‘Sure. I’ve watched Mum fly a carpet lots of times. You just go zooooom!’
‘Have you got your driver’s licence?’ I knew she hadn’t. Phredde is the same age as me.
‘You don’t need a driver’s licence for a flying carpet,’ declared Phredde, ‘’cause it doesn’t have an engine and it doesn’t go on the road.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yep. I rang up the motor registry and said, ‘“Do I need a licence to drive my carpet?” And the guy just laughed and said,“Get off the phone, kid.”’
Adults never take kids seriously. ‘Er, pilot’s licence?’ I asked.
‘Nope. Come on, hop on,’ yelled Phredde impatiently, as the carpet hovered over the footpath. ‘We’ll be late!’
‘How? You’re up there and I’m down here!’
‘Oh,’ said Phredde. The flying carpet descended till it was just above the footpath. ‘Hop on!’ said Phredde again.
I plonked myself down warily. The flying carpet gave a sort of shiver and rose up in the air.
‘Thanks for the lift,’ I said, grabbing hold of the edges. I wished flying carpets came with seatbelts. ‘Er, does your mum know you’ve borrowed the carpet?’
‘Nope,’ said Phredde. ‘She’s a bit ratty in the mornings till she has her third cup of honeydew nectar. I thought I wouldn’t bother her.’
‘Are you sure she won’t mind?’ The magic carpet was jiggling a bit unsteadily already.
‘Of course not,’ said Phredde airily. ‘She’ll think it was a great idea, on account of you getting bus sick. This way you won’t get bus sick on the excursion.’
‘But I get flying-carpet sick too!’ I pointed out.
‘Yeah, but if you get sick on a carpet the sick goes down,’ Phredde pointed out. ‘If you get sick in a bus it stinks everyone out.’
See what I mean? It’s really great to have someone like Phredde as a best friend sometimes.
‘Hold on!’ yelled Phredde.
I just had time to shout, ‘Hold on to what?’ when PING! We were zooming…
The footpath—and the doggy doo—dissolved into a long grey blur. ‘Phredde!’ I shrieked.
‘Fun, isn’t it!’ yelled Phredde. ‘I worked out that if you add a bit of magic, flying carpets go even faster!’
‘Yeah…’ I began to say a bit nervously, then yelled, ‘Watch out for that tree!’ instead.
‘What tree?’ shouted Phredde.
‘The one that doesn’t have a top branch any more,’ I said, picking leaves out of my hair. ‘Gloop…’ I batted a stunned pigeon off my school bag. ‘Hey, Phredde!’
‘Yeah?’ yelled Phredde.
‘Don’t you think we’re going a bit fast?’
‘We don’t want to be late for school!’
‘School is a couple of streets back that way. No, make that a couple of suburbs back that way. Look out for the power pole!’
The magic carpet swerved just in time.
‘Slow down!’ I shrieked.
The flying carpet—make that the zooming carpet—slowed down to a measly 200 ks an hour.
‘Sorry!’ shouted Phredde over the noise of the wind and startled pigeons. ‘I haven’t quite worked out the controls yet!’
‘I thought it just went zoom?’
‘Yeah. But there’s zoom and ZOOM and ZOOOOM and ZOOOOMMMMM!!! and…’
I picked a sparrow out of my hair. ‘Twit?’ it said.
‘Anyway,’ called Phredde happily, ‘you haven’t got carpet sick yet.’
‘I can’t get carpet sick,’ I screamed. ‘I left my tummy back on the footpath. Phredde, turn this thing around and let’s get to school, fast…I mean, not so fast.’
The carpet did a loop the loop (and I discovered my tummy all over again), the sparrow said ‘Squark!’ and floated upwards before returning to my shoulder with a small jolt, and the carpet swooped back towards school.
We landed on the netball court, just as the lines of kids were moving towards the two buses.
‘Gloop,’ I said. I checked that everything was there: my bag, my eyeballs, the sparrow in my left ear. I tossed the sparrow towards the garbage bin—it gave a startled tweet and woke up halfway there, but I think it was just stunned, well, so was I, a bit—and tried to pat my hair into place.
I glanced at Phredde. It was alright for her, phaeries always look okay. I suppose it’s sort of PINGed into them.
‘Hey, Pru!’ yelled Bruce. ‘Hurry up!’
Bruce is my other best friend. He’s a frog. Well, he’s really a phaery prince but he’d rather be a frog.
I wobbled over to him. He peered at me. ‘You look sort of green,’ he said.
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘You look brown and slimy and…’
‘Well, I am a frog,’ Bruce pointed out reasonably.
‘Uh-huh.’ Actually I’d seen Bruce when he wasn’t being a frog, but a handsome prince instead.9 He looked okay. I mean not really handsome, which is sort of yuk, just well…you know…okay.
‘Hi, Bruce!’ Amelia gave him a big cheesy smile. ‘I’ll save you a seat in the bus if you like.’
I glared at her. ‘He’s coming with us!’ I said. Amelia is always coming on to Bruce.
‘I am?’ said Bruce. He looked around. ‘Hey, cool, I always wanted to ride one of those things. Mum says I can’t have one till I’m seventeen.’
‘It’s Phredde’s mum’s,’ I said. ‘Phredde borrowed it on account of…’ I hesitated. It’s not exactly attractive to say you get bus sick. Not that I wanted to be attractive to Bruce exactly. Well, I did, but…
Amelia looked at the carpet dubiously. ‘It doesn’t have seatbelts,’ she pointed out.
‘Gee, thanks, Amelia,’ I said. ‘That’s because it doesn’t have any seats.’
‘Or any luggage racks.’
‘We’ll hold onto the bags.’
‘What happens if you crash into birds or flies or…’
‘Impossible,’ I said, crossing my fingers behind my back and brushing the bird doings off my shoulder.
‘Hey, cool!’ said Bruce again. ‘Maybe if I stick my tongue out a whole heap of flies will land on it. We frogs have sticky tongues you know…’ He leapt off towards the carpet.
I gave Amelia a ‘Heh, heh, so much for you’ smirk and trotted after him.
* * *
8 Our castle is a magic one, which means our driveway isn’t made of boring concrete. See A Phaery Named Phredde.
9 See Phredde and the Temple of Gloom.
Chapter 4
Zoooommmm!!!!
Phredde sat in front so she could steer and I sat in the middle so I could yell at her when she forgot to and Bruce sat behind me so he would be able to let his sticky tongue trail through the air and maybe pick up some morning tea. We were just about to set off when Mrs Olsen galloped over.
Mrs Olsen is our teacher. She’s okay. I mean, for a teacher, she’s pretty good. She’s also a vampire but that’s alright, because she and her family have this really cool arrangement with the abattoir—the abattoir sells the meat and the Olsens get the bl…, er, red stuff.
Because she’s a vampire she was dressed in long sleeves and a hat with a dark veil and even gloves, because sunlight is deadly for a vampire. I mean really deadly, not just the ‘Oh, dear, you didn’t wear your hat at lunchtime, you’ll get skin cancer by the time you’re an antique fossil at forty-five’ sort of deadly that Mum is always going on about.
‘Come along now, everyone else is on the bus already…’ she began.
‘We don’t need the bus!’ said Phredde. ‘We’ve got a carpet! But thank you any way.’
‘Carpet! What’s a carpet got to do with…? Oh,’ said Mrs Olsen. Mrs Olsen has had a lot to get used to in the past year, what with having a phaery in her class, not to mention a giant frog, and then there were the dragon and the ogre too.10 ‘I see. It’s a flying carpet.’
‘Well, it will be when it gets off the ground,’ said Phredde. ‘At the moment it’s a lying-here
-on-the-netball-court carpet.’
‘It’s actually more a zooming carpet,’ I muttered, but no-one heard me.
‘Yes, well,’ said Mrs Olsen, straightening her sunglasses. ‘But I still think you’d better get on the bus…’
‘But we can’t!’ Phredde pointed out. ‘’Cause Pru gets bus sick! You remember what happened on the science excursion last year?’
I glared at Phredde. There was no need to bring that up. In fact, I’d only brought it all up on the science excursion because I’d had triple helpings of ham and cheese croissants for breakfast plus a superwhopper mango milkshake with extra cream and ice-cream for morning tea, and it wasn’t my fault if it all went…
‘Ah, yes,’ said Mrs Olsen thoughtfully. I could see that she remembered the last resting place of that superwhopper mango shake with extra cream and ice-cream really well. ‘Maybe it would be best if Prudence travelled outside the bus this time. But I really can’t let you go without a teacher…’ She gazed at the magic carpet—a bit longingly, I thought. ‘How fast does it go?’
‘Not fast at all!’ said Phredde virtuously, crossing her fingers behind her back.
‘Oh, good,’ said Mrs Olsen, though she looked a bit disappointed. She shrugged. ‘Well, I’d just better get on with you anyway. We can follow the buses. Do you think you can keep up with them?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Phredde assured her.
‘I’ll just go and tell the drivers. If you wouldn’t mind holding this for me.’ Mrs Olsen handed me her lunch—a big Thermos, which I didn’t suppose held a superwhopper mango milkshake11—and trotted off to the buses.
* * *
10 See A Phaery Named Phredde and Phredde and a Frog Named Bruce.
11 Being a vampire must be really boring sometimes. Just bl…, er, red stuff, red stuff, red stuff all the time.
Chapter 5
Zoooommmm Again
It was a bit crowded on the carpet, to tell the truth, what with me and Phredde and Bruce and Mrs Olsen, plus our bags and Mrs Olsen’s Thermos. Phredde gave a PING! to give the carpet extra power, and the carpet rose above the netball court, gave a sort of shiver and sped along the road behind the buses.
‘Errk,’ I coughed, ‘can’t you go a bit higher? I just got a lungful of exhaust!’
‘Sure,’ said Phredde.
PING!
We hovered above the school. The road stretched in front of us, with all the cars like tiny beetles and buses like longer beetles bumbling away.
‘Maybe just a little faster too,’ said Mrs Olsen wistfully. ‘Oh my, there’s such a lovely view from here.’
‘Erp,’ I burped, and tried not to look down.
‘Okay,’ said Phredde happily. ‘Just a bit faster…’
PING!
‘Phredde!’ I shrieked. ‘Slow down!’
‘Okay!’ agreed Phredde. PING!
The carpet zoomed even faster. ‘Phredde!’
‘Sorry!’ called Phredde. ‘I PINGed the wrong way!’ PING!
The world below was just a blur.
‘Don’t worry!’ yelled Phredde. ‘I think I have a handle on it now!’
Icicles were beginning to form on my nose. Even the sky was blurry.
‘No, really!’ cried Phredde. ‘I think this should do it!’
PING! BANG!!!!!!!!
The world shuddered around us. ‘Helllpp!’ I screamed. ‘It’s okay! It’s okay! I know how to stop it! I just…’
PING!
We stopped.
Chapter 6
The Beast with Beastly Breath
The magic carpet hovered in mid-air. ‘Er, Phredde,’ I said. ‘Yes?’ said Phredde. ‘Can you see the buses any more?’ ‘No,’ said Phredde. ‘Or the school grounds?’
‘No,’ said Phredde, peering down at the greenery below us. It was the greenest greenery I’d ever seen, and sort of squishy looking too. ‘Maybe we’re at the Big Koala Park already.’
‘Maybe,’ I said dubiously.
‘Yeah, that’s it,’ said Phredde; she sounded a bit nervous now. ‘We just got to the Big Koala Park ahead of everyone.’
Mrs Olsen swallowed behind me. ‘Well, girls, I think we’d better—aaarrrkkk!’
The aaarrrkkk! was because a giant head…actually a very tiny head but a really long neck had popped up in front of us. RIGHT in front of us.
‘Er, Mrs Olsen,’ I said. ‘How high do you think we are?’
Mrs Olsen peered down. ‘About ten metres,’ she judged.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘if we’re ten metres up then that beast has to be ten metres high.’
‘Hey, cool!’ said Bruce. ‘They’ve got pretty cool stuff at the Big Koala Wildlife Park.’
‘Huh,’ said Phredde. ‘It’s not real! It’s just a plastic model. Maybe it’s radio-controlled.’
The beast opened its mouth. It was a pretty small mouth, compared to the rest of it, about, oh, the size of our school hall doors. Big enough to fit a magic carpet with three kids—okay, one kid, one phaery, a magic frog and a vampire teacher—in it. Its teeth were about as long as a cricket bat but there were lots of them, and I don’t think they had ever been brushed either.
‘Graaaahhhhh,’ said the beast, its mouth hovering towards us.
‘Um, Phredde,’ I said. ‘Yeah?’ said Phredde.
‘That doesn’t smell like a plastic model. In fact it smells like…’
The pongy teeth drew closer.
‘Help!’ I shrieked. ‘Phredde, do something!’
‘Like what?’ yelled Phredde, staring at the fangs.
‘Like…like…get us out of here!’
‘Hurry,’ screamed Mrs Olsen.
PING! went Phredde.
Nothing happened. Well, when I say ‘nothing’ I mean the giant mouth came closer and closer till I could see its tonsils or maybe it was just the rhinoceros-sized snack it had had for breakfast, which still left a lot of room for us.
‘Phredde!’ I yelled.
‘I don’t know what’s wrong,’ shouted Phredde worriedly.
PING!
‘Put some ooomph into that PING!’ I screamed.
‘I’m trying!’ shouted Phredde. ‘I’m PINGing as hard as I can!’
‘Well that beast is trying to have us for morning tea!’
I could feel its warm breath now too. And smell it—even worse. That beast had obviously never heard of dental hygiene or dental floss. I mean, there were at least two crates of gunk between each tooth. And that tongue looked pretty putrid too.
PING!
Just as I was imagining our long, slow slide down past its tonsils and into its belly, to join all the munched, crunched and half digested bits of beastly breakfast…
PINGGG! The beast vanished.
‘Thanks, Phredde!’ I yelled.
‘That wasn’t Phredde!’ Bruce shouted from behind. ‘That was me! Now let’s get down from here!’
Chapter 7
The Big Koala Wildlife Park
So we landed. Well, not so much landed as went PLUNK!
‘I don’t know what’s wrong with it!’ said Phredde worriedly, picking herself up off the flying carpet then inspecting herself for bruises. ‘I tried to PING us to wherever the buses are and the carpet just dropped out of the sky!’
‘Mmmph,’ I said, then spat out the mouthful of…well, it wasn’t grass. Green stuff, anyway. Wet, soggy, slimy, green stuff. And we were sitting in the middle of it—as what had looked like green grass from above slowly sank around us and smelly black mud oozed up instead. ‘Yuk!’ I muttered, as I tried to scrape black ooze off my tracksuit. ‘Hey, Phredde, PING me clean, will you?’
‘I’m not sure my PING is working properly,’ said Phredde uncertainly.
‘Hey, this stuff is cool!’ yelled Bruce, leaping up froggy fashion and landing splonk! so he splashed even more mud onto me.
‘Yeah, but you’re a frog,’ I said, squelching to my feet. I hoiked up the flying carpet before it sank into the bog.
‘I think there’s a
dry patch over there,’ said Mrs Olsen. ‘Ooh, that was…interesting!’ she added. She gazed around. ‘I wonder where the Big Koala Wildlife Park entrance gate is?’
‘Dunno,’ I said. ‘Bruce, stop splashing like that!’ I began to trudge over to the knoll Mrs Olsen had pointed out, still dragging the carpet behind me.
It wasn’t much of a knoll, just a sort of bump in the general sludge. I looked around. Green sludge and more sludge, and at the edge of the sludge there were tree ferns and what looked like pine trees and maybe some banana trees except they didn’t have bananas on them—well, they weren’t gum trees, and they weren’t rose bushes or Phaeryland lollipop trees, which covers just about all the trees I can identify.
And the air was hot too, and humid, which it hadn’t been when we left school.
Mrs Olsen looked worried. ‘I can’t see the buses anywhere,’ she said. ‘And there should be a kiosk and picnic tables and a souvenir shop too…It all looks bigger than I expected and—and slimier.’
‘Well, I think this Wildlife Park is cool,’ said Phredde. ‘I wonder if we’ll see any more monsters.’
I shuddered. ‘I hope not!’
‘They won’t be real,’ said Phredde comfortingly. ‘That one looked real!’
‘It was probably radio-controlled. Or computerised or maybe even a hologram or something,’ said Bruce vaguely. He’s more interested in flies and mozzies than computers. ‘Look, why don’t we just go that way?’ He pointed a froggy hand. ‘We’re sure to get to a path or something.’
I gazed around. All I could see was one thousand shades of green, except where we’d landed and it was oozing black mud—and the sky, which had clouded over and was a sort of blank grey above us.
‘Good idea,’ said Mrs Olsen briskly. She looked at her watch. ‘Even if we have got here first, the buses should arrive soon. We don’t want everyone to have to wait for us. Quick march everyone!’
‘Why can’t we use the flying carpet?’ I asked.
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