Contents

Cover

About the Book

Title Page

Dedication

Map

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

About the Author

Copyright

Princess Poppy
Fairytale Princess

written by Janey Louise Jones

Illustrated by Samantha Chaffey

Especially for Amelie Primrose,
a little fairy princess

About the Book

Miss Mallow has decided to put on a musical show to celebrate the opening of the new school hall. Poppy and her class are all very excited, especially when they get to vote on which show to perform. But things start to go wrong during the auditions. Before long Miss Mallow is at the end of her tether and cancels the show . . .

Find out whether the show does go on and whether Poppy gets to be a fairytale princess in this exciting new story.

About the Author

Janey was born in Edinburgh and grew up by the seaside just outside the city. Janey published the first two Princess Poppy books herself (with her own illustrations) and the books were so popular that Random House Children’s Books soon bought the series and re-packaged the books. The series is now going from strength to strength, including picture books, activity books and sumptuous gift books. Janey has also written two Princess Poppy novels for young readers, Pocket Money Princess and A True Princess, both of which have been very successful.

Janey read English at Edinburgh University specializing in the Victorian novel. Following this she became a teacher – a career that she absolutely adored – and then, with her husband, set up The Jelly Club, which has become an extremely successful chain of children’s activity centres in Scotland. She still very much enjoys visiting schools and talking to children to find out what they like doing and what makes them laugh. Janey and her husband live in Edinburgh with their three sons.

Chapter One

POPPY THOUGHT THAT her teacher, Miss Mallow, was absolutely brilliant. She was so kind and she was always thinking up ways to make her lessons really interesting and fun. Poppy especially loved Monday mornings because every week they had what Miss Mallow called “circle time”. This was when each and every one of the children was given an opportunity to share something that was special to them with the rest of the class. It was called “circle time” because Miss Mallow made them put their chairs in a big circle in the middle of the classroom so that they could all see everything that was being shown. Poppy nearly always brought in something.

One Monday, she was especially pleased with what she had brought – it was one of her most treasured possessions and she couldn’t wait to show it. When Miss Mallow announced that it was circle time, everyone moved their chairs into position and then she went round the class asking each child if they had anything to share. By the time she came to Poppy, Poppy was almost bursting with excitement! She reached into her school bag, pulled out her special item and held it up for everyone to see.

“I got this from my grandpa. It’s a book of fairytales and Grandpa told me that it is over a hundred years old! It belonged to Grandpa’s granny, who was my great-great-granny Mellow!”

“That is lovely!” exclaimed Miss Mallow. “A true piece of history. In fact, it might be useful today. You see, I have something to share with all of you too.”

“Maybe she’s getting married to Prince Charming!” whispered Poppy to her best friend, Honey. But that was not Miss Mallow’s news.

“Children, as you know, builders are working on the school hall at the moment and it is due to be ready in eight weeks,” began Miss Mallow. “The stage will be redesigned with new lighting and scenery, there will be new flooring, the roof is being fixed so there will be no more leaks, and we’ll have some lovely new chairs and curtains. The Headmistress has invited a special guest to reopen the hall. However, I think we should do something to make the reopening even more special so I’ve decided that we will put on our very own musical show! What do you think?”

“Yeah!” chorused the whole class.

“Yes, Poppy, what is it?” asked Miss Mallow, noticing that Poppy’s hand had gone up as soon as she’d told everyone about her plan.

“Um, who is the special guest? And which show are we going to do?”

“Well, I was actually just coming to both things,” smiled Miss Mallow, thinking how impatient and inquisitive Poppy was. “The guest is Bryony Snow, editor of top fashion magazine – Buttons and Bows. We need to impress Ms Snow – if she likes the show she is going to do a feature on it in the magazine, but most importantly we must put on a fabulous event for everyone in the village who has helped us to raise so much money for the hall.”

All the girls in the class interrupted Miss Mallow with a huge cheer – Buttons and Bows was their favourite magazine, even though it was for grown-ups.

“But what is the show?” called out Tom impatiently.

“Well,” continued Miss Mallow, “I’m going to write it myself but the words and songs will be based on a well-known story. You all know lots of stories so I thought it might be fun if you helped me to choose. You tell me your ideas and I’ll write them on the board. Poppy’s lovely storybook might give you some inspiration.”

Every single child started calling out their favourites before Miss Mallow had even finished speaking – she could hardly keep up with them!

“Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” called out one girl.

“Annie!” yelled another.

“Sleeping Beauty,” suggested Lola, peering over to look in Poppy’s book.

“Treasure Island!” shouted Charlie, to a loud cheer from the other boys.

“Little Red Riding Hood,” said Helena.

“Cinderella!” cried Poppy, looking wistfully at the exquisite pictures in Great-Great-Granny Mellow’s fairytale book.

“Yeah, Cinderella!” agreed several other girls. “We love Cinderella.”

“Peter Pan!” yelled Ollie.

“Enough!” gasped Miss Mallow. “My wrist is quite numb. We’ve got plenty to choose from now. I suggest you all copy down this list and have a good think about it overnight. Then tomorrow we can put it to a vote. The story with the most votes is the show that we will do.”

At break, Poppy, Honey, Sweetpea, Mimosa and Abi formed a huddle in the playground – they were desperate to talk about the show.

“Which story are you going to vote for?” asked Poppy.

“Cinderella!” replied the other four girls in unison – each imagining themselves in a starring role and dressed as a fairytale princess.

Chapter Two

THE NEXT MORNING