The Phredde Collection (7 page)

I had glass slippers on my feet, and I was wearing a ball gown that weighed a tonne there were so many glittering gems and edgings of lace on it.

Phredde’s mum stood back and looked at me thoughtfully. ‘Not bad,’ she said. ‘You do scrub up well, Prudence. Now all you need is a tiara.’

‘Mum, not a tiara!’ groaned Phredde. ‘It’s bad enough that I have to wear one!’

‘Well, a diadem then. Or maybe just a string of diamond flowers strung through your hair—yes, that’s what you need. It would look so pretty.’

‘Pretty,’ muttered Phredde.

‘Phredde, can you conjure some up for her? I need to get changed myself.’

Phredde nodded glumly as her mum flew purposefully out the door.

I looked at Phredde and she looked at me.

‘It’s not
too
bad,’ I said comfortingly.

‘It’s worse,’ moaned Phredde. ‘All this muck and we haven’t even got to Phaeryland yet. Why can’t I have a normal birthday like everyone else in the class with a barbecue in the backyard…and…and…and proper presents…and…’

‘What did you get?’ I asked. I was trying to change the subject, although I agreed with her. I think what you do on your birthday should be your choice, not your parent’s. It’s the one day of the year
that is
yours,
but there was no point moaning about it.

‘Nothing yet,’ muttered Phredde. ‘I’ll get my presents in Phaeryland with the Phaery Queen. It’s tradition.’

‘What do you want?’

‘A tyrannosaurus,’ said Phredde, even more glumly. ‘Just a baby tyrannosaurus to play with after school. But I bet I don’t get one. You know what Mum said when I asked her?’

‘What?’

‘She said, “We’ll see.” You know what parents mean when they say that.’

I nodded. Every kid knows what ‘we’ll see’ means. It means ‘no and I don’t want to argue so keep your mouth zipped or I’ll get angry.’

‘What did you get last year?’ I asked.

‘Nothing much,’ muttered Phredde. Then she shrugged, ‘Well, I did, but it’s embarrassing.’

‘Hey, it’s me,’ I said. ‘I tell you embarrassing things. Like Mum asking me right in the middle of the supermarket if I’d brushed my teeth and…’

‘It was a teddy bear,’ said Phredde in disgust. ‘A giant walking, talking teddy bear! I mean if I’d been four I might have liked it.’ She blew out a sigh so strong it ruffled her new fringe under the tiara. ‘You just don’t know Phaeryland,’ she added.

‘Is it really so horrible?’ I was beginning to feel like maybe, just maybe, I shouldn’t have come. Maybe Phaeryland wasn’t all it was cracked up to be in the picture books.

‘No. It’s not horrible at all,’ said Phredde. ‘It’s nice. It’s TOO nice. In fact, it’s nothing BUT nice. And everyone has to be nice and wear nice clothes and
do nice dances, and smile and be nice to everyone else.’

‘Always?’ I said aghast.

‘Always,’ affirmed Phredde.

‘But what if they aren’t?’

‘They always are. Everyone, all the time. But you know something?’ Phredde grinned. It was the sort of grin she had last Thursday when she…well, perhaps you don’t need to know about that. Just in case Mum or Mrs Olsen gets to read this.

‘What?’ I asked. I get a bit nervous when Phredde grins like that.

‘I’ve decided something. This time it’s all going to be different. Because I’m not going to be “nice” at all this time. I’m going to…’

Suddenly the door opened again and Phredde’s mum fluttered in.

‘Are you girls ready yet? Oh, Ethereal, Prudence still doesn’t have her garland. I TOLD you to hurry…’ She did her whatever it is that’s too quick to see, and all at once there was a weight on my head that I just knew was diamonds—in the shape of flowers, naturally.

‘Come on now—your father’s waiting downstairs. Prudence dear, what’s wrong?’

‘It’s the glass slippers,’ I said. ‘They don’t bend when I walk.’

‘Don’t worry. You’ll get used to them.’

‘Can’t I just wear my joggers? No one will see them under my skirt. Or thongs?’

‘No,’ said Phredde’s mum.

Phredde’s mum glided downstairs, leaving us to follow her.

‘What does she think I am? Cinderella!’ I muttered. (Well, you try walking in glass slippers. And they were HOT. It was okay for Phredde’s mum and even Phredde—they didn’t have to put their feet on the ground if they didn’t want to).

‘Smile,’ said Phredde grimly. ‘We’re off to Phaeryland.’

So there we were the four of us, down in the dining room, the females dressed up like Sleeping Beauty’s great-aunt Gloria, and Phredde’s dad all fancy in black velvet and silver trim (at least he didn’t have to wear a tiara and glass slippers—life just isn’t fair for us girls), and my stomach was churning round and round and round and I thought, oh heck, we haven’t even started and already I’m beginning to feel sick.

From what Phredde had been telling me, vomit was probably illegal in Phaeryland and I’d be arrested in my first two minutes there…

Phredde’s mum smiled at Phredde’s dad and said, ‘Will you do the honours, dear?’

‘Of course, dear,’ said Phredde’s dad. ‘Prudence, if you’d just hold hands with Ethereal so you don’t get lost in the Ether—just in case…that’s right.’

Phredde grabbed my hand…well, my little finger actually. Phredde’s whole body is not much bigger than my hand.

‘Too late to back out now!’ whispered Phredde.

…and suddenly it was cold and I mean COLD, except I couldn’t feel anything. The world was just nothing and nothing and nothing and it MUST have been cold because there was nothing else to feel and then…

BLINK, we were in Phaeryland, and I didn’t feel sick at all.

‘Glerp!’ I said. I felt myself carefully. I seemed to be all there. And the others were there too…‘Hey!’ I yelled. ‘You’re all as big as I am!’

Phredde’s mum grinned. ‘That’s what happens in Phaeryland,’ she said.

‘How come? Are you bigger? Or have I shrunk?’

‘Neither,’ said the new gigantic Phredde’s mum.

‘But…but it must be one or the other.’

‘Not in Phaeryland,’ said the big economy-sized Phredde’s dad. He was grinning too, like it was something in the air.

I took another look at the new, giant Phredde—I mean, she didn’t look
different
just because she was big and I realised I’d even sort of forgotten she was small—then gazed around. It was really something to stare at.

Have you ever seen pictures of Phaeryland in little-kid books? Those giant flowers and a million dancing butterflies in all the shades of a set of coloured pencils, and green, green grass and silver castles in the distance?

Well, it’s all true. Every bit of it. I don’t know how the authors of those books knew what Phaeryland was like, but they sure got it right.

I looked back at Phredde, the giant. She had this look on her face as though to say, Just let me get through this without vomiting, even though she’s never even been carsick.

Suddenly I wondered what she’d meant back in her bedroom when her mum had interrupted us. Exactly what was Phredde planning? But there was no way I could ask her just then, with everybody there.

‘What now?’ I asked.

‘We go to see the Phaery Queen,’ said Phredde’s mum, amazed. ‘Didn’t Ethereal tell you?’

‘Nope,’ said Phredde. ‘If Prudence knew what she was really getting into she wouldn’t have come.’

‘Oh nonsense,’ said Phredde’s mum. ‘You know how the Phaery Queen loves to see all her little subjects on their birthdays. You used to love it, Phredde.’

‘Yeah. When I was two and half,’ said Phredde.

Neither of her parents replied.

‘Which way to the Phaery Queen?’ I asked.

Phredde’s mum looked vague. ‘Oh, a hundred heartbeats and just past the golden grove,’ she said. ‘We’ll know it when we get there.’

‘How do we get there? Walk?’

I looked down at my feet. They were sweating like a penguin in a fish and chip shop. Glass slippers aren’t meant for walking and your feet would
die
if you tried to dance in them.

‘No, of course not,’ said Phredde’s dad. ‘Phredde, would you like to call the butterflies?’

‘Sure,’ said Phredde. She put two fingers in her mouth and gave this terrific whistle. (I wish I could do that—I must get her to show me how.)

‘Phredde, that’s not the way to do it in Phaeryland,’ said Phredde’s mum reproachfully.

‘Sorry, Mum,’ said Phredde, just as two huge butterflies fluttered down.

I mean, they were BIG. About the size of a small plane but without the cabin. They were gold and silver and blue and pink—a million colours shimmering.

The butterfly nearest to us gave me a sweet smile (I didn’t know butterflies could smile, but I got the feeling that everything smiled in Phaeryland—except Phredde, of course) and shimmered its wings at us invitingly.

‘Up you hop,’ said Phredde’s dad.

I gulped. ‘On those?’

‘Of course.’

‘But…but they don’t have seatbelts!’

Phredde’s dad laughed. ‘No one has ever fallen off a butterfly in Phaeryland,’ he said. ‘It isn’t done.’

He and Phredde’s mum climbed onto one of the butterflies and I climbed up behind Phredde onto the other one…carefully, because even if those giant wings were light and shimmery, they looked BIG and Phredde’s dad hadn’t said that no one had ever been knocked unconscious by a giant butterfly wing.

But it was okay once we were on. There are two narrow bits of body on a butterfly and Phredde straddled one and I straddled the other and the butterfly flapped lazily and we rose gently, gently…gently up into the sky.

I thought it might be cold up there in the sky, but I don’t suppose it’s ever cold in Phaeryland. The breeze was balmy—of COURSE the breeze was balmy—and all those flowers smelt like the perfume counter down at Woolies and the butterflies just fluttered along.

It was fun, even if it is hard holding onto a butterfly AND keeping your ball gown from riding up. Not as much fun as the Thunderwheel at Wonderland, or even the Outer Space Super Whirl, but it was pretty good.

So on we went, flapping over some enchanted woods—you can’t tell me that in real life trees grow as tall and as straight as that, and I bet they never have a drought or an El Niño in Phaeryland—and there were silver brooks running between the trees (no, they weren’t creeks—creeks are brownish and they don’t tinkle like brooks) and clusters of red and white
spotted mushrooms just like in the picture books, and here and there a phaery perched on a log playing the flute, or two or three dancing in a Phaery Ring.

I was starting to see why Phredde hadn’t wanted to come.

If I had been two I would have loved it. Three even, or maybe a babyish four. But at my age…

Gradually, this grand, silver castle in the distance drew nearer and nearer. It had spires and those chunky sort of towers that you see in Robin Hood movies, and a moat and a drawbridge—everything a castle should have. Just like ours and Phredde’s, but a million times more so, and it glowed in a way that no picture in a book ever could.

‘What’s it made of?’ I whispered to Phredde.

‘It’s carved out of a diamond,’ she said absently. ‘Just one giant diamond. Boy, I wish we hadn’t come.’

‘It’s not so bad,’ I said comfortingly.

‘Huh,’ said Phredde. ‘You wait. You haven’t seen the worst of it yet. And Mum and Dad will just smile as though I should be enjoying it. You know what Mum was doing last night?’

I shook my head.

‘She was reading
The Directory of Handsome Princes.
Handsome Princes! “Look Mum,” I said to her. “I’m way too young for that sort of thing!” and you know what she said?’ I shook my head and the diamond flowers rattled.

‘You’re never too young for a Handsome Prince,’
Phredde mimicked bitterly.

‘“In Australia you are,” I told her. Anyhow, what if I don’t want a prince when I grow up? What if I just want a normal bloke…or a goblin or a…’

‘What did your mum say?’ I asked.

‘Nothing,’ said Phredde bitterly. ‘She just smiled. You know that smile that mothers have.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Hey, Phredde, what did you mean when you said things were going to be different this time?’

Phredde winked. ‘I’ve got something planned,’ she said. ‘Something that’ll convince Mum and Dad that I’m not cut out for Phaeryland. I mean the old ways are okay for them—’

‘
What
have you planned?’ I was a bit alarmed. This was a strange country, and ever since the earthquake during the last exams I’ve realised Phredde sometimes doesn’t think before she acts. ‘You’re not planning a magic spell, are you?’

‘Of course not,’ said Phredde. ‘I couldn’t anyway. The Phaery Queen sees all the magic in Phaeryland before it happens.’

‘That’s okay then,’ I said, relieved.

‘No, it’s something else altogether,’ said Phredde, gleefully. ‘Not magic at all! It’s an idea I got from school. You remember last week when we…oh, blast, we’re here…’ She broke off as her parents glided up next to us.

The butterflies were landing now, gently gently gently, the way everything’s done in Phaeryland, till we were flat on the ground again, the butterflies wings just fluttering (gently) against the green, green grass.

Phredde’s giant dad smiled at me. ‘The Palace of the Phaery Queen,’ he announced.

‘It’s lovely,’ I said.

And it was. Just like in the picture books, but all the colours brighter and every gleam a million times as bright. Everything you’d ever want a magic castle to be.

The steps of the castle were long and shallow. They twinkled in the sunlight like—well, like diamonds I suppose, since that’s what they were. We started to climb, but there wasn’t any sense of going UP, if you know what I mean. You could have climbed stairs like that for twenty years without your leg muscles getting sore.

And we climbed and we climbed till finally we were at the top and two phaeries in purple tights and yellow jerkin things lifted up their—well, I THINK they were trumpets but they looked too long, maybe they’d mutated—and played the type of call you hear in old movies when the emperor is about to arrive, but it wasn’t an emperor, it was us.

And we entered the castle of the Phaery Queen.

It was pretty good. Of course, it wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen before in picture books. I mean, like I’ve said before, phaeries have NO imagination mostly.