Brigid Lucy and the Princess Tower Read Online Free Page B

catch her and bring her home.’
    Biddy goes on, ‘And now he has locked up Princess Rapunzel in his tower.’
    Biddy starts running down the stairs. ‘I’ve got to let the princess out,’ she says.



‘What?’ I cry. ‘No, Biddy! You heard me wrong. That is not what I said. This is not play-pretend like a storybook. This is a real-life fairy tale.’
    I run onto the top of her head, and tug on her fringe. ‘Biddy, listen,’ I say. ‘We could be killed properly dead. Don’t touch the door to the tower! The king will have used his magic ring to put an evil locking-spell on it.’
    But Biddy just keeps running tink, tink, tink! across the stone floor to the door with the sign that says ‘Tower Staircase’. Then she takes the key from behind the tapestry, and uses it to unlock the door.
    As soon as she opens that door, we will be struck down by an evil spell.
    ‘ Noooo! ’ I cry, and burrow down inside one of Biddy’s plaits. I close my eyes and wrap my arms around my head. My whole body is shaking.

Chapter eight
    the monster stairwell
    Click! The door to the tower staircase unlocks. Creak! It opens. And, clunk! The door closes ever so quietly behind us. I open my eyes.
    We are still alive.
    We are standing in a tiny room. There is a stone staircase spiralling up above our heads. It’s like a cave that has been dug out from beneath the surface of the earth. Like, you know, where trolls live!
    I don’t like it. Not that I’m a scaredy chicken-heart lacy-petticoat or anything. It’s just that stairwells are very dangerous places. All sorts of goblins and scoriaks and terrible beasties live in stairwells.
    I even know why monsters live in stairwells. It’s because old stairwells like this are lined with ancient humanness.
    Over hundreds of years, the humans who worked in this building have climbed up these stairs to see to the prisoners at the top. And, as each human passed, they left something behind, a hair, a flake of skin, a tiny piece of toenail, a dribble of sweat.
    These small pieces of humanness fall and settle in corners. They pile up, layer upon layer, along with the rat poo and cockroach feelers.
    It is true ! Look. See that grey film against the wall? The one that looks like dust? Well, that dust is really flakes of humanness. There is enough there to feed a whole tribe of terrible beasts .
    Biddy stretches out her hands to touch the walls.
    ‘No, Biddy!’ I scream. ‘Don’t touch the walls. There are terrible gnashing monsters in here!’



‘ Monsters? ’ Biddy whispers. She pulls her hands back from the walls.
    Yes! Finally she is listening to me , I think.
    ‘Biddy, come on,’ I yell, poking my head out of the end of her plait. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
    But, she doesn’t. She just tells herself firmly, using Mum’s voice, ‘Now, Biddy, don’t be silly. There are no such things as monsters. And even if there were, you can’t just run away. You’ve got to be brave and save Princess Rapunzel.’
    ‘No! Biddy, please!’ I scream. ‘Let a grown-up save Princess Rapunzel.’
    But Biddy just purses her mouth, balls her hands up into fists and starts skipping up the stairs. She sings in a determined voice, ‘ I am bra-ave. I am strong. I am big-ger than a, a, a, tyr-anno-sau-rus .’
    ‘You are not brave and strong,’ I yell. ‘You are just a little girl! And, anyway, tyrannosaurus doesn’t rhyme with strong !’
    But she won’t listen to me, so I have to give up. I duck into Biddy’s hair and hide.
    The monsters are going to trip Biddy up, or bite her feet, or jump on her and gobble her up whole! I don’t want to see it.
    But, what about me? If they eat Biddy, they will eat me, too!
    I’ve got to save Biddy, or that will be the end of both of us. I jump out of her plait. But I don’t have a weapon. I must have a weapon to fight the monsters.
    Then I remember Biddy is wearing a hairclip, to keep the hair above her plaits in place. Yes! The hairclip has a sharp, pointy