Well, you should have seen the Sweet Pea Guesthouse that morning!
Mum was running from room to room yelling things like: ‘Nail scissors! Nail scissors! I can’t wear glass slippers to the wedding with my toenails looking like this!’ And Dad was standing at the mirror in their room trying to stretch his purple velvet jerkin as far down as possible over his yellow tights (like I said, those things are
rude
). And Bruce was nowhere to be found.
Phredde and I got dressed early, and I have to tell you, we looked
cool
! I mean, I usually don’t go in for ball dresses and stuff like that (I mean,
lace! Yuk!
) but this time our dresses were something else.
Both our dresses were the same, this really incredible gold cloth, all heavy, with sort of embroidery all over it, but made out of real gold, not gold-coloured cotton or polyester or anything.
And our glass slippers were gold-coloured too, which was a really good thing, ’cause feet are very useful and all that but you don’t actually want to
see
them all the time, not when you’ve got a blister on your toe after trying to escape from an evil phaery and it fills up with pus and then bursts all red and…But you don’t want to hear about my blister.
And our tiaras were gold as well, and we had really heavy gold bracelets and masses and masses of gold net petticoats so you felt like your skirt was sort of flying around you.
‘Mirror, mirror, on the wall,’ I said, ‘who is the fairest one of all?’
The mirror grinned at me. ‘No worries, kid,’ it said. ‘You look GREAT!’
I thought I did too.
Well, after we’d looked at our reflections half a million times and practised curtsying without falling on our faces, we went to look for Bruce.
Phredde knocked on his door. There was no answer, so she stuck her head in.
‘Hey, Bruce?’ she called.
Still no answer.
His parents’ room was next door to his. I knocked this time.
The door opened and Bruce’s mum stuck her head out. ‘It’s so difficult,’ she said worriedly. ‘I can’t decide between my ruby tiara or my moonstones and gold tiara or my…’
‘Er, have you seen Bruce anywhere?’ I asked.
‘He’s hopping about somewhere,’ Bruce’s mum said vaguely. ‘He was getting dressed a minute ago.’
I looked at Phredde. Phredde looked at me. Then we
marched back to Bruce’s room. Phredde flung open the door.
‘Hey, Bruce!’ she yelled. ‘Where are you?’
‘I’m not here,’ said a voice from the cupboard.
‘Well, if you’re not here who’s talking?’ I asked reasonably.
‘Alright, I
am
here,’ said Bruce’s voice. ‘But I’m not coming out.’
‘Why not?’ asked Phredde.
The cupboard snorted. ‘Give you three guesses.’
‘Um…you were looking for a spare pillow in the cupboard and accidentally got locked in?’ I guessed.
‘No,’ said the cupboard.
‘You’re raising money for the new school library by seeing how many hours you can stay in a cupboard?’ suggested Phredde.
‘No,’ said the cupboard.
Phredde and I looked at each other again.
‘It wouldn’t be because you’re all dressed up like Prince Peanut and you don’t want anyone to see you?’ I hazarded.
‘Right,’ said Bruce’s voice miserably.
‘But you can’t stay in there all day!’ protested Phredde.
‘Yes, I can,’ said Bruce.
‘But your mum and dad…’
‘I’ll tell them if they try to get me out I’ll turn myself into a slug!’ said Bruce.
‘Bruce, you can’t come to school as a slug,’ I said reasonably. ‘Mrs Olsen wouldn’t let you.’
‘Then I won’t come to school,’ said Bruce. ‘Anyway, slugs don’t have to go to school.’
This was getting difficult. I took a deep breath.
‘Look Bruce,’ I said. ‘You’re my friend! I really like you! I don’t care if you’re a phaery prince or a frog. But I am
not
going to be seen with you if you turn into a slug!’
‘That goes for me, too!’ declared Phredde.
‘But I can’t come out!’ wailed Bruce. ‘I look ridiculous!’
‘Look,’ I said persuasively. ‘
Every
bloke is going to look ridiculous today! Not just you!’
‘Well…’ said Bruce’s voice from inside the cupboard. ‘If you promise not to laugh…’
‘No, of course we won’t laugh!’ said Phredde.
‘Well, alright then…’
The cupboard door opened.
‘Phhsszzzzwit!’ I choked.
‘Mmrrgggbbbd!’ went Phredde.
Bruce glared at us. ‘You promised you wouldn’t laugh!’
‘I’m not laughing!’ I protested. ‘It’s just a crumb went down the wrong way!’
‘I was trying not to sneeze,’ added Phredde. ‘It’s…it’s all the pollen in the air…’
‘Then I don’t look too dumb?’ said Bruce hopefully.
I looked at him. He wore a cream silk shirt, tight red silk pants, long brown boots, sort of tailored to fit in his froggy feet, and a hat with a feather in it.
‘You want the truth?’
‘Yes,’ said Bruce.
‘The whole truth?’
‘Yes,’ said Bruce.
‘You look like a total prat,’ I told him honestly. ‘But, hey,
everyone
is going to look like a prat today. No one will notice you.’
Bruce looked at me and Phredde, then back at me. ‘You don’t look dumb at all,’ he said. ‘You look sort of nice, actually.’
I blinked. It was the first compliment I’d ever heard from Bruce. ‘Well, thanks,’ I said. ‘Hey, I’ve got an idea.’
‘What?’ said Bruce suspiciously. ‘If it’s something to do with crossing troll bridges or eating gingerbread cottages again…’
‘Nah,’ I said, ‘this is quite safe. I was just thinking, if you stick close to me and Phredde our skirts’ll hide you.’
Bruce brightened up. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’
So we went downstairs.
Well, after half a million last-minute panics I won’t bore you with (Mum never did find any toenail clippers), the giant butterflies landed and we climbed aboard. We flew really gently off to the wedding so as not to mess up our hair.
It was a pretty cool wedding.
The Phaery Queen’s castle looked just as it had last time, like it was made out of icing sugar and sunbeams, all delicate towers and great sloping lawns. The wedding was to be outside, so there were striped marquees (a marquee is a bit like a tent, but grander and with stripes) and elf orchestras on a zillion zillion tiny mushrooms, and the lawn wasn’t grass, it was a trillion tiny flowers, and there were bells ringing from the castle towers.
I told you it was cool.
And
everyone
was there. Me and Phredde and
Bruce and our families, of course, and Phredde’s older sisters, who were okay in an older sister sort of way (I’m
really
glad I just have a brother, though) and 6,782 phaeries all in ball gowns and glass slippers or really embarrassing tight trousers.
The three little pigs (well, great fat hogs) were there too, in
enormous
blue dinner jackets and yellow bow ties with their little piggy tails poking out behind (which actually looked pretty disgusting, but then they were pigs).
The Phaery Daffodil was there with Prince Peanut—he wore his embarrassing trousers like he wasn’t embarrassed one bit, plus an even fancier red velvet shirt with gold embroidery; she’d changed into a really pretty pink dress and was leading him by the hand.
And Mordred was there, in normal phaery gear this time, and sort of attached himself to Phredde (I think he had a crush on her) and…and…and
everyone
!
Then the music changed to ‘Here Comes the Bride’ and a million birds all went
tweet, tweet, tweet
and rainbows shivered all over the sky and we all stood back and the Phaery Queen walked down the aisle (this long, red carpet) on her father’s arm (he looked a bit doddery, but he made it okay)…
‘Hey, Phredde,’ I whispered.
‘Shh,’ said Phredde.
‘How come the Phaery Queen’s dad isn’t king?’
‘Shh,’ said Phredde. ‘There’s always a Phaery Queen in Phaeryland. We don’t have Phaery kings!’
And then the Phaery Queen’s doddery dad handed her over to the guy she was marrying.
Well, you could have knocked me down with the feather in Bruce’s hat!
‘I thought he’d be a phaery prince!’ I whispered to Phredde.
‘No, he’s a plumber called Dwayne,’ Phredde whispered back. ‘She met him when he came to put a spa in the palace.’
Then they got married.
Dwayne the plumber looked okay, actually. I mean, he wasn’t handsome like Prince Peanut (and he wore his velvet shirt right down low so it covered up the most embarrassing bits of his tights), but he looked really kind, and like he enjoyed sensible stuff like football and barbecues on Saturday afternoons. He also looked like he wouldn’t tolerate any evil phaeries whisking his daughters away to spin straw into gold or cursing them at their christenings or stuff like that, so all in all I reckon the Phaery Queen had made a pretty good choice.
Then we got down to eating.
Wow, you should have seen the food! There was roast
everything
(except for human brains, of course) and creams and jellies and great platters of fruit and vegetables carved into flower shapes and crystal glasses of honeydew nectar and moonberry juice to drink, till Dwayne the plumber had a word with the servants and they brought out some beer and orange juice too, and even coffee. (You should have heard Mum sigh.)
Actually I’d rather have had sausage and pineapple pizza, but it was okay.
Phredde and I sat together, with Bruce between us so you couldn’t notice his pants and shirt (he’d accidentally on purpose lost his hat by then). Mum and Dad and everyone were at one of the other tables with some
ladies-in-waiting, including Phredde’s older sisters, so we were stuck at a table with lots of strangers.
I looked at the chair on the other side of me. It was empty. Then suddenly this dark, shadowy arm shot out and grabbed a sunshine roll, and I realised that there was someone
under
the chair, instead of on top of it.
I cleared my throat. ‘Er, hi,’ I said.
‘Hi,’ said a small voice from under the table.
‘My name’s Prudence.’ I was trying to sound really normal, like everyone in our family
always
sat under their chairs instead of on top of them.
‘My name’s Jessica,’ said the voice. ‘These are really good rolls, aren’t they?’
‘What? Oh, yeah, sure. Um, I hope you don’t mind my mentioning this…’
‘Not at all,’ said the voice of Jessica.
‘But wouldn’t you be more comfortable on top of your chair?’
‘No,’ said Jessica.
‘Oh. Well, I was just asking…’
‘You see I’m a bogeyperson,’ said the voice.
‘A bogeyman?’
‘No,’ said the voice patiently. ‘A bogeyperson. I’m a girl, not a man.’
‘Oh, I see,’ I said. ‘You hide under beds and in dark cupboards?’
‘And under tables. Or chairs,’ said the voice. ‘Hey, would you like me to jump out at you and say “Boo!”?’
‘No, thank you,’ I said.
‘Oh,’ said the voice, disappointed.
‘Maybe later,’ I said kindly.
The voice brightened up. ‘Really? Oh goodie!’ The dark arm flashed up again and a plate of sliced
gryphon with baked potatoes and steamed rose petals disappeared under the chair. There was the sound of intense gnawing and a few gulps. Bogeypeople did not have good table manners, I decided. Or under-table manners either.
I looked over at the person sitting next to Jessica’s empty chair. He was a pretty short guy, actually, with the pale skin of someone who doesn’t go outside much. In fact the other six occupants of our table were short, too. All seven of them were wearing dinner jackets with frilly shirts and pens in their shirt pockets. They weren’t exactly joining in the gaiety. In fact they looked really depressed.
‘Hi!’ I said as cheerily as I could to the bloke next to the empty chair. ‘I’m Pru. And this is Phredde and this is Bruce.’
‘Hi,’ croaked Bruce.
The short guy nodded to me. ‘I’m Grumpy,’ he said miserably.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘What are you grumpy about?’
He looked at me sadly. ‘No, I’m quite even-tempered, thank you. My name is Grumpy. It’s a traditional
name
in our family. My dad was called Grumpy and my grandfather was called Grumpy and
his
father…’
Well, the things some parents call their kids…‘Yeah, I know how you feel,’ I said sympathetically. ‘My name is Prudence. It means “careful”, can you believe it? And Phredde’s name is really…’
I felt Phredde’s glass slipper kick me firmly under the table. Phredde does NOT like her real name made public.
Grumpy didn’t seem to have noticed my slip. ‘And this is Happy,’ he said, gesturing to another shortish guy
who was busy sniffing mournfully into a spotted handkerchief (coloured spots, I mean, not the snotty kind), ‘and this is Dopey.’ A really intellectual-looking little guy with glasses and
six
pens in his pocket nodded to me miserably.
I tried to think of some cheery sort of conversation. ‘Er, great party, isn’t it?’ I asked.
Grumpy shook his head. ‘I’m afraid none of us is really in a mood to enjoy it,’ he revealed. ‘I mean, we owe it to Her Majesty to attend, but really…’ his voice trailed off.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked sympathetically.
‘A dear friend of ours…sudden illness…’ muttered Grumpy sadly.
Suddenly this bell rang in the back of my brain.
‘Er…you’re not miners, are you?’ I asked. ‘And live in a house in the woods and go off to work singing every morning and have a girl called Snow White to do your housework?’
Grumpy shook his head. ‘No, we’re computer software engineers.’ He shook his head unhappily. ‘But my great great grandpa was a miner. No, Snow White was our chief software engineer. You should have seen her with a difficult program—simply brilliant.’
‘Her loss was a terrible tragedy,’ said one of the other short computer software engineers across the table.
‘It must have been,’ I said sympathetically.
He nodded. ‘Our stock fell twenty points overnight on the Phaeryland stock exchange.’
I glanced at Phredde and Bruce. ‘Doesn’t look like she was stuck doing the housework,’ I whispered.
Grumpy overheard. ‘Snow White? Housework?’ he smiled sadly. ‘Oh, no, she didn’t do housework. I mean,
we all make our own beds. She did do a lovely spinach quiche and baked apples. But we have the Three Bears Cleaning Company come in every second day to do everything else. They’re very efficient. I’ve got their card somewhere,’ he fumbled in his pocket.
‘No, thank you very much,’ I said hurriedly. ‘Our castle is sort of self-cleaning. Er…what happened to Snow White? She didn’t bite a poisoned apple and go into a coma, did she?’
For a moment I thought I might be interfering, and he’d just tell me to mind my own business. But Grumpy just stared at me.
‘How did you know about that?’ he asked. ‘It was her new Apple computer. This new sales representative brought it round…’ he frowned. ‘But I’m sure Snow White didn’t bite it. Why would anyone bite an Apple computer?’
‘A new sales rep? Are you sure she wasn’t an evil queen in disguise, was she? Snow White’s stepmother?’
Grumpy blinked. ‘How did you know about Snow White’s stepmother?’
‘Oh, I have my methods,’ I said.
Grumpy shook his head sadly. ‘Snow White’s stepmother has always been jealous of her, ever since the stepmother assumed control of the family computer business. She wanted Snow White to stay in the business, but Snow White struck out on her own—in partnership with us, of course. You don’t think…?’ His eyes grew wide with horror. ‘You don’t think Snow White’s new Apple computer was poisoned?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said honestly. I nudged Phredde and Bruce. ‘Er…will you excuse us for a moment? We just
want to see if there are any more of those delicious stuffed nightingale tongues left.’
I pulled Phredde out of the marquee and behind a bush, with Bruce hopping rapidly between us in case someone saw his red silk trousers.
‘What do you think?’ I hissed.
‘I don’t even like nightingale tongues!’ said Phredde.
‘No, not about the nightingale tongues! About Snow White!’
Phredde considered. ‘Well, I don’t think she was a domestic drudge any more.’
Bruce frowned. ‘But it does look like someone tried to get rid of her.’
‘Of
course
someone tried to get rid of her!’ I said. ‘The evil queen! We have to save her! I mean, when it looked like she was just going to have to either keep on making beds or marry Prince Peanut it was okay to let her sleep. But not now!’
Phredde’s eyes opened wide. ‘But how are we going to save her?’ she demanded.
Phaeries! If their parents just read them phaery stories occasionally they’d understand a lot more about the world!
‘Look,’ I said. ‘In the story Snow White bites this poisoned apple and falls into a coma. Then the handsome prince…’
‘Yuk,’ said Phredde.
‘Shh,’ I said. ‘The handsome prince kisses her and the bit of apple falls out of her mouth and she’s okay. So all we have to do is get Bruce to kiss her and…’
‘No way!’ yelled Bruce, hopping back indignantly. ‘You blasted well kiss her!’
‘But I’m not a handsome prince,’ I pointed out reasonably.
‘If it’s just a bit of apple stuck in her mouth it doesn’t matter who kisses her,’ reasoned Bruce.
‘We could get Prince Peanut to do it,’ suggested Phredde.
I glanced over at the marquee. Prince Peanut was giggling with The Phaery Daffodil and she was feeding him little bits of moonblossom sorbet with her spoon.
‘I think he’s occupied,’ I said. ‘And anyway, you know what he’s like! He’d expect to marry her, and then The Phaery Daffodil would get upset and go round capturing humans and making people pies again and…’ I looked pleadingly at Bruce. ‘You have to help her!’
Bruce gulped. ‘Can’t I just shake hands with her instead?’ he asked.
‘Bruce!’
‘Alright! Let’s just…look at her. Just to see if we can get the apple out some other way.’
‘But you’ll kiss her if we can’t?’ I insisted.
‘Well, maybe,’ said Bruce.
That seemed about as good an answer as we were going to get. I glanced around at the wedding party. Mum and Dad were with Phredde’s and Bruce’s parents doing these real old-time dances on the other side of the marquee, and no one seemed to be paying any attention to us at all.
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘here’s the plan. I’ll go and grab a bowl of salad for the trolls.’
‘Two bowls of salad,’ said Phredde. ‘We have to pay troll toll coming back too.’
‘Good point,’ I said. ‘I’ll grab two bowls of salad and meet you down on the yellow brick road. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ whispered Bruce. Not that there was any need to whisper—not with all the music and chattering and stuff, and anyway, no one was even
looking
at us. But it just seemed proper to whisper somehow.
I tiptoed off to grab the salad.