Undercover (3 page)

Chapter three

T
he Worry-Watch woke the girls up at 6.30 the next morning.

‘LOOK OUT!' it yelled.

Elly sat up with a start. ‘What?' she asked, looking around sleepily. ‘What happened?'

Everything seemed perfectly normal. She looked at the watch on her wrist. It seemed to be smirking.

‘Time to get up,' said the watch.

‘What's wrong with just a simple “good morning”?' grumbled Jess, who was also now awake.

‘It's your first day at your new school,' said the watch, ignoring Jess. ‘Don't be late.'

‘You're more of a Bossy-Watch than a Worry-Watch,' complained Elly, but she got up anyway.

Elly had never used a human shower before. At home she either had a bath or, if she was in a hurry, cleaned herself with a dirt-absorbing towel. She didn't really like using the dirt-absorbing towels because they liked to flick your legs when you weren't watching. Elly thought the human shower was much better. ‘It's like having your own rain cloud, but warmer,' she said to Jess.

Jess was already dressed by the time Elly got out. She was wearing jeans.

Elly looked at her in surprise. ‘Don't you have to wear a uniform?' she asked.

Jess shook her head. ‘We can wear whatever we like,' she said.

Elly wasn't sure if she believed Jess, but she put on her favourite clothes anyway. With her wings safely tucked away beneath her clothes she looked exactly like a human kid. No-one would ever guess her secret.

‘Is this OK?' she asked Jess.

‘Perfect!' Jess said. ‘Do you need to borrow a backpack?'

‘No, thanks,' she said. ‘I've got one.' She showed Jess her small red backpack.

Jess looked at it doubtfully. ‘It's a bit small,' she said.

But Elly shook her head. ‘Anything I put in it gets shrunk,' she explained. ‘So it actually fits a lot more than you'd think.'

To demonstrate, Elly reached into the bag and pulled out her skateboard.

Jess was impressed. ‘Cool,' she said. ‘How does it work?'

‘It sucks the moisture out of things,' Elly said. ‘Think of a dried apricot. Then it puts the moisture back in when you take stuff out.'

After breakfast the girls set off for school on their bikes. Elly had brought her bike from home. It was just like a human bike, except it had a special Fairy-Drive setting. In Fairy-Drive it turned into a Glider-Bike and began moving very quickly. As they got closer to the school Elly started seeing more and more kids. Some were on bikes and some were walking. There were even some kids riding skateboards. They all looked so different from the students at a fairy school.

‘What are the kids in our class like?' Elly asked Jess. Suddenly Elly missed her best friend Saphie, who was also a fairy. She couldn't wait to tell her all about human school.

Jess pulled a face. ‘They are really different from the kids at my old school,' said Jess. Jess had only been going to South Street School for a little while. ‘All the girls are into fairies. They have this Fairy Club and they act like fairies are the best thing in the world.' Suddenly Jess realised what she'd said. ‘Sorry,' she said. ‘I sometimes forget that you're a fairy.'

‘That's OK,' said Elly. ‘I forget too.'

There were lots of kids already at South Street School, running around, playing games, laughing and talking. It was very noisy — much noisier than a fairy school, and much busier, too. Just walking across the playground was like crossing an obstacle course. Balls were flying in all directions.

‘WATCH OUT!' shrieked the Worry-Watch, whizzing its hands around madly.

Elly looked up just in time to see a football heading right for her head. Without thinking Elly tried to fly away, forgetting her wings were safely tucked underneath her clothes.

She fell flat on her face and the ball sailed over her head.

Elly noticed the playground had gone quiet. Everyone was staring at her. Jess helped her to her feet. She was pale.

‘We're going to have to do something about that watch,' she said. ‘It's going to draw too much attention to you.'

Elly examined the watch band. She could just fit one finger under it.

‘Maybe we can cut it off,' she suggested.

‘No way!' shrilled the watch, and tightened itself even more firmly around Elly's wrist. ‘There's no way you —' it began to say, but Elly clamped her hand over its face. The watch stopped talking mid-sentence.

‘That's interesting,' said Jess. She pulled the ribbon off the end of her plait. ‘Tie this around the watch. Maybe if it can't see anything it stops worrying. Like an ostrich with its head in the sand.'

Elly tied the ribbon around the watch. Then she pretended to trip over a rock. Sure enough, the watch stayed silent.

‘Phew!' said Elly, gratefully. Jess was good at solving stuff like this.

‘Come on,' said Jess. ‘I'll show you around.'

Jess took Elly to her locker, which was right next to hers. Out of habit, Elly bent over and put her eye up against the keyhole. She waited patiently.

‘What
are
you doing?' laughed Jess.

‘I'm doing an eyeball scan to open my locker,' said Elly.

‘We don't do it that way here,' said Jess. ‘We use these.' She unhooked a small silver key hanging from the handle of the locker.

Elly felt silly. She'd thought it would be easy to act like a human, mainly because she'd never felt like a proper fairy. But being a human wasn't so easy after all. She looked around to see if anyone had seen her. Someone had. A girl was standing behind her, staring. The girl had curly brown hair and big brown eyes. Elly wondered if she would be in her class. She smiled at the girl but the girl just kept staring.

‘Found yourself a friend who's just as weird as you?' she called out to Jess. Pinned to her jumper was a pink, sparkly badge with the letters FC.

‘She's not weird, she's interesting,' retorted Jess. ‘Which is more than I can say about you, Clarabelle.'

The girl looked annoyed. ‘You'll never get into Fairy Club if you keep saying stuff like that,' she said, tossing her head.

Jess sighed. ‘That would be really terrible, Clarabelle,' she said, ‘if I actually
wanted
to be in Fairy Club.' Jess closed her locker. ‘But I don't.'

Elly watched the girl as she walked away, her perfect ponytail swinging. She was shocked.
What if all humans are like this girl?

‘That's Clarabelle Honkeybottom,' Jess said.

Elly started to laugh. ‘
Honkeybottom
?' she said.

Jess grinned. ‘I know. It's terrible, isn't it? She thinks everyone wants to be in the Fairy

Club, even though I keep telling her I couldn't think of anything worse than dressing up in a tutu and running around waving a wand in the air.'

Elly nodded, but she kept quiet. She would never admit it to Jess, but she couldn't help feeling just a bit curious about what went on in Fairy Club.

Chapter Four

E
lly decided she'd better start watching Jess very carefully so she didn't make any more mistakes. If her true identity were discovered she would be in trouble with the Fairydom authorities. Staying undercover was part of the deal with her placement.

Jess took her to their classroom. Elly watched how Jess pulled the chair away from the desk and sat down. It was a good thing she was paying attention. She would've looked pretty silly standing there, waiting for the chair to slide back automatically the way they do in fairy schools.

Clarabelle was already there, sitting with some other girls. All of them seemed to be wearing something pink. One had pink-and-white stockings on, and another was wearing a pink headband. Another girl had light pink jeans on with dark pink flowers all over them. And all of them were wearing the same small pink badge that Elly had noticed on Clarabelle.

The door opened and another girl walked in. She had very green eyes and long, wavy red hair with small flowers plaited into it. She was wearing pink, too, but unlike the others — who were wearing one or two pink things — this girl was dressed
entirely
in pink. She had a long pink skirt on with a shorter pink skirt over the top. Her top was pink and her jacket had pink polka dots. She was even wearing a string of pink glass beads around her neck and tiny pink flower earrings. She was so pink that at first Elly didn't even notice that she, too, was wearing the small pink badge.