Phredde and the Purple Pyramid

By Jackie French

Phredde, Pru and Bruce are back and this time they're in ancient Egypt. Will the pyramids survive Instead of just roaring like all volcanoes that are school bells do, it erupts and a tunnel opens. Phredde, Pru and Bruce can't help but enter the tunnel, magic at the ready, for a new adventure. It seems Fluffy, Queen of the Nile, has sent this time tunnel to seek out a brave and brilliant girl to save her - this has to be Pru, well, it can't be Phredde, she's a phaery, and Bruce, well, he's a frog and a boy. Will one girl, a phaery and a frog be able to save Fluffy, Queen of the Nile And, what kind of a name is Fluffy for an Egyptian queen anyway Ages 7-12
Phredde, Pru and Bruce are back and this time they're in ancient Egypt. Will the pyramids survive? Instead of just roaring like all volcanoes that are school bells do, it erupts and a tunnel opens. Phredde, Pru and Bruce can't help but enter the tunnel, magic at the ready, for a new adventure. It seems Fluffy, Queen of the Nile, has sent this time tunnel to seek out a brave and brilliant girl to save her - this has to be Pru, well, it can't be Phredde, she's a phaery, and Bruce, well, he's a frog and a boy. Will one girl, a phaery and a frog be able to save Fluffy, Queen of the Nile? And, what kind of a name is Fluffy for an Egyptian queen anyway? Ages 7-12

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Jul 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781460703892

Jackie French

Jackie French AM is an award-winning writer, wombat negotiator, the 2014–2015 Australian Children's Laureate and the 2015 Senior Australian of the Year. In 2016 Jackie became a Member of the Order of Australia for her contribution to children's literature and her advocacy for youth literacy. She is regarded as one of Australia's most popular children's authors and writes across all genres — from picture books, history, fantasy, ecology and sci-fi to her much loved historical fiction for a variety of age groups. ‘A book can change a child's life. A book can change the world' was the primary philosophy behind Jackie's two-year term as Laureate. jackiefrench.com facebook.com/authorjackiefrench

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Volcano Erupts

It was NOT an ordinary day at our school.

To start with, we were having a lesson about (gulp) SEX! Oh, and the school volcano was erupting, too.

‘Now, the first thing that happens before the male and female get together …’ instructed Mrs Olsen.

I blocked my ears, and stared out the window at the volcano to take my mind off the yuk stuff.

Phredde’s mum, The Phaery Splendifera, gave the school the volcano to replace the school bell — when you hear the volcano roar, it’s time to go into class. Usually you just hear this great ‘bang!’ and red-hot rocks leap into the air so you have to get into class FAST in case they drop on you.

You can’t even see the lava inside the volcano unless you lean right over the rim, which is NOT a good idea, as that kindergarten kid discovered when a red-hot rock blew his new Spiderman cap off. But, hey, little kids need to learn, don’t they?

Like I said, the volcano is usually pretty quiet except when it’s meant to explode to call us into class. But, even though we’d all come in from morning tea, black ash still drifted from the crater, and I could just see the ooze of red-hot lava at its rim.

I blinked. Surely there was more lava than usual? That lava looked different, too. Angry looking …

‘… is that the male tries to attract a female,’ went on Mrs Olsen, taking a sip from the thermos on the desk next to her. Mrs Olsen is a vampire and needs regular doses of bl …, er, red stuff.

I glanced out the window again. The lava was going glop! glop! glop! down the sides of the volcano. It wasn’t a really big volcano, only about the size of a rubbish bin. But that lava looked HOT!

‘… because if you want babies you need both a male and a female,’ stated Mrs Olsen.

Glop! Glop! Glop! A dark red bubbling lake oozed away from the volcano.

‘Now there are many ways a male can attract a female,’ continued Mrs Olsen. ‘He can … Edwin, are you giggling down the back?’

‘No, Mrs Olsen,’ giggled Edwin.

‘Is there anyone else who finds this amusing?’ demanded Mrs Olsen, showing her fangs.

No one answered.

‘Very well. A male usually attracts a female by singing to her …’

Amelia giggled this time, right behind me. She poked me in the back. ‘Hope you’re listening to this!’ she hissed. ‘Hey, has Bruce started singing to you yet?’

I pretended I was too interested in the volcano to hear.

Glop! Glop! Glop! The lava crept across the netball court …

I blinked. I really was interested in the lava now.

It had never done that before.

‘Or croaks or in some cases gives a soft cluck,’ went on Mrs Olsen. ‘Then he grabs her from behind and this forces her to deposit the eggs in the water. The male frog then fertilises the eggs. The frog’s eggs float on top of the water to get the warmth from the sun … Prudence, are you listening?’

I forced my gaze away from the glop of the lava. A horrid dark red tide was now slithering down into the hollow where we eat our lunch. ‘Yes, Mrs Olsen. I mean no, Mrs Olsen, because there’s this big wall of …’

‘I BET she’s listening,’ whispered Amelia behind me.

I ignored her. Just because my boyfriend’s a frog — well, actually Bruce isn’t a boy, he’s a phaery, and he isn’t really a phaery most of the time because he’d rather be a frog, and he hasn’t actually said he’s my boyfriend, er, frog-friend, er, you know what I mean …

‘I bet Prudence is really interested in how frogs clawk! Clawk, clawk, clawk!’ squawked Amelia.

I zapped round and stared. Phredde grinned at me from her perch on the back of her chair. Phredde is my best friend and a phaery and even if Phredde is only 30 centimetres high, you’d better not get on her bad side!

‘Clawk!’ shrieked Amelia again. ‘Cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck!’

Mrs Olsen closed her eyes wearily. ‘Phredde?’ she said.

‘Yes, Mrs Olsen?’ said Phredde, ever so sweetly.

‘Turn Amelia back into a human.’

‘But Mrs Olsen, she looks much better as a hen …’ began Phredde, flapping her wings like a butterfly on steroids.

‘I am not having a purple hen with yellow toenails in my zoology class!’ insisted Mrs Olsen. ‘Turn her back! Now!’ Mrs Olsen showed her fangs again.

‘Yes, Mrs Olsen,’ said Phredde.

PING!

‘Cluck, clu … How dare you?’ yelled Amelia, brushing a purple feather off her nose.

‘Shut up, beaky face!’ I said, shooting a quick look at the lava out the window.

‘Why should I shut up?’ demanded Amelia. ‘I’m going to tell my mum that Phredde turned me into a hen! And then my mum will …’

‘I said shut up!’ I screamed.

‘Why!’ Amelia shrieked back.

‘Because a wall of burning hot lava is going to crash into our classroom any second and we need to get out NOW!’ I yelled.

And then the lava hit the school verandah and …

Chapter 2

The Secret Tunnel

Five minutes later we were all assembled on the oval, watching the flames engulf our classroom. They’d engulfed our schoolbags too, which meant they’d also engulfed the ham and pineapple focaccia that was my lunch.

On the other hand, the flames had engulfed my homework as well.

And it had stopped the frog sex lesson, too.

Phredde fluttered over and perched on my shoulder. ‘The volcano must have stuck,’ she remarked.

I nodded. ‘But at least you PING!ed us all out of there in time.’

Bruce hopped towards us. ‘I was enjoying that lesson!’ he complained. ‘We hadn’t even got to the really good bits, like the tadpoles turning into frogs and losing their gills so they can’t breathe underwater anymore and how frogs have trouble if their creek gets too salty. Why don’t we do more stuff about frogs at school?’

I glared at him. I’d had enough frog talk for one day. ‘That’s because the rest of us are human!’ I informed him. ‘Like, you know, hands, not webbed feet! And we eat normal things like sausage and pineapple pizza with anchovies, not moths and flies and …’

Zap! Bruce hauled back his long tongue and gulped down the fly guiltily. ‘Well, what would you have rather been doing?’ he demanded.

I sighed. ‘I don’t know. Something INTERESTING.’

‘Frog’s eggs are really interesting …’ began Bruce.

‘Only if you’re a frog!’ I stopped as Mrs Allen, the headmistress, galloped towards us across the oval.

‘I’ve rung the fire brigade,’ she panted. ‘But they say they don’t do volcanic eruptions! And I called the plumber but he says he doesn’t do stuck volcanoes, either!’ She stopped to catch her breath.

‘I think Phredde should do something about the volcano,’ said Amelia virtuously. ‘It’s all her fault, anyway, because it’s her mum’s volcano.’

Phredde gazed down at Amelia. I knew that look. Phredde was wondering what Amelia would look like as a slug or maybe as an Amelia-shaped pile of snot. Then she shrugged as though to say, nah, she’s not worth it.

‘That’s why I can’t stop the volcano,’ explained Phredde to all the rest of us. ‘Everyone knows a phaery can’t interfere in another phaery’s spell.’

‘Yeah, dimwit,’ I said to Amelia. ‘Everybody knows that!’

‘Well, I think …’ began Amelia.

‘Cluck,’ I said. ‘Cluck, cluck, cluck. Who wants to be a purple chickie, then?’

Amelia shut her mouth before it turned into a beak.

‘And Mum’s gone to Phaeryland for the day,’ added Phredde. ‘So I can’t call her. There’s no mobile phone reception in Phaeryland yet.’

Mrs Allen took a deep breath. ‘Well, at least the lava isn’t threatening the other classrooms,’ she said. ‘I’ve had a word with Miss Richards and she hasn’t got any classes in the library this morning. So I think the best thing is for you all to head down to the library and go on with your lessons as if …’ Mrs Allen took a deep breath (she’s been looking awfully hassled lately for some reason), ‘as if nothing had happened,’ she finished.

‘Oh,’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ said Phredde.

‘Yeah from me too,’ said Bruce, watching the rest of the class straggle down to the library. ‘I bet Mrs Olsen starts talking about how butterflies lay eggs or something really boring now, and doesn’t say anything else about frogs at all.’

‘You know what I’d really like?’ I said wistfully.

‘What?’ asked Bruce, as we began to walk after the others. Well, I walked. Bruce hopped and Phredde fluttered through the haze from the volcano.

‘I’d like a giant tunnel to open up right in the middle of the oval and …’

‘What sort of a giant tunnel?’ asked Bruce, interested.

‘A long, dark mysterious one! And then …’

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