Undercover (4 page)

The moment the other girls saw her, a chorus started up.

‘Caitlin!' they called. ‘Sit next to me!' Caitlin waved and smiled at them all, and then sat next to Clarabelle.

‘That's Caitlin,' whispered Jess. ‘She's the most popular girl in the class. Maybe even in the whole school. Even the teachers love her.'

Elly nodded. There were girls like that at fairy schools, too — the ones that everyone wanted as their best friend.

The door opened again and everyone went quiet.
This must be the teacher
, Elly thought. Out of habit, she started climbing onto her desk, which is how fairies greet their teachers in the morning. Once the teacher has said hello, they all glide into the air and fly gracefully back into their seats. Well, most of them fly gracefully. Somehow Elly often ends upside-down in her chair. Jess grabbed her arm and pulled her down. Elly went red. She'd made yet another mistake.

‘Good morning, class,' said the teacher.

‘Good morning, Ms Buttercup,' chorused the students.

Elly liked Ms Buttercup straight away. She had smiley eyes and walked in a way that was almost like dancing.

‘We have a new student today,' said Ms Buttercup. ‘Come up here, Elly, and tell everyone a little bit about yourself.'

Elly looked at Jess nervously as she walked to the front of the room. What should she say? She had already slipped up so many times today that she couldn't afford to make things worse. But the harder she tried the more she couldn't think of anything to say. She felt like everyone was staring at her — as though they knew that she was different, and couldn't work out how.

‘What sport do you play?' asked Ms Buttercup kindly.

‘Um ...' said Elly, trying to think. She had learnt about human sports in Human Studies classes at fairy school. Elly remembered thinking that they sounded much more fun than fairy sports. But right now her mind had gone blank and she could only think of one human sport. She couldn't remember what sort of sport it was but she had to say something.

‘Sumo wrestling,' she blurted out.

Everyone laughed and Ms Buttercup looked very surprised. ‘How unusual!' she said.

Elly looked at Jess, who was shaking her head violently and pointing at something in the corner. ‘And playing baskets,' said Elly.

‘Baskets?' said Ms Buttercup, in surprise.

Elly glanced at Jess again, who was now pointing to something else. A ball.

‘Basketball!' she said, triumphantly. ‘I play basketball.'

Jess nodded and slumped back into her chair, looking exhausted.

Ms Buttercup was delighted. ‘That's great, Elly!' she said. ‘We have a school basketball team. Our headmistress, Mrs Hayman, is the coach. Maybe you can join.'

Elly nodded politely but she didn't think this would really happen. She had never been any good at fairy sports, so why would she be any better at human ones?

‘OK,' said Ms Buttercup, sending Elly back to her seat. ‘Now it's time for your spelling test.'

Elly was surprised. She didn't think humans did spells. She wondered what kind of wands they used.

‘Cartwheel,' said Ms Buttercup, and everyone started writing in their notebooks.

‘Immediately,' said Ms Buttercup, a moment later.

Elly looked at Jess in confusion. What was going on? Was she supposed to do what Ms Buttercup said? And if so, it was the weirdest spell she'd ever heard of.

‘Just write the words down,' whispered Jess.

Elly couldn't believe it. Was this all you had to do in a human spelling test? It seemed way too easy. Perhaps there was some kind of trick.

But there was no trick. When the test was over Ms Buttercup got them to mark each other's tests. Jess, who was a pretty good speller, got eight out of ten. But Elly got nine out of ten! She couldn't believe it.

‘Wow,' said Jess. ‘That's really good for your first ever spelling test.'

The bell went.

‘OK, class,' said Ms Buttercup. ‘Mrs Hayman is taking you for a basketball lesson in the gym today. Make sure you get there in time.'

‘We'd better hurry,' said Jess. ‘The gym is way over on the other side of the school.'

Elly pulled her skateboard out of her bag. ‘Let's go the easy way,' she said.

‘Good idea,' smiled Jess.

She jumped onto the skateboard behind Elly. It had always been a very fast board but Elly had just put new wheels on it and now it went so fast that blue sparks shot out behind it as the girls zoomed down the corridor.

‘Human school is so much better than fairy school,' called Elly over her shoulder as they sped along. ‘And the teachers are heaps nicer.'

Jess was hanging on very tightly to Elly.

She knew they weren't actually flying but a couple of times it really felt as if the wheels were lifting off the ground.

‘You've only met one teacher so far,' Jess pointed out. ‘Not all of them are as nice as Ms Buttercup. Wait until you meet the cooking teacher, Mrs Snidely —'

Elly took the next corner just a little too sharply and the two girls crashed straight into someone coming the other way. Elly and Jess fell on the ground. But the person they crashed into remained upright, as if made of concrete.

‘What were you saying about Mrs Snidely?' asked a voice. It sounded exactly how a concrete person might speak. ‘I'd be very interested to know.'

Jess looked flustered. ‘Hello, Mrs Snidely,' she said. ‘I was just telling Elly about how much I love your cooking classes.'

Mrs Snidely looked at Elly the way you might look at something smelly you found stuck to your shoe. ‘Maybe you can also tell Elly that riding skateboards inside is strictly forbidden,' said Mrs Snidely. ‘If I catch you again it'll mean instant detention. For a week!'

‘Yes, Mrs Snidely,' muttered Jess.

Jess and Elly watched as Mrs Snidely walked away.

Elly couldn't help smiling. ‘Human school might be really different from fairy school in lots of ways,' said Elly. ‘But I guess in other ways, they are exactly the same.'

Chapter Five

E
lly wasn't feeling very confident about the game. She had never played basketball before and she was hopeless at fairy sports. Formation Flying was the worst. It was a compulsory fairy subject, where you learnt how to fly through the air as a group, somersaulting and doing loops in unison. It made Elly dizzy.

Then there was Star-Blazer — a popular lunchtime game. Hundreds of tiny golden stars were released into the air. As they whizzed around, leaving sparkling trails behind them, two teams of fairies chased them with nets. You had to scoop up as many as you could before they dissolved. Elly had hated Star-Blazer ever since she ended up with her catching-net stuck on her head. She also detested Wings-Aloft and Wand-Winder. She always seemed to fly in the wrong direction and crash into someone — usually someone on her own team!

So as she walked out onto the basketball court, Elly was pretty sure she was about to make an idiot of herself — again.

Elly was surprised when she saw Mrs Hayman. She didn't look anything like the Head-Fairies she knew. She was wearing a tracksuit, for one thing. Elly couldn't imagine a Head-Fairy ever wearing a tracksuit. Ms Buttercup was there, too.

She smiled at Elly. ‘I've come to watch,' she explained. ‘I was just telling Mrs Hayman that basketball is your favourite game.'

‘Oh yes, I love it,' lied Elly. She felt bad lying, but maybe it wouldn't be a lie after all — she hadn't actually played yet. Elly sighed. She wasn't holding out much hope.

Mrs Hayman divided the class into two teams. Elly and Jess were on the blue team. Caitlin and Clarabelle were on the red.

‘What am I supposed to do?' Elly whispered to Jess.

‘Just follow me,' Jess whispered back. ‘Then try to get the ball through the hoop.'

Clarabelle ran past them, bouncing the ball.

‘And watch out for Clarabelle,' added Jess, frowning. ‘She cheats.'

Elly nodded. She just hoped that humans didn't cheat in the same way that fairies did.

Fairies had a habit of turning their opponents into things — like hotdogs, or goldfish — when they thought they might lose. It was very unpleasant.

Mrs Hayman blew her whistle and the game began. Someone threw the ball to Jess and Jess threw it to Elly. For a moment, Elly stood still, looking at the ball. She'd forgotten what to do.

‘Run, Elly!' yelled Jess.

And so Elly ran, bouncing the ball the way Clarabelle had. She ran towards the goal hoop. She was almost there when she realised Clarabelle was fast approaching.