Brigid Lucy and the Princess Tower (4 page)

‘Yes, Mum?’ Biddy says quickly, taking her thumb out of her mouth and looking around.

‘Did you——?’ Mum begins.

But then baby Ellen starts crying, so Mum has to pick her up and put her over her shoulder. And then Mum’s mouth is so busy going, ‘
Shhh!
’ that she forgets all about the string on Biddy’s backpack. She even lets Matilda collect a whole pile of beads and sequins from the floor.

So me and Matilda and Biddy play and play and play with the jewels. We make piles, and lines, and all sorts of wonderful patterns on the seat.

It is too much
fun
!

Chapter five

the princess tower

Biddy gets bored of playing with the glittery jewels after a while. She goes back to looking out of the window. I do, too, because playing with beads is really a little kid’s game. We watch the backs of millions of houses flicking past, with their brightly coloured walls, and their gardens, with plants and spiky weeds and flowers.

Then …

Wizz-bang-le-flab!

There is a tower! An ancient stone tower, as tall as tall can be! It reaches up into the clouds, and it’s all covered with ancient green moss. Right at the tip of the tower, sitting on top of the rippling orange stone, is a cross.

‘
Wow!
’ Biddy says. ‘That’s a Princess Tower.’

And she’s right. Of course the tower is a Princess Tower. What else could it be?

‘Mum! That’s where
Rapunzel
lives,’ Biddy says, jumping on the seat. ‘That’s where Rapunzel hangs down her hair,’ she continues, pointing to a tall slit-of-a-window that is cut into the sides of the Princess Tower.

Mum says, ‘Will-you-sit-down-Brigid.’ And, ‘Don’t-put-your-shoes-on-the-seat.’

‘But, Mum, look!’ Biddy says. ‘It’s a real-life Princess Tower.’

‘Brigid Lucy!’ Mum says in a do-be-quiet whisper. ‘It’s not a Princess Tower. It’s a cathedral, where people go to pray and talk to God.’

Which is the silliest thing we have ever heard.
Of course
it is a Princess Tower. That shows grown-ups don’t know everything. But it is no use trying to convince them, especially when you are trying to be good.

So me and Biddy watch the Princess Tower getting closer and
closer
and bigger and
bigger
. Until it is so close, we have to press our faces against the coolness of the window to see the pointy tip of the cross.

But then we have to stop looking, because Mum is calling us.

Mum packs Ellen into the pram, and tells Matilda to ‘hold-on-tight’. Then she tells Biddy to ‘concentrate’, and ‘no-daydreaming’, and to ‘stay-close-all-the-time’.

We’re getting off the train.

Biddy does try to concentrate, she really does. She walks right beside Mum all the way through the station and out onto the street. She ‘hangs-on-tight-to-the-pram’. She doesn’t suck her thumb or daydream. She can’t! Mum is carrying Matilda and walking
very
fast. Her high heels sing, ‘
Hur-ry, quick-ly, do-not-stop
’. Biddy has to run to keep up.

But then, right in front of us, the traffic lights flash red, and call out, ‘Tick! Tick!
Tick!
’ Which means, in robot language, ‘Stop! Be safe! Do not cross!’

This is the first time me and Biddy have had a chance to look for the Princess Tower since we got off the train.

There it is! Right there, on the other side of the road. Not the way Mum is heading. The other way. Across the road.

I so wish we could go that way!

‘Mum, look!’ Biddy says. ‘There’s the Princess Tower.’

But Mum can’t hear her. She is too busy looking at her watch. ‘Come on, quickly,’ she tells the traffic-light robot. ‘We’re late. We’re in a
hurry
.’ She is being very impatient.

Me and Biddy don’t care that the lights are taking simply ages. We love looking at the Princess Tower. It’s got all these white curves around the doors, and wonderful coloured glass sparkling in the windows.

But then a
horrible
grown-up person goes and stands right in front of us. We can’t see! So Biddy leans right over sideways, trying to look around him. But then another grown-up person just comes and blocks our way. And then so does another, until there are heaps of people crowded all around us. We can’t see anything! We are going to miss out on looking at the Princess Tower altogether if we don’t get in front of them.

So Biddy lets go of Ellen’s pram, just for a second. And then she slips between the people, to the edge of the road, where we can see clearly again.

The Princess Tower is standing tall and magnificent, rising up out of the street, right up to the sky. It has great wooden doors and there is a sign out the front that says ‘
W-E-L-C-O-M-E
’.

WELCOME!
We’ve got to go in! We’ll probably never, ever, ever get another chance.

Biddy wants to go in, too, and she does try to tell Mum. ‘Mum,’ she calls behind her, ‘we can go in! It says “Welcome”. We’re allowed.’

But, at that exact moment, the robot lights go green and say, ‘
Tick-tick-tick-tick
,’ very fast. They are telling everyone to, ‘Walk quickly! Walk quickly!’

And all the people behind Biddy surge forwards. They take us with them across the stripy lines, and we leave Matilda and Ellen and Mum behind.

Chapter six

the great hall

I don’t tell Biddy to run away to the Princess Tower. I really don’t. And she doesn’t tell herself, either. Both of us know we should stop, and yell out to Mum. To tell her there has been a mistake. That she should come and get us.

But we know Mum will be
angry
. And we don’t want to make her even later for her very-important-appointment. And neither of us has ever been in a Princess Tower before. Never in our whole entire lives.

So we don’t call out to Mum. We just keep crossing the road, until we are standing on the other side, just outside the Princess Tower.

When Mum’s robot light goes green, she hurries off down the street. ‘
Quick-ly-quick-ly-don’t-be-late
,’ say her high heels. She doesn’t notice we’re not there.

Me and Biddy walk past the WELCOME sign, and skip up the stone steps at the entrance of the Princess Tower. Then we go through the huge wooden doors at the top of the steps.

Suddenly, we’re in a ginormous archway. It is all carved with special protection beings, like shamrocks and crosses and
angels
. This tower must be a very important place to have so much magical protection.

We walk through the archway and into a massive hall. The hall has ceilings higher than the sky. It is as big as a supermarket, or a whole block of houses.

‘Oh!’ Biddy lifts her arms up. ‘It’s the Great Hall,’ she whispers. ‘All Princess Towers have got to have a Great Hall. It’s where the balls and dances are held.’

Biddy must be right. Why else would this place be so big? See, those huge marble pillars that stretch up to infinity? Well, they must be for the ladies to lean against when they’re tired from dancing. Or from waiting for the
prince
to fall in love with them.

The windows have coloured pictures of old kings in them, with their gold staffs and pointy king-crowns. And on the other side in the windows there are queens in veils and long dresses, just like Amira Hassan’s mother—she’s a Muslim lady. Each queen is holding a little prince or princess.

Today the hall is filled with seats. Perhaps the king is about to make a proclamation, and the seats are for all the people of the land to sit on while they hear him speak.

I can feel Biddy tremble with excitement.

‘And when the princesses are not at a ball,’ Biddy whispers, ‘this Great Hall is where the people come to see the king. There’s his throne and that table is for …’ she hesitates, ‘… his stuff.’

Behind the table is an alcove filled with flowers and gold ornaments and candles. There is also a passageway that must lead into the king’s private chamber.

Biddy wants to go and see the king’s private chamber. I do, too.

But, then, we see a tiny, little, just-big-enough-for-one-person balcony. It is snuggled against the wall. And it’s made out of a huge kind of bird statue. His claws are clutching the wall beneath him, and his wings are spread up and out behind him, to make a little railing. On the railing is a shelf. And on the shelf is the biggest book in the whole wide world.

‘A
griffin
!’ Biddy whispers.

‘A griffin?’ I ask. Of course it is a griffin. Why would they have a griffin holding a book? Griffins are the most important magical creatures in the universe. They protect sacred things.