Read Online The Phredde Collection by Jackie French - Free Book Online Page A

hat?’
    ‘Mum I don’t NEED a hat. Not in Phaeryland.’
    ‘But the weather forecast said the UV level would be—’
    ‘Mum, they don’t have UV levels in Phaeryland. The Phaery Queen wouldn’t allow it.’
    ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘Sure I’m sure. Phredde’s mum told me. No one ever gets skin cancer in Phaeryland.’
    ‘Maybe I should just ring Diffy and make sure.’ Mum’s hand sort of moved towards the phone.
    ‘Mum, I promise. I’m not going to get skin cancer in Phaeryland. Thanks, Gurgle,’ as he took my plate and mug. ‘That was great.’
    ‘Gargle, argle, gah,’ said Gurgle.
    ‘Yeah, thanks, I’ll have a great time,’ I agreed. ‘Mum, I’ve got to go.’
    Mum tried frantically to think of something else to stress about. I suppose it’s not every day your only daughter flies off to Phaeryland.
    ‘Have you got your carsickness tablets?’
    ‘Mum, we’re not going by car. You can’t drive to Phaeryland.’
    ‘And you’ve remembered Ethereal’s present?’ Mum was trying really, really hard to find something else to worry about.
    ‘Of course I have,’ I said.
    I’d had it for days. It was three colours of hair gel. I’d been saving up for it for weeks.
    I’d wanted to give Phredde a rock band—a really big one with at least four guitar players and proper amplifiers and everything that she could keep in her bedroom—but when I asked her mum if she could conjure one up for me, she sort of shuddered a bit and said, ‘Sorry Prudence, it’s beyond my powers.’
    I didn’t think anything was beyond her powers, but that just shows you how little I know about magic.
    So there I was, bright and early, and full of muesli, and sort of burping mango juice (maybe Mum’s right and it is too rich to have at breakfast) marching across the drawbridge to Phredde’s.
    I looked around in case Uncle Mordred had come back. He’d been a dragon last time I met him, swooping all around the towers and diving in the moat, but he hadn’t been around for months. I really liked Uncle Mordred and I was hoping he’d be back for the birthday party.
    Phredde’s dad let me in. (Phredde’s family doesn’t have a butler. I don’t suppose you need one when you can magic everything for yourself.)
    He didn’t actually pull the door open—after all, it’s a big door and he’s only phaery size, even if he is bigger than Phredde.
    The door just opened by itself and closed behind me, but I knew he’d done it…and there I was in the front hall with the suits of armour and the stuffed ogre (I’ll tell you about that one some time), and the Persian carpet, with flowers and animals and stuff on it that really move if you look at it close enough.
    ‘Come in, come in.’ Phredde’s dad smiled.
    He had a nice smile, a bit like Phredde’s, and these dark eyes that sort of slither upwards at the corners like all phaery’s have (well, all the ones I’ve met anyway), and a thin, pointy nose, but he has much solider wings than Phredde—more like butterfly wings.
    (Mum says Phredde’s wings are like gossamer, but when I asked what gossamer was she just said to look it up in the dictionary, which I did, and it was no use at all— you try it…)
    He’s got an American accent, too, which sounds a bit odd in a phaery from Ruritania who lives in Australia, but he said that when he was at school his English teacher had been an American phaery on an exchange trip.
    I was a bit shy of Phredde’s dad to tell the truth. I’d only met him once before, and that was last Christmas. (He gave me this incredible, jewelled saddle for my unicorn—it has emeralds and rubies on it). He’s away a lot on business. He works for some politician as a magical advisor.
    (When I told Dad what Phredde’s dad did for a living he just snorted and said, ‘I wondered how those snakes got into power…’ But Mum told him to hush and stay off politics. She said that with unemployment the way it is, you can’t always be choosey about thejob