The next priority was to escape, which was a bit difficult, given that I had no idea where I was.
Okay, I thought. First things first. Firstly, get out of the ropes, and secondly, get out of the house…
I began to wriggle my hands like a worm in a hot frying pan, but it’s not as easy as it looks in the movies to get your wrists free. I’d managed to get one rope to move a bit further down my wrist, and had decided that maybe I should work on getting my feet free first, when something white and shiny flapped into the room.
I stopped wriggling, and tried to look innocent.
If the Snot Phaery was the blobbiest Phaery I’d ever seen, this one had the biggest bum and belly. And he wore tight white satin trousers, which didn’t exactly hide the blubber.
But underneath the paunch, his legs were long and skinny, as were his arms, and his wings were the giant economy size. I suppose they needed to be big to carry him around. His shirt had white sparkling things all over it—sequins, I guessed. He looked to be about the same age as my brother, Mark, or maybe a few years older.
The vision looked at me in surprise. ‘Hello,’ he said vaguely. ‘Where did you come from? You wanna beer?’
‘I’m too young to drink beer,’ I informed him.
‘That so?’ He frowned, as though he needed to work hard on that thought. ‘Yeah, I suppose you are.’ He flapped his way over to the fridge, opened it and bent down, stretching the seams on the biggest satin-dressed bum I had ever seen.
‘Er…who are you?’ I asked him.
‘Me?’ he pulled a can of beer out of the fridge and opened it. ‘I’m the Dandruff Phaery!’ he announced proudly, scratching the bit of bare, hairy stomach that was protruding between his shirt and his trousers.
‘The Dandruff Phaery!’
‘That’s so.’ He took a long drink of white froth and burped. ‘I knows a pome ’bout a Dandruff Phaery,’ he added.
‘A what?’ I asked.
‘A pome. You know,’ he said earnestly.
‘Oh, a POEM!’
‘Yeah. It goes like this.’ The Dandruff Phaery cleared his throat.
‘ “Twinkle twinkle on your shoulders,
Small and flat or shaped like boulders,
If it falls out of your hair,
Your Dandruff Phaery’s always there.”
‘My mum told me that pome,’ he informed me, fluttering his wings proudly.
‘That so?’ I muttered grimly.
‘Yeah. That’s when I thought: I want to be a Dandruff Phaery when I grows up. And now I is!’ he announced happily.
‘Whacky doo,’ I muttered. This was definitely getting worse. A homicidal Tooth Phaery was one thing. An evil Snot Phaery and a poetic Dandruff Phaery were just too much for me to bear. ‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘But just how many of you live in this house?’
The Dandruff Phaery counted on his fingers. ‘One, two, three, oh, and me. That’s four,’ he announced carefully.
‘I’ve met you and the Tooth Phaery and the Snot Phaery,’ I said grimly. ‘Who else is there?’
‘Just Myrtle,’ said the Dandruff Phaery. ‘But she moved out last week.’
‘What does Myrtle collect?’ I asked, just to make conversation. I mean, to be honest, I didn’t really want to know. ‘The dirt under your fingernails? Hiccups?’
‘Eh?’ asked the Dandruff Phaery. ‘Oh, I get you. You’re joking…no, Myrtle’s the Toe Jam Phaery. She collects…’
‘Yeah, I know. The gunk between your toes.’
The Dandruff Phaery stared at me admiringly. ‘Hey, you’re really bright!’
‘Thanks,’ I said sourly.
‘I bet you know all sorts of things!’
‘What sorts of things?’ I asked.
The Dandruff Phaery wrinkled his brow. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘but I bet you do.’
Well, this was getting me nowhere.
‘How about untying me?’ I said, as temptingly as I could. ‘Pretty please?’
The Dandruff Phaery made an effort to think this through. ‘Can’t,’ he mumbled at last.
‘Why not?’
‘Because now you know where we hang out. The Tooth Phaery says it’s a secret!’
‘But I don’t know where we are!’ I wailed.
The Dandruff Phaery made another effort. ‘Yes you do,’ he stated proudly. ‘Because you’re here.’
‘But I don’t know how I got here! I don’t know anything! I’m just a kid who accidentally woke up. Well, okay, sort of on purpose woke up after the trap went off…but really and truly, I’m the best forgetter you ever met! Just ask my teacher!’
The Dandruff Phaery tried to work this out. He was
still puzzling when the door opened again and his two housemates fluttered in. They perched on the table and considered me.
‘Oh, goodie, she’s awake,’ said the Tooth Phaery. ‘The question is: what are we going to do with her?’
The Snot Phaery wrinkled his brow. ‘We could tie buckets of cement to her feet and then throw her in the sea!’ he offered.
The Tooth Phaery shook his head. ‘That’s a stupid idea,’ he said.
‘Yeah, real dumb,’ I agreed.
‘We don’t have any cement,’ finished the Tooth Phaery.
‘Maybe one of us could pretend to be the Cement Phaery and go to a building site and—’ offered the Snot Phaery.
The Tooth Phaery frowned. ‘No…no…’
‘How about we PING! up some crocodiles and they could eat her and then we could PING! the crocodiles away afterwards?’ suggested the Snot Phaery.
‘Too messy. There’d be blood all over the floor.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I bet bloodstains are really hard to get out of seagrass matting.’
‘I know what we can do!’ exclaimed the Dandruff Phaery triumphantly.
‘What?’ I asked suspiciously.
‘What?’ demanded the Tooth Phaery.
The Dandruff Phaery’s big white face broke into a great grin. ‘I think we should show her our treasure!’
‘Why?’ demanded the Tooth Phaery.
‘Yeah, why?’ asked the Snot Phaery.
‘Because we ain’t never shown anyone our treasure before. What’s the use of you being a Tooth Phaery and
collecting lots of teeth and me being a Dandruff Phaery and getting lots of dandruff and—’
‘Okay, we get the idea,’ the Tooth Phaery interrupted. He looked at me consideringly. ‘You know, he just might have a point!’
‘I might?’ asked the Dandruff Phaery, beaming.
The Tooth Phaery nodded. ‘She can look after our treasure for us!’
‘Oh, goodie,’ I muttered.
‘Don’t you want to?’ inquired the Tooth Phaery, a little too politely.
‘Oh, er, yes. I’d love to,’ I assured him. After all, it was better than being eaten by crocodiles. ‘Er…do you think you might untie me then?’
The three phaeries looked at each other. Finally the Tooth Phaery nodded. ‘I don’t see why not,’ he said.
‘Because why? Because we’re phaeries and can PING! you if you try to escape,’ pointed out the Dandruff Phaery helpfully.
‘Wow, thanks,’ I muttered. ‘I had just about worked that out.’
PING! PING! PING! Suddenly, I was free—well, free as I could be while locked in a room with two homicidal phaeries and one dandruff collector who didn’t know how to tie his shoelaces. I rubbed my sore wrists carefully, and then my ankles.
‘Come on then!’ cried the Dandruff Phaery happily, fluttering over to the door. ‘Let’s go look at our treasure!’
I stood up unsteadily and followed them through the door and down a shabby corridor. Something scuttled in a corner. No, I told myself. It was not a rat. This lot would probably serve roasted rat for dinner.
We went past a couple of open doors. I forced myself not to look inside. They were probably bedrooms and I didn’t really want to see the bedroom of a Snot Phaery. We came to a door at the end of the corridor.
The Tooth Phaery flung it open proudly. ‘Ta da!’ he exclaimed.
It wasn’t as bad as I had expected. I’d thought there’d be bags of teeth all over the place, bloodstained at one end and maybe with bits of tooth decay at the other—I mean, not everyone brushes their teeth as often as I do. I thought that there might be great tubs of dandruff, too, all piled all over the place, and snot oozing out of damp, horrid barrels.
Instead there was only one gently oozing barrel of snot, a dozen or so quite small bags of what I supposed was dandruff (they were tied up neatly with white ribbon) and one phaery-sized bathtub full of teeth. Mostly baby teeth, by the look of it, although I could see the occasional yellow fang and a suspicious black-red root as well.
‘Is that all you’ve got?’ I asked.
I suppose it wasn’t the most tactful thing to say. The Tooth Phaery turned bright red, the Snot Phaery blew out his cheeks, and the Dandruff Phaery just looked at me mournfully and said, ‘We haven’t been at it long.’
‘What?’ I exclaimed. ‘You mean you’re not real Snot Phaeries and Tooth Phaeries?’
‘Of course we’re real,’ snapped the Tooth Phaery. ‘Length of service has nothing to do with it.’ He proudly pulled himself up to his full 30 centimetres. ‘And now we must get back to work!’ he declared. Then he glared at me. ‘I want you to have polished
every one of those teeth by the time I get back—and I want to be able to see my face in them. Understand me?’
‘Or it’ll be crocodile snack time for you, bloodstains or no bloodstains,’ chuckled the Snot Phaery. ‘And I want you to weigh my snot, too. You’ll find the scales in the cupboard with the toothpaste.’
‘Er…an’ if you wouldn’t mind counting up me dandruff flakes,’ added the Dandruff Phaery. ‘I’d have done it but I keep on getting muddled.’
With a final glare at me and a PING!, the Tooth Phaery was gone.
PING! The Snot Phaery and the Dandruff Phaery were gone, too.
Then, suddenly, there was another PING! and the Dandruff Phaery was back.
‘Er…dere’s beer in de fridge if you want it,’ he offered kindly.
‘I’m too young for beer,’ I reminded him.
‘Oh, yeah.’ He thought for a minute. There was a soft PING! from the other end of the corridor. ‘I put some lemonade dere instead,’ he told me. ‘An’ dere’s some bread an’ other stuff, too, in case you’re hungry.’
‘Er…thanks,’ I said.
He gave me a tentative smile. ‘It’s a bit like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, isn’t it?’ he asked hopefully. ‘My mum used to read me that story. You see, you’re Snow White and you get to look after us. And we’re…’
‘And you’re all the seven dwarfs…’ I added sourly.
He beamed at me. ‘Yeah! Boy, you’re clever! I bet you’re always top of the class.’
‘No,’ I told him. ‘A kid called Amelia is.’ I had a
sudden bright idea. ‘Hey, why don’t you get Amelia to be your Snow White? I bet she’d be much better at it than I would be.’
‘I likes you,’ said the Dandruff Phaery simply. ‘I REALLY likes you.’ And with another PING! he was gone.
Well, I reckoned I had four options.
I could get out the toothpaste and start polishing teeth.
I could go and investigate the fridge and THEN start polishing teeth, counting dandruff flakes and weighing out cups of snot.
I could lie down in the corridor and scream and drum my heels against the floor.
Or I could try to escape.
I gave the matter a whole two seconds of thought, and decided on option four. I ran down the corridor and opened the front door…
Well, that’s what I meant to do, anyway. I got as far as running down the corridor when I discovered that the place where there should have been a front door was just a blank wall.
Okay, back door then. I ran back the other way.
No back door.
Side door? I tiptoed into the first bedroom, then the second and the third. (No, I am not going to describe them. It was bad enough having to tiptoe through them. You imagine what a murderous Tooth Phaery’s room would be like, and a Snot Phaery’s and a Dandruff Phaery’s. Now make them about 100 times worse than you imagined and you might just have it.)
And there was still no door.
A window then. A kid like me was quite capable of climbing out of a window. Except, of course, I hadn’t found a window, either.
Maybe a mouse hole, I thought desperately. Or a chimney. If Santa could come down a chimney I could go up it. Except, of course, there was no fireplace. Maybe a loose floorboard. Or I could kick a hole in the wall.
I had to do something. They’d be back any minute and I hadn’t polished a single tooth, much less started counting the dandruff…
And what other duties did Snow White have? Cooking and cleaning, wasn’t it? And packing the dwarfs’ lunch when they went off to work. I could just see myself cutting snot sandwiches into neat little triangles for the Snot Phaery’s lunch box…
If only there was some magic mobile phone that I could use to call Phredde—or Bruce—or even a non-magic mobile phone, come to think of it.
I patted my dressing gown pockets just in case a mobile phone had fallen in by accident. But, of course, they were empty. Or empty of anything useful anyway, like mobile phones, magic carpets or bazookas. There was just a bit of fluff in one and my tooth on its bit of string in the other.
My tooth…
Suddenly I had a brainwave!
Maybe I’d been right all along. Maybe my captor wasn’t the real Tooth Phaery, no matter what he said. Maybe he was only a pretend Tooth Phaery, a pirate Tooth Phaery, a freelancing, unlicensed, deregistered, unfrocked, non-kosher sort of Tooth Phaery…
Which would mean the real Tooth Phaery might still come and collect my tooth.
I calculated swiftly. I’d no idea how long I’d been unconscious, but I reckoned it wasn’t very long. So if it had been about one o’clock when I was kidnapped, it must be nearly dawn now…
And the Tooth Phaery ALWAYS collects your tooth before dawn, as long as you’ve put it in a glass of water beside your bed…
A glass of water! I raced out to the kitchen, and rummaged in the miniature cupboard. None of the glasses looked quite clean (I shuddered to think what might have been in them) so I washed one quickly and jammed my tooth in it (you try fitting a human-sized tooth into a phaery-sized container) and managed to get a few drips of water in, too.
That would have to do!
Now for a bed! There was no way I was going to lie down in the Tooth Phaery’s bed-shaped swamp, or the Dandruff Phaery’s piles of…well, I HOPED it was feathers, or the Snot Phaery’s…well, let’s just say it wasn’t a waterbed…
So, I grabbed the beanbags and shoved them together, then I lay down carefully, so that I didn’t push them apart. I placed the glass with my tooth in it next to me, then tied the string onto my finger again.