‘I can guess,’ I said.
‘The Directory of Phaery Princesses!’
exclaimed Bruce indignantly, as though he hadn’t heard me. ‘Phaery Princesses!! Yuk! Can you imagine anything worse?’
‘Yeah,’ said Phredde. ‘Handsome princes.’
Bruce stared at her suspiciously. You could see that the thought had just occurred to him.
‘You’re not…’ he began.
‘She is,’ I said. ‘Phredde, meet the Handsome Prince. Bruce, meet the Phaery Princess.’
And then I bowed, just like Mrs Olsen showed us how to do after the Christmas concert at school.
Well, you’ve never seen such dumbfounded people…I mean phaeries…or frog and phaery…well, you know what I mean.
I sat in the middle of the pink garden seat and Phredde sat on one side, and Bruce on the other, both keeping as far from each other as they could.
It was time someone did something. Namely me.
‘Look Phredde,’ I said. ‘Don’t you see what’s happened here?’
‘No!’ said Phredde.
‘Bruce is just what we need!’
‘He’s NOT what I need!’ flashed Phredde, her wings shimmering like a butterfly who’s drunk six cups of coffee. ‘You’re just like Mum! You…’
‘No, listen, you dimwit! He’s what we need to wake up your Cousin Pinkerbelle. Just like in the story. The Sleeping Beauty was woken by the kiss of the Handsome Prince…’
‘What! Me!’ Bruce gave a startled hop and nearly fell off the seat. ‘I’m not kissing any Sleeping Beauty. Yuk!’
‘Why not!’ flashed Phredde. ‘Don’t be so selfish! Poor Pinkerbelle’s under a spell and can’t wake up till she’s kissed a prince and now you’re refusing to save her!’
‘But if I get kissed by a princess I’ll turn back into a handsome prince!’ wailed Bruce.
‘Don’t you want to be a prince again?’ I inquired.
‘Course not,’ said Bruce. ‘I’d rather be a frog. I went to a lot of trouble to turn into a frog, and I don’t want some gloopy princess mucking it all up. Hey, did you know that frogs have been around for 180 million years?’
‘No.’ I said politely. To be honest I didn’t care how long frogs had been around for.
‘Well, they have,’ said Bruce. ‘It’s really great being a frog. Bruce! Bruce! Bruce!’ He gave his frog-like croak again. Well, almost frog-like.
‘Can’t you turn yourself back into a frog again as soon as you’ve kissed her?’ I demanded.
Bruce fidgeted beside me. ‘Well, I suppose…’ he began.
‘But what about the rest of the story?’ demanded Phredde.
‘What about it?’ I asked.
‘As soon as Sleeping Beauty, I mean Cousin Pinkerbelle, wakes up she falls in love with the Handsome Prince and they get married and live happily ever after. I don’t want my cousin married to a frog!’
‘Married!’ croaked Bruce. ‘Me! I can’t get married! I haven’t even left school yet! Mum and Dad’d never let me! They’d have pink kittens!’
‘Well there you are—you’re safe then. We’ve got to risk it,’ I insisted.
‘What do you mean, WE have to risk it,’ muttered Bruce. ‘You’re not the one who has to kiss a princess.’
‘Look, if it’s the only way to wake up Sleeping Beauty, then that’s what we have to do. We can’t just let her sleep for a hundred years.’
I gestured at the garden. ‘Look what’s happened to this place in just a week! If this garden’s let go for a hundred years it’ll take over the whole of Australia!’
One of the rose vines behind me gave a twitch, and began to wind thoughtfully around my ankle. I gave it a kick.
‘Back off,’ I hissed, then stood up. I reckoned that I had to keep Phredde and Bruce moving before they had time to think up more objections.
So off we went.
I walked, Phredde flew, and Bruce hopped beside us while the roses watched and sort of licked their chops.
Of course we still didn’t know how on earth we were going to get into Pinkerbelle’s castle. But at least the prince part seemed settled, so maybe the rest would sort itself out too.
We’d gone about another quarter of a kilometre—that castle was BIG—and the silence was really starting to get to me. I mean there was no way Phredde and Bruce were going to say anything to each other, so it was up to me to get the conversational ball rolling.
‘Where do you go to school?’ I asked Bruce. (Yeah, I know that’s one of those drippy questions that adults always ask kids as soon as they meet them, but it was the first thing that came into my mind.)
‘Don’t go to school at the moment,’ said Bruce. ‘Mum’s trying to find a school that doesn’t mind that I’m a frog. But most of the head teachers she’s talked to say they don’t have facilities for frogs at their school.’
‘Is your Mum a frog too?’ I asked.
‘Course not,’ said Bruce scornfully. ‘She’s just a normal Phaery Princess like everyone else. Except Dad of course. He’s a Phaery Prince.’
‘I bet our school would take you,’ I offered, ignoring Phredde’s scowl. ‘I mean no one pays any attention to Phredde now…well, not much attention anyway, not unless she fills the swimming pool full of green jelly just before swimming carnival or stuff like that. And our teacher’s a vampire too.’
‘A what?’ croaked Bruce in alarm.
‘A vampire. But she doesn’t suck blood or anything. Her family has an arrangement with the abattoir. Humans get the meat and the vampires get the blood.
‘Of course she says it’s a bit congealed by the time they get it, but luckily she’s a good cook, so they have blood soup and blood rissoles and blood sorbet and…’
Bruce was looking a bit green, which would have been all right if he’d been a green frog, but he wasn’t, he was a brown one, so I changed the subject. ‘But it’s not a bad school, as schools go,’ I finished.
‘Maybe,’ said Bruce.
He didn’t sound enthusiastic, but then what kid…or frog, for that matter…sounds enthusiastic about school?
So we kept on walking…or fluttering or leaping, as the case may be…and I was getting hotter and hotter, and feeling like maybe we should stop for some more passionfruit and raspberry juice, with maybe cherries and lamingtons this time, when suddenly I noticed something out of the corner of my eye.
‘Phredde,’ I said.
‘Mmmm?’ said Phredde.
‘I think that rose bush is following us.’
‘What? Which one?’
‘That one.’ I pointed.
Phredde squinted at the rose bush. ‘It doesn’t seem to be moving to me. Anyhow rose bushes can’t move. I bet you just imagined it.’
‘I didn’t imagine it. I’m sure it was moving—I could just see it out of the corner of my eye. Then when I turned around to look at it properly, it stopped.’
Bruce snickered down at my feet. ‘Who’s ever heard of a rose bush following anyone, you nincompoop.’
Well, that did it. If there’s one thing Phredde can’t stand, it’s anyone insulting her friends.
‘Don’t you call Prudence a nincompoop,’ she flared.
‘I didn’t mean…anyway, it’s all her fault I’m slogging through this stupid garden instead of catching flies on my lily pad!’
‘It’s not her fault! She’s just trying to help my Aunt Petunia.’
‘Well, it’s your stupid Aunt Petunia’s fault then!’
‘She’s not stupid either! You’re the one who…’
‘Er, look guys,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t really matter…’
‘…and what do you mean, catching flies on
your
lily pad? It’s Cousin Pinkerbelle’s lily pad! And you mean you EAT flies?’
‘All frogs eat…’
‘ER, guys,’ I said again, because I was sure I’d caught that rose bush moving again out of the corner of my eye.
‘Anyway, flies are good protein.’
‘I suppose you eat mosquitoes too.’
‘Who me? Eat mosquitoes!’ roared Bruce.
And that’s when the rose bush struck.
The first thing I knew it had me around the ankle,
then another branch had me around the arm, and three great fat pink roses were stuffed in my mouth, so I could hardly breathe, much less talk.
‘MmmmFfff!’ I yelled.
‘Pru!’ screamed Phredde, darting towards me and trying to pull the rose bush off with her tiny fists.
‘Let go of her you…you flower!’ cried Bruce, hopping over to me. Not that there was much he could do. Frogs aren’t exactly made to grapple with insane girl-eating rose bushes.
‘Mmmmbbbgfffff!’ I yelled, which was supposed to mean, ‘Phredde, stop trying to haul it off and do something magic!’, but that’s all that came out through a mouthful of damp petals.
‘Help! help! help!’ croaked Bruce, at the top of his voice.
‘Hang on kids! I’m coming!’ someone yelled, and suddenly there was the biggest bloke I’ve ever seen brandishing an even bigger pair of what looked like bolt cutters.
‘Stand back!’ he yelled, waving Phredde and Bruce out of the way, and before you could say criminally-insane rose bushes he’d snipped the branches wrapped around me into tiny pieces.
Well, I suppose the rose bush knew when it was licked. It just stood there, like it was rooted to the spot—which it wasn’t of course, being a magic rose bush, not to mention a seriously antisocial one—looking all tattered and ashamed of itself.
Not that I trusted it of course, but I was sure it was going to behave itself for the moment.
And then the big bloke said: ‘Look kid, are you all right?’
‘I think so,’ I said, picking myself up and trying to pull the rest of the rose thorns out of my flesh. Those branches were prickly.
‘Oh, Pru, I’m sorry,’ said Phredde. ‘I should have believed you. I should have kept better watch.’ She pulled at a few lingering rose thorns in my scalp. Phaeries have such tiny fingers that they’re really good at picking out prickles.
‘I’m sorry too,’ said Bruce.
The big bloke blinked. I guess he’d never seen a talking frog before. He probably wasn’t too familiar with phaeries either.
‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ I said, really politely. Mum would have been proud.
The big bloke grinned. He was really cool looking, with the sort of muscles you usually only see on blokes in the movies and really great looking brown eyes. ‘That’s okay,’ he said. ‘Roses are my job.’ He held out his hand. ‘I’m Con,’ he said. ‘Constantine really. Con for short.’
‘I’m Pru,’ I said. ‘Well, Prudence really.’
‘I’m Phredde,’ said Phredde. ‘Well, it’s Ethereal actually,’ she admitted. ‘But I prefer Phredde.’
I was impressed. Phredde only tells her real name to people she REALLY likes.
‘And I’m Bruce,’ croaked Bruce.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Con. He looked like he was going to shake Bruce’s hand…er, foot…then changed his mind.
‘That’s a great pair of, er, thingummies,’ I said to him, nodding at the bolt cutters.
‘Them?’ Con looked proud. ‘They’re secateurs. For pruning roses or taking rose cuttings. They’re my own invention. You can prune any rose with these.’
‘You sure can,’ I agreed, looking at the downcast rose bush next to us. ‘Is that what you were doing? Pruning the roses?’
Con looked embarrassed. ‘Well, not exactly,’ he admitted. ‘You see, my dad owns the nursery down the bottom of the road, and I’ve just joined the business. I was potting up the daisies this afternoon when I caught a glimpse of the garden up here and I thought wow, look at those roses! I wouldn’t mind a few cuttings of those.
‘So I raced up here before the road disappeared…I suppose I’m trespassing, really.’
‘That’s all right,’ Phredde assured him. ‘The castle belongs to my Cousin Pinkerbelle. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.’
‘Pinkerbelle,’ said Con thoughtfully. ‘Did she breed these roses? They’re some achievement. I’d really like to meet her.’
‘Sure,’ said Phredde. ‘We can…’ and then she gasped, ‘Cousin Pinkerbelle! We’ve forgotten all about her!’
‘We have to get into the castle somehow to rescue her,’ I explained. ‘She’s fallen asleep under a magic spell…well, it’s too long to explain now. But we were just trying to find a way into the castle through the roses.’
Con laughed. ‘Don’t you worry about that, kids.’ He held up his secateurs in a sort of ‘Me King Kong you horrible little weeds’ fashion.
The rose bushes cringed.
‘Just let me at ’em!’ said Con happily, flexing his muscles.
So we did. Phredde perched on my shoulder, just to make sure she’d got the last of the rose thorns out of my scalp, and Bruce hopped at my side, and we
followed Con over to the great thicket of roses around the castle.
It suddenly occurred to me that we’d only been assuming there was a castle inside all those roses. I mean what if there wasn’t? What if the roses really had digested it, Cousin Pinkerbelle and all? But we’d never know unless we got in there.
So Con started cutting, and Phredde and Bruce and I started hauling the stuff he’d cut out of the way (Phredde magicked gloves up for us).
I thought Phredde might have been worried about someone hacking back Cousin Pinkerbelle’s roses, but she didn’t say anything.
Maybe she realised that Con was a professional, and knew what he was doing. Or maybe she wasn’t feeling quite as protective of the roses after what they had done to me.
Anyway, after about half an hour of hacking the first stones of the castle wall appeared. Lipstick pink stones of course. And then more wall and more and more, until finally…
‘You know,’ I said, staring at the blank pink wall ‘Maybe we should have started cutting the roses around the front door.’
‘No worries!’ said Phredde.
And suddenly there was a door in front of us.
Well, after Phredde had made the door bigger so Con and I could fit through it too—sometimes Phredde forgets how big humans are—I opened the door and we all ambled through. (I could hear the roses sort of muttering and filling up the gap behind us, but that didn’t matter. Not when we had Con and his secateurs with us, not to mention his muscles.)
Well, you can guess what the inside of the castle was like. Apart from pink I mean. Phaeries have no imagination, mostly, and all their castles are pretty much the same.
The corridor had these great high stone ceilings and there was what was probably priceless carpet on the floor and these great long hanging things…tapestries…on the wall. Just like Phredde’s castle, and our castle till Mum redecorated it with easy to clean cork tiles and washable wallpaper, and those pottery hanging things she made at tech last year.