The Phredde Collection

by Jackie French

  ‘Where are they taking…’ I began, and then my butterfly must have hit a thermal or something, or maybe it just felt like a few aerobatics, because we went soaring even higher, then round and down and up and I really wished I had my carsickness tablets.

  Well, by the time my lunch had floated gently down onto the woods of Phaeryland to fertilise one of those lollipop trees, the butterfly was fluttering in a more or less straight line again, but Phredde’s butterfly was too far away for me to yell to her, though it still seemed to be heading in the same direction as mine.

  That was a relief, because the last thing I wanted at this stage was to be separated from Phredde.

  When you’re in a strange country it’s good to be with someone who knows where the bathroom is and how to find a pizza, and other essential information, and Phaeryland was about as strange as you can get.

  If I hadn’t been so worried about ending up as a butterfly’s breakfast (I mean do YOU know what butterflies eat in Phaeryland?) I suppose I might have enjoyed the ride.

  There were green woods, and glades of flowers, and the occasional castle looking just like it had been made out of icing sugar that some dumb kid had coloured gold or pink, or some other little kid colour, except it didn’t look quite so silly in Phaeryland.

  And there were tinkling brooks (okay, I couldn’t hear them from up there in butterfly world, but they just looked like they’d tinkle) all shining blue and silver.

  And there were a few cute little cottages that looked like they might be made of gingerbread, which I bet isn’t very waterproof, but I don’t suppose it ever rains in Phaeryland. (And come to think of it YUK! imagine eating gingerbread after it’s been sitting in the sun for twenty years and doo-dooed on by birds and butterflies and anything else that flutters by.)

  Actually I thought witches lived in gingerbread cottages, not phaeries, but maybe witches didn’t have the gingerbread monopoly, because I was sure there were no witches in Phaeryland.

  To be honest I never paid much attention to the details in those stories anyway. I mean how was I to know that one day I’d be kidnapped by a giant butterfly, and all that phaery story stuff might turn out useful?

  Then suddenly we were swooping down, down, down, and I nearly lost my lunch again, except by now it was all gone.

  The ground was approaching awfully fast. I hoped my butterfly had decent landing gear, and didn’t just land feet—me—first.

  Then suddenly we had landed, and we weren’t on the ground at all.

  We were on the branch of this massive tree, and my butterfly was balanced somehow on its abdomen, which left its legs free to manage me, then THUMP! Phredde’s butterfly had landed too, right on the other side of this giant nest thing that was sitting on the branch too.

  Boy, was I pleased to see Phredde.

  ‘Phredde!’ I yelled. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yeah! How about you?’

  ‘Mostly.’ I didn’t mention my lost lunch. (I just hope it hadn’t landed on a pixie or a gnome or something. At least in a plane you can’t stick your head out the window and be sick on some kid just innocently standing in a school yard.)

  ‘What’s going to happen now?’ I yelled.

  ‘I don’t know!’ shrieked Phredde.

  ‘But you’re a phaery!’

  ‘Yeah—and these are butterflies!’ yelled Phredde, as though I hadn’t noticed.

  Then suddenly we didn’t have to yell any more, because the giant sticklike legs sort of tossed me up and over and there I was in the giant nest with Phredde…

  …and half a dozen crawling green caterpillars, just as big as I was.

  ‘Let me out of here!’ I shrieked. I mean, I like caterpillars—I’ve even collected a few, and fed them till they turned into butterflies—but the caterpillars I collected were a heck of a lot smaller than I was at the time.

  The way I look at it, humans collect butterflies, not the other way around.

  ‘Shhh,’ said Phredde.

  ‘What do you mean “shhhh”?’ I demanded.

  ‘You’ll upset them.’

  ‘Who’s them?’ I began, and then I realised, because six giant green caterpillar heads were staring straight at me.

  So I set my face into a ‘I’m a really nice person and never caught a caterpillar in my life’ sort of smile, and crawled over to Phredde. It was pretty easy crawling, as the nest was made from this sort of soft silklike stuff.

  I suddenly remembered that silk came from caterpillars, sort of extruded from their abdomens, which was so disgusting to contemplate I decided I wouldn’t think about it any more.

  So Phredde and I huddled there in the corner of the nest. ‘Phredde, what the heck is happening?’ I muttered. ‘Are we supposed to be breakfast or something?’

  ‘No,’ said Phredde. ‘I think they’re looking after us.’

  ‘Looking after us!’ I yelled, then shut my mouth, because we’d attracted the attention of the caterpillars again, and even if they weren’t going to eat us I couldn’t think of any attention a caterpillar would give me that I’d enjoy.

  ‘I think I’ve worked it out,’ whispered Phredde. ‘Those butterflies think we’re two of their baby caterpillars who crawled out of the nest somehow. So they put us back in.’

  ‘But we don’t look like caterpillars!’

  ‘Well, we don’t look like phaeries or humans,’ said Phredde guiltily, gesturing at her jeans and my tracksuit pants. ‘We’re not wearing skirts or crowns or glass slippers…I just don’t think the butterflies recognise us! Butterflies aren’t very bright.’

  She was telling me!

  ‘Look Phredde,’ I said patiently. ‘Butterflies don’t have nests. They don’t even look after their caterpillars. They just lay their eggs and fly away.’

  ‘Not in Phaeryland,’ said Phredde.

  So there we were, stuck up a tree sharing a giant nest made out of stuff I didn’t even want to think about, with six green caterpillars who were still looking at us a bit too curiously. I mean this lot’s parents may have thought we belonged in the nest, but their offspring weren’t too sure.

  ‘Er…nice caterpillars,’ I said soothingly.

  ‘I don’t think they understand English,’ said Phredde helpfully.

  ‘Well, I don’t speak caterpillar,’ I pointed out grumpily. ‘Er…Phredde, what do you think’s happening now?’

  Phredde stood up and peered over the side of the nest. I wedged myself next to her.

  The butterflies were busy pulling big green leaves off the tree, and folding them into long narrow leafy envelopes. One leafy envelope, two leafy envelopes, three leafy envelopes…

  ‘I don’t like the look of this,’ I muttered.

  …six envelopes, seven, eight…

  ‘One for each of us!’ I think my face must have gone white, because Phredde’s did too.

  ‘I think they’re getting our dinner!’ I whispered. ‘Let’s get out of here!’

  Sure enough, the first butterfly strode over to the nest.

  Phredde and I retreated quickly, just in time too, because the six caterpillars started galumphing over to where we’d been, their little antennae wriggling eagerly.

  ‘Those things are hungry!’ I whispered to Phredde.

  She nodded.

  The six caterpillars were now all leaning dutifully over the edge, their mouths open. They were really tiny mouths, with tiny teeth, but they were open so wide you could see right inside, which was all green as well.

  The butterfly hauled up a long leafy envelope, then thrust it right down the first caterpillar’s gullet. The caterpillar gave a sort of choked gobble, then shut its tiny mouth and looked pleased with itself.

  ‘No way!’ I whispered.

  Phredde and I edged even further into the middle of the nest, which was as far as we could get from the edge. I mean I know I’d lost my lunch and all that, but a long piece of leaf shoved down my throat wasn’t going to make me feel any better.

  ‘Look Phredde,
there has to be something you can do!’ I whispered desperately.

  ‘What!’ cried Phredde, as the second caterpillar had its dinner pushed down into its stomach. ‘If I try to make us disappear the butterflies will just counteract the spell. That’s what parents always do if kids try to disappear in Phaeryland!’

  The third caterpillar gave a satisfied sort of burp.

  ‘Then we have to…no that won’t work…’ I stared in anguish as the fourth leaf descended into the fourth caterpillar, and then the fifth…

  I had to think of something! Fast!

  The last caterpillar had been fed now. The butterfly was eyeing us inscrutably—I mean, who knows what butterflies are thinking.

  But no matter how dumb butterflies are I was pretty sure this one was able to count up to eight. Eight little caterpillars—well, six caterpillars and a human and a phaery, but the butterfly didn’t realise that.

  Six little caterpillars had been fed, which left two little caterpillars who still needed their tucker, namely me and Phredde…

  That butterfly was going to haul us over for our dinner any second. I had to think HARD.

  ‘I’ve got it!’ I yelled. ‘Phredde, I’ve got it!’

  ‘Got what?’ asked Phredde miserably.

  ‘A way to get out of here! We just have to take them by surprise! All you have to do is…’

  I bent down to whisper in her ear. I didn’t THINK those butterflies understood English, but there was no point taking any chances.

  There was a faint PING! as Phredde put the plan into action, which was none too soon, because just as its faint echoes died away the first butterfly grasped two rolled up leaves in one of its long sticklike legs, then lifted its next leg into the nest, then the the next one and the next…

  The butterfly began to stride towards us. Butterflies can stride awfully well on just three legs…at least they can in Phaeryland.

  Closer…closer…closer…

  ‘Er…would you mind if I didn’t have any dinner today?’ I whispered frantically. ‘I was airsick just a little while ago and I’m not very hungry…’

  Well, that’s what I MEANT to say, but the butterfly obviously thought my open mouth meant I was waiting for my din-dins, because it lifted the long green leafy envelope and…

  …Truggatrugggaruggatrugggaruggatruggga…

  The butterfly looked up, still holding that big leaf.

  There was something long and silver in the sky. But it wasn’t a butterfly…

  …Ruggatrugggaruggatrugggaruggatruggga…

  Two seconds later the helicopter was right above us, and the butterflies were still staring upwards in shock, like they’d never seen a helicopter before.

  Well, I don’t suppose they had, because there never had been a helicopter in Phaeryland until Phredde magicked one up, like I’d told her to.

  Suddenly someone pushed something long and thin out of the helicopter. It was a ladder! The helicopter came lower lower lower…and the ladder came lower too, until it was dangling right above Phredde and me!

  I tried to grab the end of it, then missed, because it was waving all over the place.

  Just then the butterfly woke up, and decided that no matter what was going rugggatrugggatrugga overhead the babies needed to be fed…but at that moment I got my fingers round the ladder and started to haul myself up.

  It’s easy to SAY haul myself up, but it’s much harder to do it. I mean you try climbing up a rope into a moving helicopter. But it’s a heck of a lot easier if the alternative is being stuffed full of leafy dinner.

  I could feel Phredde on the ladder behind me, which actually made it all a lot worse, because she’d push the ladder one way and I’d push it another, and all the time I expected to feel a long thin butterfly leg pull us back.

  But I reckon the butterflies must have been in shock. They must never have seen a caterpillar escape into a helicopter before, which is what I’d counted on. They just sat there staring at us with those big round black googly eyes, and the caterpillars were all staring too.

  ‘Go fiddle with your antennae, leafeaters!’ I jeered back at them…because after all the caterpillars hadn’t been very welcoming. I mean if someone had been shoved into MY nest I’d have at least said ‘hello’, or whatever the equivalent is in caterpillar.

  And then two strong hands reached down and hauled me the rest of the way into the helicopter, then reached past me and pulled Phredde in too.

  ‘Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of ginger ale!’ the captain greeted us, as he steered the helicopter away from the tree and the butterflies, now peering upwards in a sad and bewildered way as we disappeared out of their nest and out of their tree and out of their lives.

  ‘Phredde you dimwit! This is a helicopter, not a pirate ship!’ I yelled over the noise of the engine.

  ‘Who cares! This is Phaeryland!’ she yelled back.

  And suddenly the helicopter swerved and ruggatrugggaruggatruggga we were heading back towards the glade of flowers where the butterflies had kidnapped us.

  To be perfectly honest, I was a bit nervous about landing to pick flowers—I mean look at the trouble we’d gotten into last time.

  What if this time some gnome decided we were garden ornaments and tried to stand us next to their fish pond, or some pixie thought we’d made a good addition to their patchwork quilt?

  So Phredde quickly magicked a couple of bunches of flowers right up into the helicopter, so we didn’t even have to descend.

  Then we thanked the captain, who said ‘Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of ginger ale’ in a really jovial manner, as though rescuing two kids—well, one kid and a phaery —from giant butterflies was something he did every day.

  Which for all I know it was.

  Then we PING!ed back home, and Mum gave me heaps for being late for dinner, which was really unfair, because it wasn’t my fault at all.

  But at least Phredde’s mum got her flowers for her birthday, although I bet Phredde didn’t tell her exactly how she came to get them.

  Anyway, as Mrs Olsen’s always saying, you need to learn from your mistakes, so that’s why I’m passing on our experience to you.

  Next time YOU head off to Phaeryland, remember to wear your best silk dress, and lots of lace and a tiara (or satin pants, dancing slippers and an embroidered golden waistcoat if you happen to be a boy).

  I know it’s pretty sooky—and glass slippers make your feet sweat something disgusting.

  But as Phredde and I have finally realised, it’s worth learning how to dress to fit in. Because if we hadn’t been wearing the right clothes when that Egyptian mummy chased us…

  But that’s another story.5

  1 See ‘Phredde’s Dragon’ in A Phaery Named Phredde.

  2 See ‘A Phaery Named Phredde’ in A Phaery Named Phredde.

  3 See ‘Phredde’s Dragon’ in A Phaery Named Phredde.

  4 See ‘Vampire’s Birthday’ in A Phaery Named Phredde.

  5 see Phredde and the Zomble Librarian.

  Phredde and the Temple of Gloom

  Jackie French

  Dedication

  To everyone in Dandenongs Pod, Palmerston District Primary School and the students in 3CR:

  Alice—Jesse M

  Kangandeep—Luke

  Simon—Joshua P

  Lauren—Leilani

  Johnathan—Ben

  Jessie D—Leigh

  Tess—Alexandra

  Natasha—Emily

  James—Jordan

  Jessica H—Ganesh

  Richard—Nicole

  Jack—Jessica S

  Sam—Jake

  Stacey—Kevin

  and Chris Reeve and Barbara Braxton, who inspire them! Here is your dungeon, dark and slimy and with vampire bats, as you requested. With much love, Jackie

  PS. And to Jessica, because your best friend asked me to put you in this book!

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Cast of Characters
<
br />   Prologue

  Chapter 1 Just Another Day in the Castle

  Chapter 2 Off to (Yuk) Phaeryland

  Chapter 3 Dragons and Bunny Rabbits

  Chapter 4 Bruce Arrives, and the Three Fat Hogs

  Chapter 5 A Big Bad Wolf (Well, dumb, anyway)

  Chapter 6 Breakfast in Phaeryland

  Chapter 7 Phredde and Bruce’s Secrets

  Chapter 8 Back to the Cottage

  Chapter 9 In the Dungeon of Doom

  Chapter 10 Down the Slimy Tunnel

  Chapter 11 The Temple of Gloom

  Chapter 12 The Attack of the Vampire Mosquitoes

  Chapter 13 Prudence Casserole

  Chapter 14 Trolls and Salad

  Chapter 15 Back at the Sweet Pea Guesthouse

  Chapter 16 Bruce is Embarrassed

  Chapter 17 A Pretty Cool Wedding

  Chapter 18 Bruce Does a Brave Thing

  Chapter 19 A Bit of Old-time Dancing

  Chapter 20 Back Home in the Castle

  Cast of Characters

  For those who came in late…

  Prudence: A normal schoolgirl who lives in a magic castle and has a fairy, sorry, phaery, as her best friend. She likes feeding her piranhas, sailing her pirate ship and making sure her mum doesn’t find out what she and Phredde get up to.

  Phredde: A 30-cm-high phaery. Her real name is The Phaery Ethereal but unless you want your kneecaps kicked by a furious phaery, DON’T call her this unless you’re a teacher, parent or someone even Phredde acknowledges it’s not a good idea to kneecap! Likes any adventure that doesn’t involve wearing glass slippers or handsome princes.

  P.S. That’s PHAERY, buster, not fairy. Don’t call Phredde a ‘fairy’ if you value your kneecaps.

  Bruce: A handsome phaery prince. Or he might be if he hadn’t decided to be a giant frog instead of a kid. (A Crinea signifera, if you want to be precise. Ask Bruce if you want to know more about Crinea signifera—or better still, look it up in the library, because Bruce will tell you EVERYTHING.) Bruce likes catching flies and collecting recipes for mosquito pizza. Holds the interschool record for the long jump and the high jump at the Athletics Carnival.