‘I SAID you went too fast Mum,’ she said reproachfully. ‘You’ve gone and landed us in Antarctica.’

  I thought it’d got pretty cold.

  ‘Bother,’ said Phredde’s mum. ‘We’ll have to reverse.’

  There was another CRACK! and the world went blurry again. Suddenly the air got warmer…and warmer…and then there was a faint PING! and we slowed down again.

  No one said anything for a moment.

  ‘I always wondered how elephants went to the toilet,’ I said at last.

  ‘Well, now you know,’ said Phredde, sort of sourly. ‘Mum, you’ve gone too far again.’

  The Phaery Splendifera was gazing at the giant steaming piles on the ground. ‘I bet Cousin Pinkerbelle would just love those for her roses,’ she said. ‘Elephant dung is said to be wonderful fertiliser. Wait a second…I’ll just magic them off to her.’

  ‘Mum, we don’t have time to send Cousin Pinkerbelle elephant doo for her roses!’ wailed Phredde. ‘The world’s coming to an end and we’re just mucking about in Africa.’

  ‘Er…that lion looks awfully close,’ I said.

  Phredde’s mum frowned. ‘Well you don’t have to be so critical, Ethereal. I’m doing my best.’

  ‘I SAID you were going too fast, Mum!’

  ‘Er…the lion…’

  ‘I’ll have you know I was driving magic carpets before you were born young lady.’

  ‘Mum if you’d just CONCENTRATE!’

  ‘Grrroooooooowl!’ said the lion.

  ‘I think it’s going to leap…’ I began

  The next second we were half a kilometre high, and I had a vulture on my lap.

  ‘Get off, you stupid creature!’ I yelled.

  ‘Graaark,’ cried the vulture. It gave me a dirty look and flew off.

  ‘See,’ said the Phaery Splendifera, ‘I’m quite capable of driving…’

  ‘Mum…Miss Richards and the end of the world!’ Phredde reminded her.

  So we were off again.

  I guess this time Phredde’s mum was concentrating, because when we slowed down the school was to our right and there were all these normal suburban houses—no icebergs or lions or even whales (no one else had noticed the whale, and I didn’t point it out to them in case it slowed us down even more).

  We started peering into windows again, trying to find Miss Richards.

  I felt a bit guilty invading people’s privacy, but of course the whole of civilisation (or at least the bit that depended on computers) was at stake.

  One house…the next…the next…and the next…

  You know something? Some people do really weird things on Saturday mornings.

  I mean when I think of the nice peaceful time Dad and I had feeding the piranhas, then think of what SOME people get up to…

  There was one guy brushing his teeth, which I mention because his teeth were in his hand.

  And there was this woman pretending she was conducting an orchestra all by herself in her living room while the radio was playing dismal music—the sort we have to listen to in musical appreciation.

  And there was this girl and this bloke, and you’ll NEVER guess what they were doing!

  We zapped past their bedroom window, and I yelled, ‘Hey look at that!’ but Phredde missed it, so the Phaery Splendifera did a wheelie (magic carpets don’t have wheels but you know what I mean) and we flew back more slowly, and this time they saw everything too!

  Like I said, there was this girl and this bloke, and they were sitting at the table playing scrabble and she was CHEATING. She’d got all these extra pieces down the side of her chair, and was sort of fumbling them up and glancing at them in her lap to see if she needed an ‘e’ or an ‘i’.

  Pretty incredible, hey?

  Like I said, people are weird.

  Miss Richards was in the two thousand six hundred and forty-second house we looked into (I was starting to get carpetsick again). I guess I was wrong about her being neat because her house was the one with the lawn that hadn’t been mown for seventy trillion years and roses bushes that weren’t quite as savage-looking as Cousin Pinkerbelle’s but pretty close and a garden gnome making a rude gesture at passersby.

  Oh, and the windows shaking with rock music too.

  Miss Richards wasn’t doing anything strange at all—well, of course she wasn’t, she’s a librarian.

  She was making chocolate chip biscuits while she danced to the rock music, and was just taking a tray of them out of the oven, which reminded me and Phredde that we hadn’t had any morning tea yet except for the apples and chicken we’d accidentally picked up at the supermarket (except I’d thrown most of the chicken at the lion to try to distract it), and it was nearly lunch time.

  Phredde’s mum knocked on the kitchen window, and Phredde and I waved madly to attract Miss Richards’ attention over the noise of the rock music, and when we’d helped Miss Richards pick up all the biscuits off the floor (I suppose it’s a bit of a shock seein
g a flying carpet and two phaeries, not to mention me, at your kitchen window) and turned the music down we all sat around the kitchen table and ate the broken biscuits and tried to explain the problem.

  ‘And now all the computers in the world will have Mum’s virus,’ finished Phredde desperately. ‘Or at least they’ll catch it pretty soon. And everything in the world that depends on computers will shut down, and civilisation will end, and it’s all Mum’s fault, and we don’t know what to do about it!’

  Miss Richards thought for a minute while she nibbled the last bit of biscuit. (Phredde and I had finished the rest of them.)

  ‘You know,’ she said finally. ‘I don’t really know as much about computers as you think I do.’

  ‘But you must!’ exclaimed Phredde blankly. ‘You’re our last hope. The world’s last hope!’

  ‘Well, I don’t think it matters much,’ said Miss Richards. ‘Because even though I don’t know much about computers, I do know about colds.’

  ‘What about them?’ asked the Phaery Splendifera, frowning.

  ‘Well, a cold isn’t really a serious virus. As long as you get plenty of rest and keep warm, it’ll disappear all by itself in a week or ten days.’

  ‘You mean…’ I gasped.

  Miss Richards nodded. ‘At the worst all those computers will get is a runny nose and a few sneezes for a week.’

  ‘Computers don’t have noses,’ said Phredde slowly.

  ‘There you are then,’ said Miss Richards. ‘All we have to worry about is a few computer sneezes.’

  It seemed a pity to waste the magic carpet after that, so Miss Richards climbed aboard too and we zoomed off to Africa again for lunch, and we found the elephant and it turned out to be really friendly and let me ride on it’s back. (It was lucky I had my carsickness, I mean carpet-sickness, I mean elephantsickness tablets. Elephants waddle!)

  And then we had a pizza and watermelon picnic with lamingtons and ginger ale on Mt Kilamanjaro (I THINK that’s how you spell it).

  And Phredde’s mum showed Miss Richards how to drive a magic carpet (she said we were too young to drive), and Miss Richards was really good at it for a beginner, and went even faster than Phredde’s mum, which might be why we crashed through the time barrier this time and Phredde got chased by…

  …but that’s another story.

  So anyway, if you turn on your computer at school tomorrow, and it goes ‘Ahhhhhhhtishoooooooooo!’…

  …don’t panic.

  Just give it plenty of rest and keep it warm, and it’ll be good as new in a week or ten day’s time.

  The Six Giant Caterpillars of Phaeryland

  For my last birthday I got a pirate ship, PLUS captain and crew, which is pretty great even if all they can say is ‘Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of ginger ale’ and none of them happen to look like Mel Gibson.

  And Phredde got a tyrannosaurus—just a tiny one that’s supposed to sharpen her pencils, but it likes chewing the desk legs at school better, and you should have heard what Mrs Olsen said when it ate…

  But that’s another story.

  Grown-ups don’t seem as keen on birthdays as kids though, unless they’re turning forty or something decrepit like that.

  So when Phredde asked her mum, the Phaery Splendifera, what she wanted for HER birthday, all she said was: ‘I’d really just like a bunch of flowers.’

  ‘No worries,’ I said to Phredde when she told me. ‘We can duck into the florist on the corner. Or we can pick some flowers in my garden if you’re broke. Or you could magic some up, or maybe Cousin Pinkerbelle might let us pick some of hers, though come to think of it that mightn’t be a good idea.’

  (The last time I’d seen Con he’d just had a couple of fingers reattached at the hospital—he’d managed to grab them before the roses digested them, but it was a close thing. Phredde and I took him some flowers—but not roses. I mean, I was sure Con was going to win the war of the roses, but it looked like it might take a while yet.)

  Phredde shook her head gloomily. ‘You don’t understand,’ she muttered. ‘When Mum says flowers, she doesn’t mean a bunch of roses. She means flowers from Phaeryland.’

  ‘Are flowers different in Phaeryland?’ I asked.

  ‘Course they are,’ said Phredde. ‘Everything’s different in Phaeryland.’

  Phredde’s not too keen on Phaeryland, on account of the fact that she’s expected to wear lace dresses, glass slippers and a tiara over there, and be a proper Phaery Princess.

  But as Phredde says, she just wants to be like any normal kid, and when was the last time you saw a normal kid in a tiara and glass slippers?

  ‘Well, what’s the matter?’ I demanded. ‘Can’t we just pop over there and grab some?’

  ‘Huh,’ said Phredde. ‘You don’t just pop over to Phaeryland. Remember all the gumph we had to get dressed up in last time? Glass slippers…’ she muttered.

  Phredde turned over on her back (we were flying home from school incidentally—well, she was flying and I was walking) and pedalled her tiny purple joggers indignantly. They had bright silver and green laces today.

  ‘I thought that was just because we were going to see the Phaery Queen,’ I answered. ‘And because your parents were with us too.’

  Parents never have any dress sense. You should see what Mum expects me to wear if we go to a wedding or something. It has RUFFLES on it!

  ‘EVERYONE wears lace and glass slippers in Phaeryland,’ Phredde said even more gloomily. ‘Whether they’re going to see the Queen or not.’

  ‘But couldn’t we just sneak over there?’ I argued. ‘How long would it take us to pick the flowers anyway?’

  Phredde brightened. ‘Not long. I could magic us right in the middle of the flower patch, and we could grab some and we’d be out of there before anyone notices.’

  ‘Great!’ I said. ‘When do we go?’

  ‘Now!’ said Phredde, and before I could even hear a PING! I was in Phaeryland, and Phredde was as big as me, or I was as small as Phredde, because that’s what happens in Phaeryland, and she was standing right beside me.

  Well, you know what Phaeryland is like. You should, anyway, if you’ve read any of those baby books about Phaeryland when you were a little kid.

  Phaeryland is JUST like that.

  The sky was blue and the birds were singing, and by singing I mean really SINGING, calling tweet tweet tweet tweet TWEET up and down the scale and then going all operatic like they were standing on some stage or something.

  The bees were humming (some tune by that old guy Frank Sinatra that Great Uncle Ron likes so much) and I just know the sun was smiling—really smiling, with a great gooey grin on its face.

  The only reason I didn’t look up to check was that Mum has told me a squillion times not to look directly at the sun or I’ll go blind.

  And there were flowers.

  Zillions and trillions of flowers because Phredde had zapped us into a clearing in the woods. (Not bush—these were woods, with neat little lollipop trees with big red fruit on them.)

  This clearing had green green grass like some kid had gone whacko with their green texta all over it, and poking out of the grass were these great fat round flowers on long green stalks in every colour of a kid’s pencil case, and a few more besides.

  ‘Wow,’ I said, because it was pretty, in a sweets and lollies sort of way.

  Phredde shrugged. ‘Phaeryland,’ she said dismissively.

  ‘I think it’s cool.’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Phredde unwillingly. You’d have had to tear her toenails out with rusty pliers before she’d have admitted there was anything good about Phaeryland.

  Suddenly she giggled.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ I demanded.

  ‘You!’ she shrieked.

  ‘What’s funny about me?’

  ‘You’re in…’ (choke choke giggle) ‘Phaeryland, and you’re wearing tracksuit pants and a T-shirt!’

  ‘So what? We had sports this afternoon!’

>   ‘I bet no one’s ever worn tracksuit pants in Phaeryland before!’ panted Phredde. The giggles were taking all the breath she had.

  I grinned. ‘How about you?’

  ‘Me?’ Phredde glanced down at herself.

  Phredde was wearing her purple joggers, jeans and a bright pink T-shirt that said ‘Magic Rules’. (Phredde’s magicked it so if a teacher looks at her they think she’s wearing school uniform, but really she just wears what she likes.)

  Well, Phredde started giggling even harder at that, then I started giggling too, and pretty soon we were rolling through the flowers laughing so hard we nearly wet ourselves. (I suppose you had to be there to see what was so funny.)

  Anyway, the next thing you know this enormous shadow was circling over us, and I looked up, and there were a couple of those giant butterflies that had carried us all to the palace of the Phaery Queen last time we were in Phaeryland.

  ‘Hey, look!’ I exclaimed, sitting up in the middle of the flowers. ‘Aren’t they…’

  And then I stopped, because the first butterfly glanced down then dived straight towards us, and it’s companion dived too, and the next thing I knew the great butterfly shadow had covered us, and all I could see were jewelled wings and these two enormous round eyes, sort of peering at me. Then I was grasped between four giant butterfly legs and we soared straight up in the sky.

  Flappppp flappp flapppp, went the butterfly wings…

  I started struggling, then I stopped pretty quickly, because the flowers just looked like coloured full stops. I mean we were HIGH!

  ‘Helllllppppp!’ I screamed. ‘Phredde hellllpppp! Do something!’

  ‘I can’t!’ cried Phredde, and that was when I noticed the other butterfly had caught her too, and was carrying her alongside mine.

  ‘Magic us out of here!’ I yelled.

  ‘I can’t!’

  ‘Why not!’

  ‘Because the butterflies are magic too!’

  I suppose what she meant was that if she cast a spell they’d use a counter spell, but being hauled along through the air by two giant butterflies isn’t the perfect time to discuss the ins and outs of magic.