First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2021

  Published in this ebook edition in 2021

  HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

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  Text copyright © Philippa Gregory 2021

  Illustrations copyright © Chris Chatterton 2021

  Cover illustrations copyright © Chris Chatterton 2021

  Cover design copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021

  Philippa Gregory and Chris Chatterton assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work respectively.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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  Source ISBN: 9780008403294

  Ebook Edition © September 2021 ISBN: 9780008403317

  Version: 2021-09-21

  For Freddie and Sebastian

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  The Mammoth Adventure

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  The Fairy Godmother and the Time Regulations

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter The Last

  Keep Reading …

  The Princess Rules books by Philippa Gregory

  About the Publisher

  ‘What is going on outside?’ the king demanded crossly.

  The queen listened. There was a noise like thunder: PAD-PAD-PAD-PAD-pad-pad-pad-pad followed by silence. Then it began again. PAD-PAD-PAD-PAD. Then they heard a great swooshing noise, like a wave breaking on a shore, and a cross voice said, ‘You moved! I saw you!’

  Through the turret window, they could hear a giggle. ‘Did not.’

  Next came a sound like an ebbing wave, and then a sudden thunder of footsteps, and the same voice cried out in triumph: ‘Home! I’se home! I win! I’se home!’

  ‘What in Fairytale Land are they doing?’ the king demanded.

  ‘That’s six – four to me,’ it said. ‘Go back to the start. Round eleven coming up.’

  The king joined the queen at the window to watch their two inconvenient guests.

  ‘They’re playing a game like Grandmother’s Footsteps,’ she said wearily. ‘The Sea Serpent is under the drawbridge like a troll, and the Mammoth has to get across like a Billy Goat Gruff. The Sea Serpent pops up and if it sees the Mammoth move, he has to go back to the beginning again. If he freezes before the Sea Serpent comes up, he stays quite still, waits till the Sea Serpent goes underwater again and then races to the end of the drawbridge.’

  ‘But that noise, like a hundred cannons firing rounds of shot all at the same time! Is that the Mammoth tiptoeing?’ said the king.

  ‘Yes,’ said his wife shortly.

  ‘It’s like thunder,’ the king remarked.

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ the queen agreed.

  ‘Undootedly! And they have been playing this game for how long?’

  ‘All summer,’ the queen said through gritted teeth. ‘Every single day.’

  ‘Will the drawbridge stand the weight?’ He peered out again as there was another great rumble of noise and the castle rocked. ‘Is he dancing now?’

  ‘That’s his celebration,’ she said. ‘A special dance on his hind legs. He does it every time he gets to the end of the drawbridge without the Sea Serpent catching him.’

  ‘That drawbridge is going to collapse into the moat if they carry on like this,’ the king said crossly.

  ‘It’s the guards I feel sorry for,’ the queen agreed. ‘Every few minutes, the Mammoth comes charging over the drawbridge and then they all have to salute and shout, “Halt! Who goes there?” and the Mammoth just giggles.’

  ‘And who is to blame for all this chaos in my royal palace?’ the king demanded, puffing himself up so that his uniform tightened over his chest and his medals jangled. ‘Name the culprit!’

  The queen shrugged. They were both thinking of the same person.

  ‘Name her!’ The king made it quite clear who he was blaming.

  ‘You know as well as I do,’ the queen said. ‘It’s Florizella of course! She thought it was only fair to keep the Mammoth in the Seven Kingdoms after he got magicked here by accident. And we all agreed that the Sea Serpent should get an allowance in picnics if it would give up eating princesses. We saw no problem about it living in the moat – except it is a bit embarrassing for us when we have visitors. But nobody dreamed they would become such good friends. Nobody imagined this game. Nobody could have thought that they would play it all day, every single day.’

  ‘Well, somebody should have thought of it,’ the king said grandly. ‘And I know who!’ He stalked to the royal office door, opened it and shouted down the spiral stone staircase, ‘Florizella!’

  He waited for a moment. In the sunny silence, he could hear the birds singing, the hens sleepily clucking in the orchard and the bees droning in the rose garden. It was all very peaceful and quiet, then – PAD-PAD-PAD-PAD-pad-pad-pad-pad, and the Sea Serpent whooshed up and the Mammoth froze.

  ‘Sssaw you,’ the Sea Serpent hissed, and the Mammoth ran heavily back to the start of the drawbridge and waited for his friend to sink under the bridge so he could begin creeping across again.

  ‘Hi, Daddy King, hi, Mummy Queen!’ Florizella ran up the spiral stairs and came into the room. She was wearing her jodhpurs and hard hat. Her brother Courier came in behind her, wearing a full riding habit with a skirt that looped elegantly over his arm. In their own ways, they both looked great. But neither mother nor father was pleased to see them. Florizella looked from one cross face to another. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘Listen!’ her father said crossly. ‘Just listen.And you tell me if something’s wrong!’

  Florizella and Courier stood still and listened to the thunderous tiptoeing of the Mammoth and the swish of the Sea Serpent as it reared up out of the moat and cascaded back down. In the guard tower, the sentries flinched, as the wave of green water from the moat splashed over their perfectly shined boots and perfectly pressed trousers, and braced themselves for the galloping arrival of the Mammoth.

  ‘But what seems to be the problem?’ Courier asked, looking at his father’s face with interest. ‘The Mammoth and the Sea Serpent are playing nicely. And yet you seem disturbed, my dear father.’

  ‘What seems to be the problem?’ the king harrumphed. ‘Seems? The problem? What? To be? To be?’

  ‘My very words!’ Courier exclaimed, pleased that his father agreed with him so exactly. ‘In a different order, but the sense is there, and that’s the main thing, after all. What seems to be the problem, Mummy Queen? You also appear to be upset.’

  ‘It’s the noise,’ she said simply. ‘The noise of the Mammoth running and stopping, and the Sea Serpent rearing up and splashing back into the moat, over and over. All day, every day. The Mammoth is far too heavy for the drawbridge, and the guards are getting wet when the Sea Serpent dives. And they’re very tired of shouting, “Halt! Who goes there?” a hundred times a day.’

  ‘Oh! These guys! These guys!’ Courier said fondly. ‘I thought you’d be pleased they were outside playing in the sunshine, and not stuck inside on their screens.’

  ‘They don’t have screens,’ the queen reminded him. ‘Nobody has screens here. This is Fairytale Land, remember? They’ve not been invented.’

  ‘No, of course! Would you like me to invent them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Seems a bit of a pity. What do children do all day without screens to watch?’

  ‘They play,’ the queen said. ‘They play outdoor games like …’

  PAD-PAD-PAD-PAD – scuttle-scuttle. ‘I’se won! I’se won! I got there!’ came a squeaky bellow from outside.

  ‘Like that,’ the queen said.

  Courier raised his eyebrows with a little smile as if he was thinking that she might prefer their two guests to play all day on video games instead of destroying the castle drawbridge.

  ‘But, Mummy Queen, do think how nasty the Sea Serpent was in the past,’ Florizella pointed out. ‘This is so much better than it used to be.’

  The queen exchanged a glance with Florizella. A Sea Serpent’s job was to eat a princess unless her prince arrived first to save her. Those were the old Princess Rules that prevented girls from doing anything interesting, or even defending themsel
ves. The queen had nearly been eaten by the Sea Serpent not just once, but twice. It was only Florizella refusing to obey the Princess Rules, and Courier and Prince Bennett giving up the Prince Permit that meant girls could not be picked on ever again. Not by Sea Serpents, not by anyone.

  ‘This is as bad as being eaten,’ the queen said, flinching at the thunder of the Mammoth’s celebration dance as he reached the castle gatehouse once again.

  ‘It can’t be,’ Courier said reasonably. ‘This is disturbance. Not digestion.’

  ‘It is very loud,’ Florizella agreed. ‘But there are one hundred and thirty-four rooms in the palace. Can’t you move the royal office to one of the rooms at the back?’

  ‘So that the Mammoth and the Sea Serpent are free to play on the drawbridge?’ The king was outraged. ‘Why can’t they move? And, besides, if anyone comes to visit – Bennett’s parents from the Land of Deep Lakes for instance, or the king and queen from the Utter West – how does it look if they can’t ride over the drawbridge because there’s a huge Mammoth on it playing silly games? And a Sea Serpent rearing up from the moat underneath and hissing at them? What are they going to think?’

  ‘Oh, if I was them, I would think …’ Courier began, but Florizella gently leaned on him to make him stop talking. Courier was always very helpful when someone asked a question, but this was one of the many occasions when it was better for a new prince to say nothing. And it was one of the questions that grown-ups – even kings – don’t really want answered. It was a question like: ‘What do you think you’re doing in the fridge?’ Or: ‘How did you get so muddy?’

  ‘Why are you leaning on me?’ Courier asked his sister. ‘Don’t lean on me! Stand up straight while I explain what the king and queen from the Utter West might think if they found their path blocked by an enormous Mammoth playing Grandmother’s Footsteps.’

  ‘I know that you are just dying to explain,’ Florizella replied. ‘But the question was rhetorical.’

  Courier loved a new word, as Florizella very well knew. ‘What’s a rhetorical question?’ he asked eagerly.

  ‘One that doesn’t need an answer,’ Florizella said. ‘Such as: will you ever learn to be quiet when the king is upset about something that we’ve done?’

  ‘No answer required?’ Courier checked.

  ‘None at all,’ his sister agreed.

  ‘Rhetorical – like what makes you think you have the right to tell me what to do?’

  Florizella gritted her teeth. ‘Rhetorical,’ she agreed.

  ‘Got it,’ Courier said. He turned to his father. ‘You don’t want an answer to that,’ he assured the king. ‘What you want is someone to stop the Mammoth and the Sea Serpent blocking the drawbridge, making such a noise and playing in the moat.’

  The king looked hopefully at his son. ‘Undootedly,’ he said. ‘Undootedly.’

  ‘Luckily for you,’ Courier reassured him, ‘you’ve got me.’

  Florizella and Courier were sprawled on the bank of the moat, dabbling their feet in the greeny water and talking to the Mammoth who was stretched out on the bank beside them. The Sea Serpent’s long sinuous body was floating in the water with its head resting on the grassy bank, its beautiful sapphire eyes shining. Florizella was trying to explain to them that their game was making the castle shake and nobody could get on with their work.

  ‘It’s not as if you DO anything, is it?’ the Sea Serpent asked with a sly little smile. ‘What is it that you do all day? What are we interrupting? I take it you’re not declaring war on anyone, or opening anything?’

  ‘My mother, the queen, and my father, the king, are working royals,’ Florizella said primly.

  ‘And I’m a working Sea Serpent,’ the Sea Serpent pointed out. ‘You just mean that I am what I am. But it doesn’t mean I actually DO anything. I used to eat princesses – now that was real work. Occasional – but regular. But you won’t even let me do that now.’

  ‘Those days are gone,’ Courier told it firmly.

  ‘So none of you royals need to learn how to fight a Sea Serpent,’ it pointed out reasonably. ‘So, if you’re not going to war, or saving princesses, or opening something, I don’t see what you actually do. Nobody ever attacks you. What do you need the drawbridge for? Or the moat? We’re the only ones that make any use of them.’

  ‘Don’t you wike us any more?’ the Mammoth asked piteously.

  ‘We do! We do!’ said Florizella, putting her arm round his enormous neck and hugging him. ‘We love you. We always will.’

  The Sea Serpent widened its beautiful blue eyes at her. ‘Do you love me too, Florizella?’

  ‘Why?’ she asked cautiously.

  ‘I love you ssso much I could eat you,’ it hissed with a wicked little smile.

  ‘Those days are gone,’ Courier repeated sternly.

  ‘And why do you hiss?’ Florizella demanded. ‘You sound like Courier when he lost his teeth. Have you lost a tooth?’

  ‘I’m a Sea Serpent,’ it told her. ‘A serpent is a sort of snake. Courier told me. So I hiss like a snake.’

  ‘A sea serpent is called a serpent but actually it’s not a snake,’ Florizella corrected it.

  ‘What then?’ the Sea Serpent said sulkily.

  ‘I don’t know? Something like a newt?’

  ‘I am nothing like a newt!’ the Sea Serpent exclaimed indignantly.

  ‘I’ll look it up and tell you,’ Courier reassured it. Courier loved a fact, or a new word, or an invention. ‘You’re much more like a snake than a newt.’

  ‘Anyway, the point is that the drawbridge wasn’t built for your sort of game,’ Florizella told them. ‘It’s going to break. And the castle shakes when you do your celebration dance, Mammoth.’

  ‘Can’t you build a new castle?’ the Mammoth asked.

  ‘Not really,’ Florizella said. ‘But maybe we could find somewhere that would be better for the two of you. Perhaps a lake with a big strong bridge across it so that you could play your game there?’

  ‘And picnics.’ The Sea Serpent licked its lips at her. ‘Remember that if I don’t have picnics I’ll go back to eating princesses. I’d ssssuccumb.’

  ‘You can’t,’ Courier told it firmly. ‘I have given up the Prince Permit, and Florizella has given up the Princess Rules, and you have given up the Sea Serpent Allowance. That was agreed.’

  ‘Yessss,’ the Sea Serpent said reluctantly. ‘That was agreed then – when you invited us to live at the castle. But this is a quite different proposal.’

  Courier started to look a little anxious. ‘Well, shall we at least ride out and see if there is somewhere you would like better than the drawbridge?’ he said. ‘Somewhere with a bit of variety? And picnics too, of course.’

  ‘I’ll send for Bennett to come with us and help us,’ said Florizella. ‘He can bring a picnic – you’ll enjoy that.’

  The Sea Serpent widened its deep blue eyes at her. ‘I am sure you hope that I do,’ it said with silky menace. ‘Sssscertain.’

  The Seven Kingdoms did not have a postal service, they had messenger birds. Bennett had five or six parrots living at Florizella’s castle, and she had a little flock living at his, so they could talk all the time. Florizella called a small bright red parrot named George out of the aviary and taught him her message.

  ‘Bennett, come at once. Father cross. Mammoth trouble. Need a brilliant plan. Bring a picnic. Come quick!’

  She looked at the parrot, who seemed rather confused. ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘That’s all. Can you remember it?’

  The parrot nodded and then repeated the message two or three times in his squeaky little voice: ‘Bennett come at once. We have Mammoth trouble. Father cross. We need a brilliant plan. Bring a picnic. Come quick! That’s it.’

  ‘You don’t need to say “that’s it”, you silly thing,’ Florizella said fondly. ‘I said it because that was the end of the message. That’s it! That’s all. Just remember the message.’

  Gravely, the little parrot nodded and Florizella lifted him up high into the sky, pointed his beak towards the Land of Deep Lakes and set him free. Spreading his little scarlet wings, George headed off towards Bennett’s castle. Florizella smiled as she watched him go, but then she heard him cry, ‘Bend it! Come and dance! Massive trouble. Father cross. Need a brilliant ham. Bring a piglet. Some quick! That’s it.’