‘Oh wow,’ I said. It was all that I’d been able to say for the last ten minutes. ‘Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.’
‘You sound like a pigeon,’ said Bruce.
Phredde kicked him. ‘Give her time to get used to it, Frog-face,’ she said.
‘Hey, how big will I be when I get back home?’ I asked suddenly.
‘Same size you always were,’ said Phredde. ‘The Phaery Queen just made you a phaery, she didn’t change your size.’
I felt relieved. I mean, none of my school uniforms would have fit, or my new fancy underpants.
‘And I can PING! just like you?’
‘Yep,’ said Phredde.
‘Only once we’re out of Phaeryland,’ Bruce reminded me. ‘No one can use magic in Phaeryland except the Phaery Queen. Except to leave or get here, of course.’
I was just beginning to realise what this meant. When Phredde and Bruce went off for their magic training, I’d be going too! And there was something else as well…
‘So next time we’re captured by skull-juggling trolls I can be the one to PING! us free?’
‘Be our guest,’ said Phredde happily.
‘Oh wow,’ I said again.
I looked at them, my two good friends. Then I glanced over at Mum and Dad. They were chatting with Prince Dwayne. The leprechaun musicians were tuning up. Soon there’d be old-fashioned dancing and a feast on the tables on the lawn. The smell of roast gryphon wafted from the palace kitchens and sweetmeats too. I wondered if Cookie was in there helping the phaeries with the feast.
Phaeries. Just like Phredde and Bruce…and me.
Suddenly I could see the future. Not magically see it, because I hadn’t even tried to PING! yet. Just a sort of knowledge that there was something wonderful coming for the three of us, years and years of laughter and adventures together.
‘You know,’ I said carefully, ‘if we were to PING! ourselves away, just for a little adventure, maybe we could PING! back again before they’d noticed we’d left.’
Phredde grinned. ‘Yep,’ she said.
‘Too right,’ said Bruce.
He held out his froggy paw. I grabbed it, then took Phredde’s hand in my other hand.
‘One, two, three,’ I chanted.
PING!!
Jackie French
To the ‘piranhas’ with much love…Sarah and Laura Bennett, Melissa Robinson, Anna Skidmore, Nathan Stone and Chelsea Pattinson.
There are stories that move you, that become part of you, that make you think and dream…
Then there are the sorts of stories you read when school has stretched out like a long, flat road and you’re feeling totally brain dead and just want to read and laugh and eat a banana.
These are stories for those times.
Escape stories. Silly happy stories.
Stories to eat with a banana, a watermelon…or a blood plum.
PS…Yes, I do mean eat.
Some people READ stories—mostly when they’re told they HAVE to go and read a story.
And some people EAT them—the way they eat potato chips or cherries…
or blood plums.
The pyramid walls disappeared into the dark surrounding us. Slime dripped slowly from the ceiling.
Plop! Plop! Plop!
A drop hit my nose, then dribbled down my chin.
‘Turn off the torch!’ whispered Bruce urgently.
‘But…’ I began.
‘Quickly! It might see the light!’ hissed Bruce.
I clicked the switch on the torch. Darkness swallowed us, thick and evil-smelling. I stood there panting, frozen with terror.
‘Do you think it knows where we are?’ I whispered.
‘I don’t think so,’ croaked Bruce. ‘I think we outran it. Now all we have to do is…’
And then I heard it.
Clomp, clomp, clomp.
‘It knows where we are!’ I hissed.
‘Shhh!’ breathed Bruce. ‘Maybe it’ll turn down another passage!’
Clomp, clomp, clomp.
It was coming closer, closer, closer…
‘It’s nearly here!’ I squeaked.
‘Maybe if we keep really still it’ll miss us in the dark,’ said Bruce hopefully.
Clomp, clomp, clomp.
It was nearer now. Much nearer.
‘I think we should keep running!’ I hissed.
‘But if we run it’ll hear us…’
Clomp, clomp, clomp.
Too late! Suddenly light flared in the darkness. The mummy’s face leapt out of the shadows towards us, all dirty bandages and staring eyes.
‘Found you!’ it shrieked triumphantly.
It lifted up one heavily bandaged arm and then it…
Maybe I should start at the beginning.
It was an ordinary sort of school day. The only sounds were the scratch of chalk on the blackboard, and the buzz of flies against the window—and the
thuck
of Bruce’s long tongue as he snaffled another one.
Only kamikaze flies visit our classroom. Bruce has the fastest tongue in Australia. If there were a fly-sucking contest at the Olympics, Bruce’d win it hands down. But then, he’s a frog—or he is at the moment—so he’s got an advantage.
It was hot and it was boring. It was the type of day that any normal kid would much rather spend outdoors fighting invading aliens on a pirate ship or throwing water bombs from the castle battlements, than sitting in class doing maths. But then again, I suppose every day is a bit like that.
But it was hot.
‘And when the Nile overflowed each spring, the silt would fertilise the fields,’ said Mrs Olsen, taking another sip of chilled blood from the Thermos on her desk.
(I was glad the blood was in a Thermos. I mean, I know there’s nothing wrong in being a vampire, not as long as you have an arrangement with the abattoir, and I know there’s really no difference between eating blood that is contained in a nice, grilled steak or having it extracted for you at the abattoir. But somehow, when you see the blood all red and thick and gluggy in a glass, with frozen blood iceblocks, it puts you off your lunch, even when it’s pineapple pizza-day at the tuckshop.)
‘Can anyone tell me why the Nile would flood in spring?’ continued Mrs Olsen, looking like she’d rather be flapping around a nice, cool castle instead of trying to get us interested in Ancient Egypt. ‘Bruce?’
‘Gullup,’ said Bruce, hurriedly swallowing another fly. (We’re not supposed to eat in class.) ‘What was that, Mrs Olsen?’
‘Why did the Nile flood in spring?’ repeated Mrs Olsen patiently.
‘Er…because everyone washed their cars, and the water went down the drains and into the river?’ hazarded Bruce.
Mrs Olsen shut her eyes for a moment. She looked really tired. (She said it had been too hot in her coffin to have a decent nap at lunchtime.) ‘No, Bruce,’ she said. ‘We’re talking about five thousand years ago. Amelia?’
Amelia smirked. She’s a real pain in the neck sometimes. Okay, all the time. ‘Flooding would occur when the winter snow in the mountains of Numidia melted,’ she said smugly.
‘I bet I’d have thought of that if I’d been paying attention,’ Bruce whispered to me.
Mrs Olsen glanced at the clock and sighed with relief. ‘Nearly time to go home,’ she said. ‘Alright
everyone, your homework for this weekend is a joint project on some aspect of Ancient Egyptian society. It is due first thing Tuesday morning. I want you all to choose a partner, then one of you is to come up the front and pick out of my coffin a piece of paper with your topic on it.’
Phredde glanced at me. I nodded. Phredde’s my best friend, so it made sense that we’d be partners.
‘Has everyone got a partner?’ inquired Mrs Olsen.
Bruce gave an embarrassed croak. ‘I haven’t,’ he admitted.
Amelia batted her eyelashes at him. ‘He can join me and Shirlee, can’t he, Shirlee?’ she said sweetly.
Bruce croaked again, deep in his throat. ‘Hey,’ he whispered to me. ‘Can I join you and Phredde? Please!’
‘But—’ began Phredde.
Phredde isn’t so keen on Bruce. Not because he’s a frog or anything—Phredde hasn’t got anything against frogs—but it’s just that her mother sleeps with
The Directory of Handsome Princes
beside her bed, and the only phaery prince anywhere around here is Bruce. The feeling is mutual because the last thing Bruce wants is to be kissed by a phaery princess and turned back into a prince. I mean, Bruce likes being a frog.
‘Sure,’ I said, giving Phredde a nudge. Phredde and I have been through a lot with Bruce, what with the girl-eating rose bushes and sleeping beauty and the ghostly knight.
1
The least we could do was keep him out of Amelia’s clutches.
I put my hand up. ‘Bruce is with me and Phredde,’ I informed Mrs Olsen.
Bruce flashed me a damp, brown grin. Amelia looked disappointed. (I think she has a crush on Bruce, which is probably why Bruce keeps well clear of her. Amelia isn’t a phaery princess—she isn’t ANY sort of princess—but I bet Bruce doesn’t want to take any chances.)
‘Alright then,’ said Mrs Olsen. ‘Phredde, if you’d like to come up and pick out the first topic.’
Phredde fluttered up from her perch on the back of her chair, gave a swift karate kick to a passing fly, and flew out to the front of the classroom. She perched on the edge of the coffin (it’s made of this really cool dark wood—mahogany, I think it’s called—and has red satin lining and everything) and picked out of bit of paper.
‘Draw a plan of a pyramid,’ she read out.
‘Hey cool, that’s easy,’ I said. ‘You just draw a triangle and fill it in with bricks.’ Which would leave most of the weekend free for fooling around on my pirate ship with Phredde, or fighting ogres and stuff like that.
Amelia snorted. ‘Pyramids weren’t made of bricks!’
‘That’s right,’ said Mrs Olsen kindly. ‘I’m afraid your project is a bit more complicated than that, Prudence. I want you to draw a plan of the inside of a pyramid, not the outside.’
‘Oh,’ I said. Bruce started to stick his tongue out at Amelia but grabbed a fly with it before it got there. (I had never realised how long a frog’s tongue was till I met Bruce.)
And then the volcano in the playground exploded
2
and it was time to go home.
So me, Phredde and Bruce stayed after school, trying to work out how to do our project.
‘We’ll have to spend tomorrow in the library,’ I said gloomily. Normally I love the library—I’m even a library monitor (so is Phredde). But the thought of spending a whole, perfectly good Saturday stuck indoors with books on Ancient Egypt didn’t exactly make me want to say, ‘Goody goody gumdrops.’
Phredde shook her head. ‘Can’t,’ she said, even more gloomily. ‘I’ve got to go spend the weekend in Phaeryland (eerk) with Dad and Mum. My older sister Gladiolus is being made a lady-in-waiting to the Phaery Queen.’
‘Hey, cool,’ I said.
‘I think it’s totally yuk,’ muttered Phredde. ‘Double yuk! You know what Phaeryland’s like. Tiaras, lace dresses, glass slippers. Glass slippers! But I can’t get out of going.’
Bruce stared at her with his big, round, googly eyes. ‘But that means Pru and I’ll have to do all the work,’ he protested.
Phredde’s eyes gleamed. ‘Hey, I’ve got an idea!’
‘What?’ I asked suspiciously. The last time Phredde had an idea I ended up being kidnapped by a butterfly.
3
‘How about I magic you and Bruce into a real pyramid tomorrow morning before I leave for Phaeryland? That way you can make a map of it without having to be stuck in the library all day!’
‘You mean go back five thousand years to Ancient Egypt?’ I asked.
Phredde nodded.
‘No way. Mum grounded me from time travelling after that episode with the eruption of Vesuvius, remember?’
‘That wasn’t my fault,’ argued Phredde. ‘I just mistimed it a bit.’
‘Mum said it took weeks to get the lava stains out of my bedroom carpet,’ I said. ‘And anyway, don’t you have to have a passport and vaccinations and stuff to go to Egypt?’
Phredde shrugged. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll put the pyramid in your garden and you can explore it there.’
‘In our garden! Mum will have pink kittens…’
‘I’ll make it a small pyramid,’ Phredde assured me. ‘Alright? And I’ll magic it so that when you’re in there, you’re small enough to fit. It’ll be fine!’
‘Well…’ I began. I mean, it sounded okay. ‘Do you really think—’
Phredde glanced at her watch ‘Hell’s bells and bat’s blood!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’m late! I promised Mum I’d practise my curtsey before dinner!’
And before I could say, ‘Look, Phredde, I think I need more time to think about all this small Ancient Egyptian pyramid stuff,’ there was a loud PING! and Phredde was gone.
I looked at Bruce. He looked at me and shrugged, which made his clammy skin ripple all the way down his back. (I’d always thought frogs were green till I met Bruce. But he’s brown with just a bit of gold and some grey too. He’s a
Crinia…Crinea…
Oh, what the heck. Ask Bruce if you really want to know what sort of frog he is. But you’d better have a few hours
spare because he’ll tell you. And tell you. And tell you.)
‘I suppose it’ll be okay,’ croaked Bruce doubtfully. ‘Better than being stuck in an old library, anyway.’
‘I like libraries,’ I protested.
‘Okay,’ said Bruce happily. ‘You go and look up pyramids.’
‘Well, actually…’
Bruce grinned. (Frogs have just about the widest grin in the world.) ‘See you tomorrow then,’ he said, and hopped off to catch his bus.
I like Saturday mornings.
Well, actually, I don’t see much of the ‘morning’ part of Saturdays, because I sleep in, which is really cool because my bed’s made of rose petals, and the longer you sleep, the more they waft rose-scent all around you.
Gark, our butler (who used to be a magpie before Phredde’s mum PING!ed him to be our butler), somehow knows when I’m just about ready to wake up. He comes in with a raspberry milkshake and a plate of pineapple muffins on a silver tray and draws my curtains for me so I can see the sunrise. (When you live in a magic castle, the sun’s always rising through the window, no matter what time you wake up.)
This morning was different.
For a start, I didn’t yawn and stretch and wriggle around in my rose petals. (You know, the way you usually stretch and wriggle around when your body is trying to decide whether it’s worthwhile waking up yet or not.) One moment I was lying in my rose petals, and the next there was this great loud PING! and I was wide-awake.
No Gark carrying a milkshake and muffins on a silver tray. No pink and gold sunrise. In fact, the only thing I could see was darkness. There were no rose petals, either. All I could feel beneath me was a cold and damp floor. And the only thing I could hear was the sound of
drip, drip, drriiiiiipppp
all around me.
I sat up suddenly. ‘Help!’ I squeaked. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Who’s that?’ whispered someone.
‘Me!’
‘Who’s me?’
‘Me…I mean Pru…Hey, is that you, Bruce?’
I almost heard a nod in the darkness. ‘Where are we?’ said Bruce.
‘I don’t know.’ I stretched my arms out to feel around me cautiously, then stopped when my fingers found something cold and squishy that had just dripped from the ceiling. ‘Phredde!’ I half-yelled, half-squeaked.
‘What about Phredde?’ asked Bruce. His voice sounded as shocked as mine.
‘This is all Phredde’s doing! Remember how she said she’d PING! us into a pyramid before she went to Phaeryland! Well, she must have done it.’
‘Oh,’ said Bruce. He thought for a moment. ‘You don’t happen to have a torch do you?’ he asked hopefully.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Do you?’
‘How would I carry a torch?’ he demanded a bit crossly. ‘You don’t get pockets in frogskin. How on earth does Phredde expect us to explore a pyramid without a torch?’
I was more concerned about how we were going to get
out
of the pyramid without a torch than finding our way
around
inside.
I was also a bit worried that all this sitting in a dark corridor with stuff going plop! all over the place was going to give me the screaming heebie-jeebies. (In front of Bruce too, which was even worse!)
Then suddenly, there was a soft PING! right beside me.
‘Phredde?’ I whispered hopefully.
No one answered. I stretched out my hand. There was something cold and square and plastic. A torch! I pressed the handle and a beam of light zapped through the darkness.
I shone it around carefully. First at Bruce, who was pulsating gently beside me, then at the tall, slimy walls and up to the high ceiling…
‘We’re in a corridor or something,’ I whispered.
‘So I see,’ Bruce said. ‘Why are we whispering?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, trying to get my voice back to its normal loudness, except it didn’t seem to want to for some reason.
Bruce looked at me with interest. ‘Is that what you wear to bed?’
I looked down at myself and blushed. ‘What’s wrong with Winnie the Pooh pyjamas?’ I demanded hotly, thinking that I’d boil Phredde in oil on Monday morning. I mean, how embarrassing.
‘Hey!’ I squeaked in surprise. Suddenly, there was another PING! All at once, I was wearing a T-shirt, and the jeans I’d worn last weekend when Phredde and I went hunting for buried treasure (we found some too, but the ogre made us put it back).