Mr Ploppy Bottom was still standing in the middle of the stage. ‘Doom? Doom?’ he asked hopefully.
‘Nope,’ said Phredde. ‘Doom’s over for the night.’
‘You’ve failed, Mr Plothiebotham,’ croaked Bruce.
‘But…but I can’t have failed!’ stammered Mr Ploppy Bottom. ‘I planned it so carefully! I studied all I could about the Gates of Reality and how to open them! I even kidnapped your Principal!’
‘You what?’ I yelled. ‘You mean you’re NOT a real Principal?’
‘No,’ said Mr Ploppy Bottom. ‘I’m a computer salesman! I LOVE computers! Computers do what they’re programmed to do! That’s why I hate magic! I despise magic! Magic is unpredictable, magic is…’
‘Then where’s Mrs Allen?’ interrupted Phredde.
‘He, he, he!’ giggled Mr Ploppy Bottom. ‘You’ll never find her!’
‘You mean you’ve hidden Mrs Allen?’ shouted Bruce. ‘Where is she?’
‘She’s in his study!’ I yelled. ‘That’s why he’d never let anyone go inside his study! I bet he’s hidden her in the study! Hey, Shaun, Zac! Guard this creep will you?’
‘Certainly!’ said Shaun. ‘Sit, you alliaceous17 pedagogue18.’
‘He’s not a teacher! He’s a fraud!’ I told him. ‘Come on!’
Phredde, Bruce and I raced up to the office. Well, I raced, Phredde flew and Bruce bounced along like he was practising to be a kangaroo. I gripped the office door and…
‘It’s locked!’ I cried. ‘Phredde, PING! it open.’
‘I can’t! School rules!’
‘But he’s a fraud!’
‘Still…’ Phredde looked torn. Phaeries are VERY law abiding.
‘No worries,’ said Bruce happily.
Zot!
Bruce’s tongue flicked out and zapped the lock. ‘Most people don’t realise frog tongues can do that,’ he added.
‘Most frogs don’t unlock doors.’ I flung the door open and we sped down the corridor.
Zot! Bruce unlocked Mr Ploppy Bottom’s—Mrs Allen’s—door. We rushed inside.
I stared around. The office was empty.
‘She’s not here!’ I cried. ‘Where can he have put her?’
‘Try the desk drawer!’ suggested Phredde.
I glared at her. ‘She’s not a phaery! She wouldn’t fit in the desk drawer!’
‘Try the cupboard!’ croaked Bruce.
Zot! The cupboard door swung open. And there was Mrs Allen, tied to a chair. She was gagged and her wrists were tied too, but she could still use her hands. She was reading a book from a pile on the floor beside her. There was a giant chocolate milkshake there too, with a straw.
I pulled the gag off her while Phredde fumbled with the ropes. ‘Mrs Allen, are you all right?’ I yelled.
Mrs Allen blinked at us. Well, okay, I was still dressed as a pumpkin and Phredde was still a wasp. But at least Bruce looked googly eyed and normal.
‘We’ve come to rescue you!’ added Bruce.
‘Rescue me? Oh yes,’ said Mrs Allen vaguely, staring at my pumpkin-stalk hat. ‘You know, it’s been so peaceful in the cupboard—books to read, all the chocolate milkshakes I wanted. He even put a little hole in the gag so I could use the straw, and I was allowed to visit the bathroom as soon as everyone left for the day…’
‘You’re safe now,’ I assured her. ‘Don’t worry, everything is under control!’
‘Yeah,’ said Bruce, ‘Pru fought the headless horse-person and zapped a Lhiannan-shee, she talked the big, bad wolf into having a cup of tea and a scone in the hall, my Phaery Godmother got rid of the Gytrash and the Batrock vampire football team are guarding Mr Ploppy Bottom and…’
‘Gytrash? Wolf? Vampires?’ asked Mrs Allen faintly. She stood shakily. ‘It…it was so peaceful in my cupboard,’ she whispered.
‘But you’re our Principal again now!’ I informed her. I suddenly remembered something. ‘Do you think you could change the rule that says no one is allowed to do any magic at school?’
Mrs Allen nodded dazedly. ‘School rule? Magic? Oh, of course. Consider it changed.’
PING!
Mrs Allen vanished.
‘I PING!ed her home to bed,’ announced Bruce. ‘She looked like she needed a good night’s sleep.’
PING!
‘Was that you or Phredde PING!ing?’ I asked him.
‘Both of us,’ said Bruce smugly. ‘We haven’t had the dance yet! So I PING!ed the time back to eight o’clock.’
‘And I PING!ed Mr Ploppy Bottom to the hospital,’ said Phredde. She shook her head. ‘He needs some serious counselling. Imagine not liking magic? Weird!’
I tried to think. Deadly creatures from beyond the Gates of Reality all vanquished, insane Principal fixed up, Mrs Allen rescued…there was only one thing left to do.
‘Let’s dance!’ I yelled.
And so we did.
Chapter 26
Bruce Asks a Question
It was a great dance. There weren’t any teachers now that Mr Ploppy Bottom had gone. (I KNEW that no one with a name like Plothiebotham would ever be dumb enough to become a teacher—or at least not without giving some pretty heavy-duty thought to changing his name.) So we could have the music up as loud as we liked, especially since Phredde PING!ed a sound barrier outside so none of the neighbours could hear.
You should have seen those mosquito-suckers dance!
We danced for hours—Phredde had PING!ed it so time would stay at eight o’clock as long as we wanted it to.
I was the happiest pumpkin in the world! Almost totally happy, anyway. I danced with Zac, and then with Shaun. And then with EVERYBODY.
Except Bruce. Bruce didn’t ask me to dance once. I sort of watched him out of the corner of my eye. He danced with Amelia. (Huh! I thought, that ankle got better pretty quick.) Then he danced with one of the vampires, and then Amelia again…
And I didn’t care. Not a bit.
Or not much.
Hardly at all, really…
It had been eight o’clock for about three hours, and I was thinking I might have some supper, if the big, bad wolf had left any scones, when suddenly there was a croak behind me. ‘Pru?’
I didn’t turn around. ‘What do you want?’
‘Would you like to go for a walk?’
I kept my gaze on the pikelets with strawberry jam. And the big, bad wolf had left some date scones as well, so I picked one up and took a bite out of it. ‘Why?’
‘Because it’s too noisy to talk in here.’
I hesitated. If there had been a teacher around we wouldn’t have been allowed. But there wasn’t. ‘All right,’ I said at last.
PING!
I looked around. ‘Where are we?’
‘Next to my lily pond at home.’
It was a pretty cool lily pond. It went on for kilometres, with lilies and water slides and moonlight shining on Bruce’s castle way in the distance.
‘Pru?’
‘Well? What do you want to say?’
I wasn’t sure whether to be angry or grateful to him about the Phaery Godmother stuff. I know he’d meant well. It was a really nice thing to do, in fact. But it hadn’t been what I’d WANTED him to do. I’d wanted him to be a normal kid, just for my birthday.
But Bruce was…Bruce. A frog. And even if I hadn’t really liked frogs since I accidentally sat on one in Year Three, it looked like he wasn’t going to stop being a frog any time soon. Even for me.
Or if he was, I thought slowly, did I really want him to? Did I really want a friend who’d change who he was, just because some girl asked him to?
Did I want to be the sort of friend who’d ask?
I turned to look at him. His big, googly eyes shone in the moonlight, and his skin looked damper than ever.
‘You know how you turned into a bat with Shaun?’ croaked Bruce slowly.
I blinked. Whatever I’d expected him to say, it wasn’t that! ‘Yes,’ I said cautiously.
‘Was it
fun?’
‘Yes,’ I said, even more cautiously.
‘I just wondered,’ said Bruce slowly.
‘Wondered what?’
‘If you’d like to try being a frog,’ said Bruce with a gulp.
I stared at him. Me? Be a frog? But that was…that was…
It wasn’t SUCH a crazy idea, I thought suddenly. At least we’d be the same species. And I trusted Bruce. If I didn’t like being a frog he’d turn me back into a pumpkin.
‘Well,’ I said.
‘Well, what?’ asked Bruce anxiously.
‘Well, maybe…’ I began.
PING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chapter 27
Two Frogs in the Moonlight
‘…And those are gnats,’ said Bruce happily. ‘They’re really tiny but they’re even sweeter than flies.’
I plopped onto the next lily pad and glared at him. ‘I’m NOT eating a fly!’
‘Try a gnat then. Just one. You’ll like it. Really.’
‘Well, maybe…just one.’ I looked at the gnat cautiously. Suddenly my tongue shot out, almost by itself. It kept on going and going and going.
Zap. My tongue was back in my mouth. So was the gnat. I crunched it nervously.
‘You’re right,’ I said in surprise. ‘It tastes like…like peanuts, with a hint of crab cakes.’
‘You wait till you taste mosquitoes!’ said Bruce eagerly. ‘There’s a lot of good eating to be had from mosquitoes! And you know what the very best thing about mosquitoes is?’
‘No.’
‘Where there’s one mosquito there’s hundreds! Come on!’
I watched as Bruce splashed from lily pad to lily pad across the pond. The moonlight glinted off the water and onto our brown pulsating skins.
I took a deep breath and…but that’s another story19.
1See Phredde and the Purple Pyramid.
2See Phredde and a Frog Named Bruce.
3See Phredde and the Purple Pyramid.
4See Phredde and the Purple Pyramid.
5See Phredde and the Leopard-skin Librarian.
6I got that word from Mum’s crosswords. It means sing sweetly like a budgie—Pru.
7See Phredde and the Zombie Librarian.
8That’s a fancy vampire way of saying ‘staring at’.
9cowardly garlic-lover
10wicked lie
11splendid, luxurious
12daily
13flavoursome
14always hunting for food
15people who hate garlic
16dark
17garlic smelling
18teacher
19See Phredde and the Runaway Ghost Train in 2006 (with additional material by William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar and a small alien called Ziff, who happened to be flying by at the time).
Phredde and the Ghostly Underpants: A Story to Eat with a Mango
Jackie French
Dedication
To Alexandra, Claudia, Annabelle and Emma: may your lives be filled with music, lots of love, Jackie.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Cast of Characters
Chapter 1 The Will
Chapter 2 The Trouble with Phaeries
Chapter 3 Prix’s Mansion
Chapter 4 Mysteries…
Chapter 5 Prudence Faces the Future
Chapter 6 The Vanishing Underpants
Chapter 7 Stranger and Stranger…
Chapter 8 Jack the Clipper
Chapter 9 Prudence Looks for Answers
Chapter 10 Uncle Carbuncle
Chapter 11 Phredde and Bruce’s Secret
Chapter 12 Alone!
Chapter 13 Pru’s Busy Day
Chapter 14 Trapped!
Chapter 15 Not Even a Dungeon!
Chapter 16 Rescue!
Chapter 17 The Ghost Train Arrives
Chapter 18 A Long Dark Night
Chapter 19 Things are Always Flat when an Adventure Ends
Chapter 20 A Surprise in Phaeryland
Chapter 21 Not the End at All
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-centimetre-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 call 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 and 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 prince when she grows up. DO NOT mention this to Phredde.
Amelia: In Pru’s, Phredde’s and Bruce’s class at school. The sort of girl who makes sure everyone knows she wears a G-string and has downloaded ‘I’m The Most Beautiful Girl in the World’ as her mobile-phone ring tone.
Edwin: Also in Pru’s, Phredde’s and Bruce’s class at school. Picks his nose and EATS it.
Mr Nahsti: President of the Society for the Improvement of Children’s Manners. Also a solicitor, but if you are leaving someone a mansion in your will, don’t trust him. Wears a dead rat to cover up his bald spot.
Uncle Carbuncle: Mysterious relative of Pru’s. Dead.
Wee Willie: A doodle puppy (that’s a cross between a poodle and a Doberman). Has a problem with his bladder. Dead too.
Underpants Annie: Dead as well. But don’t trust her with your underpants.
Cookie: Shearer’s cook. Diseased. Oops, sorry, that should read ‘deceased’.
Jack the Clipper: Don’t panic, that’s Clipper not Ripper. Also deceased.
Knock-knock: Used to drive a steam train. Now mostly makes up knock-knock jokes. Avoid them if you can.
Slime: A slimy, oozy, ghostly…thing.
Chapter 1
The Will
‘You mean it’s all MINE?’ I yelled.
Mr Nahsti, the solicitor, nodded.
‘A mansion in the bush with a great big park around it and…what was all that other stuff?’
Mr Nahsti read from his list. ‘A lake, two hundred hectares of land. And…’ he gave a slight cough,’a small graveyard.’
I was so happy I stopped staring at the dead rat on his head. ‘How hot is that?’ I shouted. ‘My very own graveyard!’
‘Is there any money too?’ asked Dad hopefully.
Money has been a bit tight at our place lately. Okay, we live in a castle, but that’s only because Phredde’s mum PING!ed it up for
us. But phaeries can’t PING! money or anything else that changes the world too much, like doing well in a geography exam or peace on earth, just castles and glass slippers and time tunnels to Ancient Egypt.
‘There is some money,’ said Mr Nahsti. ‘Enough invested to cover rates and other costs.’
‘I suppose Pru could rent the mansion out and make money that way,’ said Dad thoughtfully. My brother Mark is going to uni next year and that’s going to cost our family heaps. Plus if I want to go to uni too, in a few years’ time, that’s going to cost even more.
I tried to stop bouncing in my seat. My own mansion! I couldn’t wait to see my classmates’ faces at school. NO ONE has their own mansion!
Mum looked worried. Why do mums look worried over the least little thing, like being kidnapped by a zombie librarian,1 or going out without my hat on, or being left a mansion and a lake and my own graveyard?
‘But how can Prudence inherit all these things?’ she asked.
‘You weren’t listening, Mum! My Uncle Carbuncle left them to me.’
The Phredde Collection Page 51