Fairy School Drop-out (7 page)

She might wish for a golden palace or a magic carpet. She might wish for something small, but complicated and fiddly, like a talking goldfish. But the biggest problem was that whatever the wish – big or small – Elly wouldn't know how to grant it. And besides, unlicensed fairies weren't even allowed to grant wishes.

There was something else that was troubling Elly. Trying to be the worst student at Mossy Blossom Academy was going to be much harder now that Jess had fixed her wand. Elly might actually have to work at making a mistake.

Elly's big chance to mess up came during the Synchronised Flying class the next day. Elly was terrible at synchronised flying and ever since being dyed purple, Miss Flufferbuff, the instructor, had watched Elly very warily. Elly had trouble remembering what all the different moves were and she always ended up crashing into someone. More than once during a complicated flying routine, her wings had become tangled with another fairy's and most of the class had ended up in a tangled mess on the ground.

But all that seemed to have changed, and that day Elly didn't crash into anyone. She did the wing-flutter-dip perfectly. She performed two upside-down tumble spins without feeling dizzy. And Miss Flufferbuff even praised her floating torpedo dive, saying it was one of the best she'd seen in ages.

‘I don't understand,' Elly whispered to Saphie. ‘I can't seem to make a mistake.'

Saphie couldn't help laughing.

‘You were bad at being good,' she said, ‘but now you're bad at being bad!'

At the end of the class, Miss Flufferbuff flew over and put a (still slightly purple) hand on Elly's shoulder.

‘Madame Silverwings told me you were on trial this week, Elly,' she said, smiling. ‘I can see you're making a big effort to improve.'

There was nothing Elly could do but smile back weakly and nod.

After school Elly changed into her jeans and tucked her wings below her favourite stripy T-shirt. She looked like an ordinary human kid.

Then she climbed over the fence and walked up to Jess's window. She could see Jess inside, sitting at her desk and frowning. Elly knocked on the window and Jess helped her in.

‘What's wrong?' asked Elly.

Jess didn't look happy at all. ‘I've got a project due,' she said gloomily. ‘My teacher has given me until 5:30 today to finish it.'

Elly nodded sympathetically. She knew all about not getting work done in time. ‘Have you got much more to do?' she asked.

Jess sighed despairingly. ‘I haven't even
started
! And Mr Crankle said it's got to be really outstanding or he won't accept it at all.'

Elly already knew how smart Jess was. ‘I bet you could easily do something really excellent,' she said.

But Jess shook her head. ‘I'm not so sure,' she said. ‘The project is about volcanoes and all the books at school are out. Plus, our computer is broken so I can't even use the internet.' She slumped in her chair. ‘I'm going to fail for sure.'

Elly didn't know what the internet was, but she knew the feeling Jess was describing all too well. It was funny, though. When she found herself in the situation Jess was now in, Elly never knew how to fix it. But right now, she knew exactly what Jess should do.

‘Why don't you actually
make
a volcano?' she suggested. ‘You won't need books for that. And your teacher wanted something that stood out, didn't he?'

Jess was doubtful. ‘He said
outstanding
, not something that stood out. Anyway, I don't know how to make a volcano. Unless you could make one with magic?' she added, looking hopefully at Elly.

‘Probably not a good idea,' said Elly quickly. ‘Like you said yesterday – the human way seems more reliable than the fairy way when it comes to problem-solving.' Elly had done a spelling test on turning mountains into molehills once. It hadn't gone well. She had accidentally turned a molehill into a mountain, complete with enormous, angry moles. She didn't want anything to do with magic mountains for some time.

‘I guess you're right,' said Jess sadly.

Elly could see that Jess was about to give up. ‘There must be some stuff lying around that we could use,' she urged.

Jess didn't look very sure at all but she started thinking. ‘Well,' she said after a minute, ‘there's some chicken wire in the shed which we could use as a frame.'

Elly nodded encouragingly, and Jess thought a bit more. ‘We could cover the frame in clay. My mum does pottery so there's heaps in the shed.' Jess started looking excited.

‘Hey!' she said. ‘I could make a little gizmo so it looked like the volcano was erupting! But it'd need lava – something red and sticky.' Jess jumped up. ‘Let's check the fridge.'

Elly was impressed by how bravely Jess walked through the kitchen and over to the fridge. Elly followed a few steps behind, waiting for the fridge to start firing food at them and wishing she'd brought her crashhelmet. But the fridge door remained closed, and even when Jess opened it up the contents of the Chester's fridge stayed put.

‘Doesn't your fridge self-clean?' Elly asked.

Jess laughed. ‘I wish. We have to clean it ourselves,' she said.

‘You're so lucky,' sighed Elly.

Nothing in the fridge was quite right for lava. The raspberry jam was too thick and the tomato sauce smelled funny. There was some strawberry topping that might've been perfect, but there was only a small amount of it left.

Then Elly had a brainwave.

‘Start building the frame,' she said, climbing out the window. ‘I'll be back in a minute with some perfect lava.'

Back in her own house, she went straight to the bathroom. The bath was in an opera mood.

‘Come to take a baaaaaath?' it trilled hopefully.

‘Not right now,' said Elly apologetically, filling up a container with red bubble-bath from the dispenser.

‘What are you doing with thaaaaaaaat?' carolled the bath.

‘I'm turning it into lava,' explained Elly.

‘Sounds verrrrrrrrry messy!' sang the bath excitedly.

‘I'll take a bath if I get so much as a speck on me,' promised Elly.

Jess had already made the frame by the time Elly returned, so together they started covering it with clay. Elly had never used clay before. She loved how squishy it was and before long there was almost as much clay on Elly as there was on the volcano.
At least
the bath will be happy to see me,
she thought.

She soon got even messier. She painted the volcano green while Jess made a motor for the lava using the red bubble-bath, rubber-bands and some cogs. When Jess had finished, she put her contraption inside the volcano.

‘Here goes!' said Jess.

The volcano gurgled and grumbled and all of a sudden the bubble-bath came spilling over the top.

‘It's good ...' said Elly slowly.

‘But it's not quite right, is it?' agreed Jess. ‘It needs smoke. What can we add that will do that?'

For a moment Elly was stumped. What could they possibly use that wouldn't involve setting the volcano on fire?

Then she had an idea. She felt around in her pocket and sure enough, her hankie was in there, still sodden from mopping up Kara's drool. Elly squeezed the hankie over the top of the volcano and a single, glistening drop of baby drool dropped into it. Instantly a big puff of smoke billowed up.

Jess hugged her excitedly. ‘You are a genius!' she said.

Elly went bright red. She'd never been called a genius before.

And then she noticed the time. 5:15.

‘Jess, how far away is your school?' she asked urgently.

‘Twenty minutes on my bike,' replied Jess. ‘Why?'

Elly pointed at the clock.

‘Oh no!' wailed Jess in dismay. ‘We'll never make it. All that hard work for nothing.'

But Elly wasn't ready to give up just yet, not when they'd come so close. She thought quickly about their options. They could catch the bus, but who knew when that might arrive? They could ask Jess's mum for a ride, but even by car they probably wouldn't make it. No, there was only one sure-fire way to make it to Jess's school by the 5:30 deadline, and it was pretty risky. If Elly got caught, she'd be in as much trouble as it was possible for a fairy to be in. Was it worth the risk?

Elly looked at Jess and then back at the volcano. It only took her a moment to decide.

‘Wait here,' she said to Jess, scrambling out the window again. ‘And don't worry. It's going to be OK.'

Chapter Ten

A
s she hurried along, Elly found herself thinking some very strange thoughts. She had often heard other fairies talking about the feeling that comes with granting a human wish. ‘It makes you glad to be a fairy,' they'd said.

Elly always wrinkled her nose when she heard that. How could being a slave make you feel good? Yet here she was, rushing around crazily and possibly getting herself into all kinds of trouble just for some human who she hardly knew.

But,
she reminded herself,
I haven't even
used any magic to help Jess. So I'm not really being
a fairy
. Then a really weird thought popped into her head.
Maybe it feels good helping Jess
just because she's my friend?
Elly almost laughed when she thought that. She'd never dreamt that one day she might have a
human
for a friend.

Jess was waiting anxiously when Elly returned with the SpaceCase. Jess guessed straight away what she was planning. ‘Are we going to ride to school on that?' she asked.

‘
You're
going to ride on it,' said Elly. ‘We'll put the volcano inside it and I'll fly in front.'

Jess hesitated. ‘But you can't
really
fly, can you?' she said. ‘I mean, I believe you're a fairy, I just wasn't sure about the flying bit.'

Elly gave her wings a bit of a twitch. They felt fine today – no sign of a cramp. Without saying a word she rose up into the air, flew around the room and landed back in front of Jess.

‘Cool!' laughed Jess, and gave one of Elly's wings a sharp tug.

‘OW!' said Elly. ‘What did you do that for?'

‘I wanted to see if they were real,' grinned Jess, ‘or just some other weird gadget of yours.'

The next task was to pack the volcano carefully inside the SpaceCase. Then they carried it out to the backyard, ready for flight.

Jess was excited. ‘I hope someone from school sees me flying!' she said.

Elly shook her head. ‘No-one's allowed to see us. You're not supposed to even know I'm a fairy.' Elly put on her cloud coat. ‘This will disguise me and the Space-Case will hide the volcano. But I don't have anything to cover you. We'll have to just hope no-one looks up.'

‘Don't worry,' said Jess, climbing onto the SpaceCase. ‘Everyone will be hurrying home from work. I bet they don't notice anything.'

‘I hope so,' said Elly. ‘I really do.'