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of her bag. ‘Let’s go the easy way,’ she said.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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!’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜What am I supposed to do?’ Elly whispered to Jess.
    â€˜Just follow me,’ Jess whispered back. ‘Then try to get the ball through the hoop.’
    Clarabelle ran past them, bouncing the ball.
    â€˜And watch out for Clarabelle,’ added Jess, frowning. ‘She