Phredde and the Zombie Librarian and Other Stories to Eat with a Blood Plum

By Jackie French

Beautiful new editions of popular titles that will entice a whole new generation of readers to the exploits of Phredde and her friends. Phredde and the Zombie Librarian and other stories to eat with a blood plum there's a grey-flesh zombie librarian tending her blood-starved books in the school library.and a 5000-year-old Egyptian mummy roaming the corridors. Can Phredde and Pru escape? Ages 7-12

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Jan 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9780730491293

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

A Bit About Stories

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.

Prudence and the Mummy

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 exploded² 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