Over The Rainbow

BY
MEREDITH BADGER

Fairy School Drop-out: Over the Rainbow
published in 2008 by
Hardie Grant Egmont
85 High Street
Prahran, Victoria, 3181, Australia

The pages of this book are printed on paper approved
by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which promotes
responsible management of the world's forests.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means without the prior
permission of the publishers and copyright owner.

A CiP record for this title is available from the National Library of Australia

Text copyright © 2008 Meredith Badger
Illustration and design copyright © 2008 Hardie Grant Egmont

Cover and text design by Sonia Dixon Design
Illustrations by Michelle Mackintosh

Printed in China

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Chapter One

I
magine this: You are walking through a park and you see a girl and an old lady hurrying along. The girl looks like a normal, average schoolgirl, except her feet are slightly on the small side and her hair is very, very shiny. Perhaps you decide that the old lady is the girl's grandmother. She looks like she's probably saying, ‘Come along, dear. Let's get home so your old gran can make you a batch of biscuits.'

You smile, thinking,
What a lovely granny, and what a typical, ordinary girl. They must be going on a stroll together – the sort we humans go on all the time
.

Well, you were right about one thing
–
the old lady is the girl's grandmother. But everything else you thought was wrong. Totally, utterly wrong. For a start, there's nothing typical or ordinary about the girl. She's a fairy, and her name is Elly.

If you were a fairy expert, you might've noticed that she has exactly ten freckles and that her fingers are slightly shimmery. You wouldn't have seen her wings, though, because they were hidden beneath her clothes.

Her grandmother is a fairy, too. But Elly's grandmother isn't exactly lovely.

What she was actually saying to Elly as they hurried through the park was, ‘I don't know what your parents were thinking, sending you to a human school while they are away. It's not as if you didn't already have some very bad habits! I've left a message for your mother, telling her that I'm taking you to a
proper
fairy school. A good, strict one with no humans!'

Elly hurried along beside her grand-mother. She knew better than to argue with an angry Grandmother
Knottleweed
-Eversprightly.

But at the same time, there were a few things worrying her. For one thing, where exactly were they going?

Elly had lived in this town all her life and she knew where all the fairy schools were. In fact, she'd already been to three of them! Unfortunately, she'd had to leave all three of them, too. Things just always seemed to go wrong for Elly at school.

Something else was on Elly's mind.
Has Grandmother even told my family which school she's sending me to?

Elly's mum was a top inventor at Fairy Inc Corporation. She had been called away recently on a top-secret business trip. Elly's dad and baby sister Kara had gone, too.

But Elly hadn't been allowed to go. The trip was so secret that her family couldn't even send Elly any wand messages to let her know where they were and what they were doing. Elly hadn't heard from them in ages.

I just hope they come back soon!
Elly thought, as her grandmother dragged her along by the arm. For such a tiny lady she had a very tight grip.

Grandmother
led Elly towards the centre
of the local gardens.

‘Um, excuse me, Grandmother,' said Elly in her politest voice.

‘What, Elinora?' snapped
Grandmother
.

‘It's just that I know there aren't any fairy schools in this park,' said Elly.

Grandmother
stopped suddenly by the
large fountain in the middle of the park.
‘The
school I'm taking you to is not in this
park
,' she retorted
. ‘It's in Rainbowville.'

Elly looked at her grandmother in surprise. ‘Rainbowville!' she repeated. Rainbowville was the capital of Fairydom. ‘I've never been.'

‘Well, it's about time you went,' said Grandmother
. ‘Only fairies are allowed in
there. It will do you good to be separated from all those ghastly human children.'

Elly frowned, thinking about her human friends Jess and
Caitlin at South Street School
. Elly had only been at the school for a little while, but it was the happiest time she'd ever spent at any school. For once she was actually doing well at school. She had just started to fit in, too, when
Grandmother had
arrived and dragged her away!

‘They're not ghastly. Most of them are really nice,' Elly said crossly. ‘Much nicer than a lot of fairies I know,' she added under her breath. ‘Like
Gabi Cruddleperry, for instance.'

Gabilotta Cruddleperry had been at Elly's last fairy school – Mossy Blossom Academy. She and Elly had been enemies ever since Elly had accidentally given her a big moustache on their first day at school. Gabi had been trying to get even with Elly ever since.

‘What?' asked
Grandmother sharply.

‘Nothing!' Elly replied hastily. ‘I was just wondering – how do we get to Rainbowville?'

Grandmother looked annoyed. ‘Over the rainbow, of course!' she said. ‘You should know all about the Rainbow Portal from reading the Fairy Code.'

Elly kept quiet. The Fairy Code was a huge rule book that school fairies were supposed to read every day. Whenever Elly tried to read it, however, she fell asleep! But there was no way she could tell Grandmother that. Especially as some Knottleweed-Eversprightly ancestor had helped write it.

‘We need to catch ourselves a rainbow,' said Grandmother, producing a large, multicoloured umbrella from somewhere in her coat.

Elly looked up at the clear blue sky. ‘I don't think it's going to rain,' she said doubtfully. ‘And besides, just as you get close to a rainbow, it vanishes!'

Grandmother
unfurled the umbrella. ‘It's
not a matter of finding the end of the rainbow,' she explained condescendingly. ‘It's about getting the rainbow to come to you.'

Elly had to try very hard not to giggle. Everyone knew that rainbows didn't come to you when you called!

But then Grandmother held the umbrella up and the most extraordinary thing happened. Droplets of water began rising out of the fountain and floating towards the umbrella. Before long, a fine mist hung in the air. Then a rainbow appeared in the centre of the mist, arching up into the sky.

‘Wow!' gasped Elly.

The rainbow was very bright, and the colours seemed to pulse and shimmer. As Elly watched, the rainbow grew bigger and stronger, stretching up into the sky.

‘Come here,' instructed Grandmother. She grabbed Elly and jumped onto the rainbow.

Then Elly found herself hurtling up the rainbow.
I feel like I'm on a giant roller-coaster,
giggled Elly to herself, as she whooshed higher and higher.
I wish I could do this on my skateboard!

The rainbow was smooth and slightly spongy to sit on, but completely dry. Elly gripped the rainbow's sides to steady herself.

Down below, the town got smaller and smaller until Elly could hardly see it at all.

With a little bounce, Elly and her grand-mother arrived at the top of the rainbow. Looking down, Elly saw something amazing. On one side of the rainbow was the town she'd grown up in. And on the other side was a vast, magical-looking city, twinkling and gleaming in the sunlight.

Rainbowville!
thought Elly excitedly.

‘Hold on very tight, Elinora!' called Grandmother, as they began zooming down the other side. ‘We're almost there.'

Chapter Two

T
he closer Elly and Grandmother got to the ground, the clearer the sights and sounds of Rainbowville
became. Tall buildings pointed
towards the sky, glimmering and catching the light like they were made from crystal. Around the buildings were beautiful parks, filled with brightly coloured trees and flowers. And everywhere Elly looked, there were hundreds of fairies!

Elly's parents sometimes talked about Rainbowville
, but Elly had never paid much
attention. She'd never been all that interested in it. She'd vaguely pictured Rainbowville as a storybook kind of place, with lots of old-fashioned cottages and cobbled streets.