Of course everyone was a bit surprised to see Miss Richards there because she was supposed to be back in the library at school. They were even more surprised to see her wearing a ripped leopard-skin miniskirt, and to see me and Phredde in snake-skin skirts too. (You should have seen Amelia’s face—she was so jealous.)
And everyone was really well behaved all day, even Edwin, because Mrs Olsen still looked, well, vampire-like and even when she smiled her fangs sort of shone and you really, really didn’t want to get on her bad side.
But apart from that it was a pretty good excursion and the koalas were cool even if they didn’t do much (they were a bit of a letdown actually after rhoetosauruses and a Demon Duck of Doom). And I had three hamburgers and a sausage roll and two milkshakes from the kiosk.
Cuddles liked hamburgers and milkshakes too. In fact, he had even more than me. It didn’t matter that I didn’t have any money to pay for them, either (I’d left my school bag back in the Jurassic) because the lady at the kiosk said sort of nervously that the little bird could have all the hamburgers he wanted, and so could I, but please get him to stop eating the tables.
And then we went home.
Chapter 27
Home to the Castle
I had to explain to Mum how come I’d lost my tracksuit and come back with a leather skirt and top, of course. I think she believed me, especially when Cuddles started kicking down the kitchen door till Gark fed him a leg of lamb and two banana cakes and half a dozen lettuces and a cucumber and three tomatoes. (Cuddles really loved tomatoes.)
‘So he just followed me home from 100,000 years ago!’ I finished. ‘Can I keep him, Mum? Please? He’s just a baby and he doesn’t have anywhere else to go because his mum is 100,000 years away!’
Mum looked at Cuddles a bit warily. ‘Well, I don’t think the dog pound or the RSPCA would accept a Demon Duck of Doom.’
‘Just a baby one,’ I put in.
‘Even a baby one. So I suppose we’ll have to keep him.’
‘Quack,’ said Cuddles happily, inspecting the video to see if he could eat it.
‘But I don’t know what your father will say,’ finished Mum.
‘He’ll say what he said when I gave him the jaguar and the giant sloth and the piranhas!’ I said happily. ‘He’ll just gasp a bit and then he’ll say—“Great, Prudence, great. Just what we need.”’
‘Quack,’ agreed Cuddles, crunching up the video.
I left Cuddles in the kitchen finishing off the potatoes and a couple of watermelons and the garbage bin, and climbed the tower stairs to find Mark. I’d got a present for him.
It was this really great idea I’d had during the afternoon at the Big Koala Park and Phredde’s mum had PINGed it up for me when she came to pick us up, because somehow the flying carpet had got lost in the explosion and Phredde still couldn’t PING till she got her next allowance and we didn’t have any money to get a bus home because my school bag was still 100,000 years away. (I’d tried PINGing again too, but it still hadn’t worked. I guess Miss Richards was right. I could only PING with my friends if I really HAD to.)
‘Hey, Dog Breath,’ I yelled, ‘I’m home!’
‘So what?’ said Mark’s voice behind the door. He sounded depressed.
I opened the door and there was Mark, lying on his bed (he has a doggie basket too for when he’s a werewolf) and looking miserable.
‘I’ve been thinking about you and Tracey,’ I said.
‘There is no me and Tracey,’ said Mark sadly. ‘She never wants to see me again!’
‘Look, cheer up…’ I said.
Mark shook his head. ‘I’ll never be happy again! She had the longest whitest fangs of any werewolf I’ve ever met,’ he mourned. ‘And the glossiest coat and the fluffiest tail and the prettiest paws and…’
‘No, Mark, really,’ I said.
‘What?’ muttered Mark.
‘I’ve got something for you. It’ll fix everything up.’
Mark looked vaguely hopeful. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s in the corridor,’ I said. ‘It won’t fit in your room.’
Mark hauled himself off the bed and peered out into the corridor. ‘What the…!’ he exclaimed. ‘Where did you get THAT, Pruneface?’
‘Oh, I saw one like it back in the Jurassic,’ I said airily. ‘And I got Phredde’s mum to PING up one just like it.’
‘I’ve never seen one as big as that!’ breathed Mark. ‘It’s awesome, Pruneface, simply awesome.’
‘It’s not bad,’ I said airily. ‘Do you think Tracey will like it?’
‘Like it! It’s the biggest bone in the world today!’ he sniffed. ‘And the smelliest!’ he added admiringly.
‘Well, we didn’t have any fridges back in the Jurassic,’ I confessed. ‘And you’d smell too if you were a 144-million-year-old dinosaur bone.’
For a moment I thought he was going to ask exactly what I’d been doing back in the Jurassic. But you know brothers—they’ve got one-track minds. ‘I bet Tracey has never even smelt a bone as pongy as that one!’ cried Mark. Suddenly he looked at me a bit worriedly. ‘You’re sure you can spare it, Pruneface? I mean, it’s such a super awesome bone.’
‘I can spare it,’ I assured him. ‘I hardly ever eat dinosaur bones.’
‘Okay!!!’ Mark dashed to the mirror, combed his hair, inspected his teeth—normal-size teeth today because he wasn’t a werewolf at the moment—then dashed out into the corridor and began tugging the dinosaur bone down the stairs.
Chapter 28
Not Quite the End
(Because who knows when we’ll have our next adventure.)
Well, that’s the end of that story. Mum said I had to keep my snake-skin skirt and top for really special occasions, but she didn’t say what they were. And Dad built Cuddles a special Demon Duck of Doom house down in the rose garden, except it isn’t a rose garden any more because Cuddles ate the rose bushes and six bags of fertiliser and the spade.
And that night, as I was brushing my teeth for bed (it was even good to have a toothbrush again—believe it or not, dental hygiene had become much more important to me since I’d seen the mouths of those who didn’t brush or floss), I looked out the window and there, up on the castle turret in the light of the full moon, were two werewolves, their heads close together, howling contentedly at the sky.
I smiled. Mark was happy again and so was I, and I had the two best friends in the world, and it didn’t matter if I couldn’t PING all the time, like them.
In fact I didn’t even think about PINGing again till we were down that secret tunnel with the skeleton and…
But that’s another story.21
* * *
21 See Phredde and the Purple Pyramid.
Author’s Notes
A Few Weird Animals in this Book
The Demon Duck of Doom (aka thunder bird, mirihung, Bullockornis planei): These grew to two metres high or more, and weighed about 200-300 kilos. The name ‘Demon Duck of Doom’ was given to them by Walter Boles of the Australian Museum, who has studied the petrified brain of one of them. The Tjapwurong people of Western Victoria called giant birds like these ‘mirihung paringmal’ and had an oral tradition (history passed on in stories) about these giant emu-like birds who were alive when volcanoes were still erupting in Victoria—at least 6000 or 7000 years ago.
Spotty leopard or lion: Thylacoleo carnifex, a bit smaller than a modern leopard, with knife-like teeth and a long tail. Its back feet were like a possum’s so it could probably climb trees—but I don’t know if it was spotty or not! Modern native cats can have faintly spotty fur, so I decided to give the leopard in this story spots and soft fur as well and call it a leopard instead of a lion (it isn’t really either a lion or a leopard).
Long-nosed wombats: Neohelos ranged from the size of a big dog to the size of a hippopotamus and, of course, had long noses.
Giant tree kangaroos: Bohra paulae. Imagine a possum the size of an Alsatian dog with a long nose and a pouch a
nd a really long tail, and you’ve just about got it. Modern tree kangaroos eat leaves and new shoots and fruit and blossom; maybe giant tree kangaroos ate lots of these, or maybe they ate other food too.
Flat-faced kangaroos: Procoptodon pusio. These looked like modern kangaroos that someone had punched in the face. Their arms were longer, and like wallabies (and humans) they could probably use their arms and hands to pull down vines and branches and pick up fruit.
Giant kangaroo: Procoptodon goliath (or short-faced giant kangaroos). (My reference doesn’t have the h in goliath, a common enough misprint.) Really big kangaroos with flat faces. They had a large single toe on each foot, and each hand had two long fingers with large claws.
Giant goanna: Megalania prisca. Seven metres long and weighing about 600 kilos. It probably looked pretty much like modern goannas, except for its size.
Furry rhinoceros: Zygomaturus trilobus. Think of a wombat crossed with a rhinoceros and the size of a cow.
Rhoetosaurus: About fifteen metres long and weighing probably twenty tonnes. They had a short, stiff tail and a very long neck.
Paracyclotosaurus davidi: A 2.5-metre-long amphibian with a wide mouth that lurked under the water to suck in passing fish—or kids lost from the twenty-first century!
Giant echidna: Zaglossus ramsayi. They probably ate worms and beetles as well as the ants and termites that modern echidnas mostly eat today.
Giant turtle: Meiolania platyceps. About two metres long with spiky horns and a spiked tail and powerful claws. It probably lived on land as well as on the water.
How extinct animals lived
The main problem with finding out how extinct animals lived is that they’re dead—you can’t just go and have a look! All we have are fossils of their bones or their footprints and sometimes eggs. So scientists have to work out what shape they were and what sounds they made and what they ate either by examining the bone structure and working out where muscles and tendons would have gone, or by looking for modern animals which might live the same way.
I decided to give the marsupial ‘leopards’ in this book spots because modern quolls have spots, and they also live in Australian forests and eat meat—but the marsupial ‘leopards’ might have been bright orange with purple feet for all we know (probably not, though, as most animals blend in with their environment so fierce animals can’t see them too easily and eat them—or, if they are fierce animals, so their dinner doesn’t notice them too soon as they sneak up and pounce).
There’s no evidence either that Demon Ducks of Doom hatched their eggs like brush turkeys do, in mounds of leaves. They might have laid them in termite mounds, like goannas, or the male Demon Duck might have looked after the eggs, like modern emus. But while Demon Ducks looked a bit like emus, they are more closely related to geese and ducks, so I decided not to base their behaviour on emus.
If you decide to study thunder birds, you may come up with a much better idea of how they lived!
More information
If you want to know more about Australian prehistoric animals (which are often really different from the American or European ones that you see in Hollywood movies) or Aussie volcanoes or how to survive in the bush if you’re suddenly stranded there by a flying carpet out of control, zap down to the library. You may not find Miss Richards, but there will be someone who can point you to the books that’ll tell you what you want to know!22
(If you are interested in all Aussie animals, alive or prehistoric, the Australian Museum’s magazine Nature Australia is a great place to start! Ask your librarian for a look at that too!)
P.S. Miss Richards was a whiz at survival skills, but five of you really can build a wattle-and-daub hut in six hours (I’ve done it). And once you know what to look for, finding all sorts of bush tucker to stuff your face with doesn’t take long either—and it’s much more fun than shopping in a supermarket!
All the ‘bush tucker’ in Phredde and the Leopard-skin Librarian grows on our place (except for the fish—pity, I like fish!) and an hour’s foraging gives me heaps to eat.
P.P.S. You can milk modern echidnas, but I don’t recommend it. The echidnas don’t like it, you don’t get much milk, and it tastes peculiar!
* * *
22 If you’re lucky she (or he) will be wearing fake leopard skin.
Phredde and the Vampire Footy Team
Jackie French
Dedication
To all the Club Cool kids,
lots of love, Jackie
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Cast of Characters
From Bruce’s Diary
Chapter 1 The Trouble with Frogs—and Giant Hairy Gorillas
Chapter 2 FLOINGGGGGGGGGGG?
Chapter 3 FLOINGGGGGGGGGgg!…Again
Chapter 4 Pru Tries to Work it Out
Chapter 5 Phredde Experiments
Chapter 6 The Strange Mr Ploppy Bottom
Chapter 7 Bruce Arrives
Chapter 8 Vampires! (and Cuddles tries to eat the boys’ toilets…again)
Chapter 9 No Magic!
Chapter 10 How Do I Tell Mum?
Chapter 11 Preparing for the Bloodsuckers!
Chapter 12 Mr Ploppy Bottom’s Secret
Chapter 13 The Bloodsuckers Arrive
Chapter 14 Zac the Bat!
Chapter 15 Feeding with a Vampire
Chapter 16 Sports Day!
Chapter 17 The Football Match
Chapter 18 Will the Bloodsuckers Win?
Chapter 19 Off to the Dance
Chapter 20 The Deadly Creatures from Beyond the Gates of Reality
Chapter 21 The Headless Horse-person and the Lhiannan-shee
Chapter 22 The Really Big, Bad Wolf
Chapter 23 A Gytrash
Chapter 24 The Phaery Godmother Arrives!
Chapter 25 Mr Ploppy Bottom Confesses
Chapter 26 Bruce Asks a Question
Chapter 27 Two Frogs in the Moonlight
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.
P.S. Don’t called Bruce a fairy either. He won’t kneecap you but you might find dried flies in your muesli.
Mrs Olsen: Pru, Phredde and Bruce’s teacher. Also a vampire, but don’t worry, she and her family have a friendly arrangement with the abattoir—the butchers get the meat and the vampires get the bloo…, er, red stuff. Keeps her coffin with the art supplies in the storeroom.
Mark: Pru’s older brother. Also a werewolf every full moon, a trait inherited from his father’s side of the family. (Great Uncle Ron is also a werewolf.) Answers to ‘Dog’s Breath’ but don’t try it if you can’t run fast. Likes chasing cars, football. His favourite snack food is corn chips and corgis.
The Phaery Splendifera: Phredde’s mum. Loves crosswords, honeydew nectar and racing magic carpets. Wants her darling baby Ethereal to marry a nice handsome pri
nce when she grows up. DO NOT mention this to Phredde.
Amelia: In Pru’s, Phredde’s and Bruce’s class at school. You don’t really want to know anything more about her.
Edwin: The same goes for Edwin.
Mr Ploppy Bottom: Oops, sorry, Plothiebotham. Relief principal while Mrs Allen is recovering from the volcano exploding and Cuddles eating the boys’ toilets. He’s sooo nice—or is he?
Cuddles: Pru’s Demon Duck of Doom, or Dromornis stirtoni. She’s three metres high. Cuddles followed Pru home from 100,000 BC (see Phredde and the Leopard-skin Librarian). Eats footballs, goalposts, video players, and the boys’ toilets.
Shaun the vampire: Also a kid and star footy player from Batrock Central School. He has…um…old-fashioned habits! And he eats his prey…live…
From Bruce’s Diary
Saturday
First day of school holidays.
Sat on lily pad.
Ate flies. Hopped around a bit.
The Phredde Collection Page 42