The Phredde Collection (48 page)

I gazed around at the bats. They were still motionless, hanging from their branches and the bus door. Twenty tiny furry vampires. Blood-sucking hunters after live prey…

I gulped. I glanced at Bruce. How come he wasn’t edging closer to protect me! Of course I’d told him I never wanted to speak to him again, but he didn’t have to SAY anything to protect me! He was just sitting there, googly eyed as usual.

FLOOSH!

I blinked, but it happened too fast for my eyes to follow. One minute there was a bat on the bus door, the next millisecond a dark-haired kid with black cloak, sunglasses and fangs was standing in front of me, staring. Well, I thought he was staring at me. It was hard to tell exactly what was happening behind his sunglasses.

‘Excuse me, but may I ask you, who do you think you are perusing
⁸
?’ he snarled.

‘I’m not perusing anyone! You are!’

The kid looked around suspiciously.

‘If you’re looking for your teacher, she went thatta way!’ I told him.

‘Pardon me.’ He didn’t look like he was begging my pardon at all. He looked FIERCE. ‘I am simply establishing where you may have cached the stakes, or any other traditional and nefarious weapons of vampire destruction.’

I blinked. This kid was REALLY weird. Well, I thought, Mrs Olsen said they were old-fashioned vampires at Batrock Central. ‘Weapons of vampire destruction?’ I queried.

The vampire looked me up and down. ‘Your headmaster kindly dispatched a missive, warning us before we left. He indicated that this entire school was populated by vampire haters! So, if you do not mind my asking, where are the stakes and garlic?’

‘What? We don’t have any…’ I stopped. There were twenty-four sharpened tomato stakes in the girls’ toilet in the hall AND a hundred kilos of invisible, odourless garlic hidden in the snacks for tomorrow night.

So I just said, ‘Huh? Don’t try sticking your fangs into ME, buster!’

The kid’s face flushed red, which looked WEIRD on a white-faced vampire. ‘Golly gosh!’ he cried. ‘Consume human blood? Disgusting!’

‘What’s wrong with our blood?’ I demanded indignantly.

‘Um, Pru,’ whispered Phredde.

‘You pusillanimous alliophile
⁹
!’ the vampire declared.
‘I wouldn’t vampirise you if yours was the last jugular on Earth!’

‘Why not?’ I inquired hotly. ‘I bet I taste really good…yes, what?’ I asked, because Phredde was fluttering around my face insistently.

‘We don’t WANT them to vampirise us, remember?’ she hissed.

‘Oh. Right,’ I said hurriedly. ‘Yeah, I taste really boring.’

‘We do not consume human blood at all!’ stated the vampire angrily.

I relaxed a bit when I heard that. He sounded like he was telling the truth. ‘What
do
you eat then?’ I asked curiously. ‘Mrs Olsen said you eat your, um, dinner live.’

The kid’s eyes lit up. I mean they REALLY lit up. You could see the red glow behind his sunglasses. ‘Mosquitoes!’ he said eagerly. ‘Delicious live mosquitoes! Sadly, our journey was too hurried to dine on the way. Indeed, some of us are indubitably peckish! You couldn’t direct us to a nutritious patch of mosquitoes could you? Or blowflies? Even bush flies would be more than adequate, although…’

‘But bush flies don’t have the same zing as a juicy blowfly!’ Bruce hopped over eagerly. ‘I didn’t know vampires vampirised mosquitoes.’

The kid stared at him. ‘Pray’ (I hoped that was the pray he meant anyway—not prey), ‘what else would we vampirise?’

‘Us?’ offered Phredde.

The kid stared at her. ‘Golly gosh!’ he exclaimed in horror. ‘How did you form the impression we might vampirise you?’

‘Well, Mrs Olsen said you have old-fashioned ways,’
said Phredde defensively.

‘Indeed,’ said the kid. ‘We at Batrock do prefer old-fashioned manners and speech. And our dining habits might be perceived as a bit traditional too. But humans! Golly gosh! What kind of monsters do you think we are?’

‘Well,’ I said slowly. ‘I did think you were blood-crazed, savage beasts. That’s what Mr Ploppy Bottom said.’

‘Mr Ploppy Bottom?’

‘He’s our headmaster. The one who invited you here.’

‘Golly gosh!’ said the kid again. ‘What a heinous canard
¹⁰
! He was the one who informed us you were stake-wielding vampire hunters!’ He shook his head. ‘Indeed, it would appear that your headmaster is endeavouring to foment discord amongst us.’

Everyone blinked while I tried to work this out. (Thank goodness for all that vocabulary training with Mum’s crosswords!) ‘You mean the guy’s trying to make trouble?’ I suggested. ‘Yeah, I think you’re right. He seems as nice as pie, but underneath he’s a crawling maggot.’ I held my hand out. ‘My name’s Pru.’

The vampire grinned. Okay, he sounded a bit odd, but he had a nice grin.

‘It is an honour to meet you. My moniker is Zac,’ he said.

‘This is Phredde,’ I added.

‘And I’m Bruce,’ said Bruce eagerly. ‘Hey, how about we go mosquito hunting? There’s a really good colony in the ferns by the hippopotamus pond. You should
taste mozzies after they’ve been feeding on hippopotamuses.’

‘Delightful!’ said Zac.

FLOOSH! Zac transformed into a small furry bat and fluttered around Bruce’s head.

I watched them leave, frog and bat together. It looked like it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

My vampire was called Shaun. The vampire I was supposed to billet, I mean. I don’t mean HE was mine…Well, maybe I did hope Bruce might get jealous, but he and Zac were still down at the hippo pond when Phredde’s mum picked us up, so he didn’t even see that I took a bloke home.

There was something ODD about Shaun too. Not his fangs of course—I’d gotten used to them already. Just…

‘Golly gosh! Sumptuous
¹¹
’. Shaun’s eyes were wide as he stared at our drawbridge. ‘It is surely the most splendiferous castle I have ever cast my eyes upon! Indeed, in addition, it is the first time I have ridden upon a carpet,’ he added, staring down at the piranhas. ‘Golly gosh, those wee small fish look famished!’

‘They’re my pet piranhas,’ I told him. I was a bit relieved Cuddles wasn’t about. People sometimes get
the wrong idea about Cuddles until they get to know her. She isn’t really trying to eat them when she chews their feet. She just likes the taste of boots.

Mum was in the Smaller Ballroom cum TV room. She didn’t even look up as we came in. ‘What’s a nine-letter word meaning
giant pimple
?’

‘Carbuncle,’ offered Shaun, before I could get a word in edgewise.

Mum looked up. She stared at the fangs, the black silk cloak and the red eyes behind the sunglasses, then said carefully, ‘How very nice to meet you.’

‘It’s cool, Mum,’ I said. ‘Yes, he’s a vampire and no, he doesn’t have an arrangement with the abattoir like Mrs Olsen does, and yes, he does hunt his prey live, but it’s only mosquitoes. Phredde’s mum PING!ed his coffin into the Horribly Pink spare bedroom so you don’t have to worry about clean sheets. Is it okay if we watch TV before dinner?’

I could see Mum trying to work all this out. The thought processes of grown-ups slow down after they turn twenty-one. I just turned the TV on anyway. Shaun and I flopped down on the bean bags while Gark brought in some iced watermelon, frozen bananas with chocolate and nut topping and frozen oranges cut in half so we could eat them with a spoon.

And then it struck me.

‘Hey,’ I said to Shaun. ‘You can’t eat any of this, can you?’

I hadn’t even thought about what he ate when I thought he was a blood-crazed predator. Well, I suppose I HAD given it a thought—I’d thought he might try to eat me. But it had never occurred to me till now he couldn’t eat chilled watermelon.

A life without chilled watermelon! It didn’t bear thinking about!

But Shaun just shook his head. ‘There is no requirement for concern,’ he said. ‘Indeed, that is why we dine upon live prey! If a vampire becomes accustomed to dead blood from the abattoir that is all they are able to digest. But those of us who ingest live prey like mosquitoes and moths can thus consume anything for which we have an inclination! Golly gosh,’ he added. ‘This looks delicious.’

It took a while to work that one out. Luckily I can eat watermelon AND think at the same time. And it all seemed fine to me, once I’d got it straight. Mosquitoes stick their fangs into us. It’s fair enough if someone stuck fangs into them from time to time, too.

Dinner was cool. Gark went all out and made this massive pizza. It had EVERYTHING on it, including extra black olives, which are my favourite. This was followed by ice-cream sundaes with chocolate sauce, strawberries, raspberries, chopped crystallised pineapple, kiwi fruit, banana custard, passionfruit sponge cake, blueberry jelly with mandarin slices in it and cream with chopped nuts. Oh, and a wafer, all with a cherry on top. (It’s Phredde’s mum’s sundae recipe. They don’t have any calories if you eat them with a magic spoon.)

Oh, and old bones for Mark, even though he wasn’t a werewolf tonight. Mark likes bones.

As soon as dinner was over Mum and Dad got that polite let’s-be-nice-to-Pru’s-guest look on their faces.

‘Well, what will we do now?’ asked Mum brightly. ‘How about a game of Monopoly?’

Mum likes Monopoly about as much as she likes
having her toes nibbled by my piranhas or having to drink decaffeinated coffee in the morning. But, like I said, she was doing her best.

‘Or Scrabble!’ suggested Dad hopefully.

Dad loves Scrabble, mostly because he can get a triple word score with a ‘z’ and an ‘x’ and two ‘w’s when the rest of us are trying to add an ‘s’ to ‘cat’. Dad had decided he really liked Shaun, especially after Shaun mentioned that his dad was a brewer with a particular interest in zymurgy (the study of fermentation). Now there was a word with which Dad could really clean up at Scrabble! It used all seven of the triple word-score letters!

But Shaun gave a discreet burp and shook his head. ‘Oh, I do apologise most sincerely!’ he cried. He gave a quick glance at me. ‘While Scrabble would indeed be scintillating, would it, mayhap, be permissible for me to venture upon the castle ramparts for a post-prandial promenade?’

‘Huh?’ said Mum.

‘He wants to go for a walk after dinner,’ I said.

Mum looked puzzled—she likes walking even less than she likes Monopoly—and Dad looked disappointed. He keeps hoping that SOMEONE will want to play Scrabble with him. But I realised what Shaun wanted at once—mosquitoes!

I leapt up. ‘How about I show you the battlements?’ I offered.

‘They’re great battlements,’ agreed Mark. ‘You should hear the echo when you howl from them.’

‘We’re not going to do any howling,’ I told him. ‘Just a…walk. Come on, Shaun. It’s this way.’

It was cold up on the battlements. I sat on one of
the big lumpy stones and grinned at Shaun. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Turn into a bat.’

FLOOP!

Suddenly Shaun was gone. A small brown bat whizzed past my ear. Take that, bloodsuckers, I thought. It was time those mozzies were taught a lesson.

It was brilliant at first, then the stone got harder and harder under my bum and I got colder and colder. And it was getting boring, watching a bat zap round. Just as I was wondering if it would be rude to leave my guest and go and watch
Batman
on TV, or to see if my FLOING! was still working by jumping off the battlements suddenly…

FLOOP! Shaun was beside me.

‘Had enough mosquitoes?’ I asked him brightly.

Shaun nodded. ‘I’ve had my quotidian
¹²
sufficiency,’ he said. ‘I just bethought…’

‘Bethought what?’

‘Perhaps you would care to accompany me upon a twilight flight?’

I was getting used to translating vampire by now. ‘Fly around and eat mosquitoes? No thank you!’ I shook my head politely. ‘Not after pizza and ice-cream sundae.’

‘You don’t have to consume mosquitoes,’ said Shaun persuasively. ‘Though they are very sapid
¹³
. Just a fleeting nocturnal flight.’

‘You mean…fly? Like a bat?’

‘Indubitably.’

‘But I’m not a bat!’ I informed him. ‘I hate to break it
to you, but if I try to fly I’ll go whump, not whoosh!’ I didn’t tell him about the FLOING!. Well, what was there to say? I have this magic rescue device but, no, I don’t know how it works, or why, or if it’s even still there. ‘Humans can’t fly,’ I told him. ‘Not without jet engines and wings anyway.’

‘I think you may be under some misapprehension,’ said Shaun sincerely. ‘Humans are able to take wing if they hold hands with a vampire.’

‘Huh?’ Mrs Olsen had never mentioned this. But why should she, I thought. Teachers mostly don’t go flying with their students.

‘You mean, if I hold hands with you then I can fly?’

Shaun nodded.

‘But when you fly you’re a bat!’ I protested. ‘Bats don’t have hands!’

‘Claw-tip to claw-tip mayhap!’ Shaun grinned. He had a really nice grin, even nicer than Zac’s. Those fangs looked sort of cute. ‘Would you care to accompany me?’

What had I got to lose? My life—but I was pretty sure my FLOING! was working. My dinner, maybe—I get car sick and air sick and magic carpet sick and once I even got dragon sick and ALWAYS get giant butterfly sick. I’d probably get bat sick too. But what the heck! If I lost my dinner overboard I could eat another one.

‘Let’s go!’ I cried.

FLOOP!

What with FLOOP!s and FLOING!s and PING!s my life was getting pretty crammed with noises. And then I realised…

I was a bat!

A little squeaky bat! I knew I was little because the whole world looked BIG! And I knew I squeaked because I tried to shriek, ‘Hey, everyone, I’m a bat,’ and all that came out was, ‘Eek, eek, eek.’

And I was flying!

Up above the castle, so I could see our rose gardens and Cuddles eating a bag of cow manure (cow manure really does make roses grow, though not when it’s inside a
Dromornis stirtoni
). Higher and higher I flew. I could see the streets below the castle now, the traffic lights, the cars like tiny beetles, our school oval like a black blob and past it the lights of the library.

Tomorrow I’d be playing footy there against a mob of vampires. But tonight I was a bat, flying above it all.

And then we landed.

‘Are you still totally disinclined to sample a mosquito?’ asked Shaun.

I shook my head. ‘Thanks, but I’m still full of dinner.’ And I was. I had finally found a way of getting around that didn’t make me upchuck. ‘That was so hot,’ I added.

Shaun grinned. His fangs were white in the starlight. ‘It was an honour and a privilege,’ he said. Then he was a bat again, squeaking after insects in the night.