The Phredde Collection

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Authors: Jackie French
Tags: Fiction
great-aunt Gloria, and Phredde’s dad all fancy in black velvet and silver trim (at least he didn’t have to wear a tiara and glass slippers—life just isn’t fair for us girls), and my stomach was churning round and round and round and I thought, oh heck, we haven’t even started and already I’m beginning to feel sick.
    From what Phredde had been telling me, vomit was probably illegal in Phaeryland and I’d be arrested in my first two minutes there…
    Phredde’s mum smiled at Phredde’s dad and said, ‘Will you do the honours, dear?’
    ‘Of course, dear,’ said Phredde’s dad. ‘Prudence, if you’d just hold hands with Ethereal so you don’t get lost in the Ether—just in case…that’s right.’
    Phredde grabbed my hand…well, my little finger actually. Phredde’s whole body is not much bigger than my hand.
    ‘Too late to back out now!’ whispered Phredde.
    …and suddenly it was cold and I mean COLD, except I couldn’t feel anything. The world was just nothing and nothing and nothing and it MUST have been cold because there was nothing else to feel and then…
    BLINK, we were in Phaeryland, and I didn’t feel sick at all.
    ‘Glerp!’ I said. I felt myself carefully. I seemed to be all there. And the others were there too…‘Hey!’ I yelled. ‘You’re all as big as I am!’
    Phredde’s mum grinned. ‘That’s what happens in Phaeryland,’ she said.
    ‘How come? Are you bigger? Or have I shrunk?’
    ‘Neither,’ said the new gigantic Phredde’s mum.
    ‘But…but it must be one or the other.’
    ‘Not in Phaeryland,’ said the big economy-sized Phredde’s dad. He was grinning too, like it was something in the air.
    I took another look at the new, giant Phredde—I mean, she didn’t look different just because she was big and I realised I’d even sort of forgotten she was small—then gazed around. It was really something to stare at.
    Have you ever seen pictures of Phaeryland in little-kid books? Those giant flowers and a million dancing butterflies in all the shades of a set of coloured pencils, and green, green grass and silver castles in the distance?
    Well, it’s all true. Every bit of it. I don’t know how the authors of those books knew what Phaeryland was like, but they sure got it right.
    I looked back at Phredde, the giant. She had this look on her face as though to say, Just let me get through this without vomiting, even though she’s never even been carsick.
    Suddenly I wondered what she’d meant back in her bedroom when her mum had interrupted us. Exactly what was Phredde planning? But there was no way I could ask her just then, with everybody there.
    ‘What now?’ I asked.
    ‘We go to see the Phaery Queen,’ said Phredde’s mum, amazed. ‘Didn’t Ethereal tell you?’
    ‘Nope,’ said Phredde. ‘If Prudence knew what she was really getting into she wouldn’t have come.’
    ‘Oh nonsense,’ said Phredde’s mum. ‘You know how the Phaery Queen loves to see all her little subjects on their birthdays. You used to love it, Phredde.’
    ‘Yeah. When I was two and half,’ said Phredde.
    Neither of her parents replied.
    ‘Which way to the Phaery Queen?’ I asked.
    Phredde’s mum looked vague. ‘Oh, a hundred heartbeats and just past the golden grove,’ she said. ‘We’ll know it when we get there.’
    ‘How do we get there? Walk?’
    I looked down at my feet. They were sweating like a penguin in a fish and chip shop. Glass slippers aren’t meant for walking and your feet would die if you tried to dance in them.
    ‘No, of course not,’ said Phredde’s dad. ‘Phredde, would you like to call the butterflies?’
    ‘Sure,’ said Phredde. She put two fingers in her mouth and gave this terrific whistle. (I wish I could do that—I must get her to show me how.)
    ‘Phredde, that’s not the way to do it in Phaeryland,’ said Phredde’s mum reproachfully.
    ‘Sorry, Mum,’ said Phredde, just as two huge butterflies fluttered down.
    I mean, they

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