Undercover (6 page)

Jess sighed. ‘You don't get it,' she said. ‘We'd have to dress up as
fairies
.'

But even this didn't seem to worry Elly.

‘I don't understand why you're so keen to go to a fairy party,' Jess said. ‘I thought you hated all that stuff.'

Elly nodded. ‘I do,' she said. ‘But when you're a detective you sometimes have to do things you don't want to do.'

Jess looked at Elly suspiciously. She wondered if Elly was trying to trick her. ‘Have you found a clue?' she asked.

Elly leant in and whispered in her ear. ‘Have you noticed that for someone with very pale skin Caitlin has hardly any freckles?'

Jess stared at her.

‘And that her hair is really, really shiny?' Elly added.

Jess felt a shiver of excitement. She looked over at Caitlin and noticed for the first time that she was much shorter than any of the other Fairy Club girls.

‘You think she's a ...?' she whispered.

Elly shrugged. ‘That's what we're going to find out on Saturday,' she said.

Chapter Seven

T
he first class after lunch was cooking with Mrs Snidely. Elly decided to try very hard in this class to get on Mrs Snidely's good side. Since the skateboard incident in the hallway she had the feeling that the cooking teacher didn't really like her very much.

‘Don't worry,' Jess said, as they walked to class. ‘Cooking is pretty fun, really, even if it is with Mrs Snidely. And it's easy.'

But Elly wasn't so sure. ‘It's the boy-fairies that do most of the cooking in Fairydom,' she explained. Some girl-fairies were good at cooking, but Elly wasn't one of them. It was a bit too much like doing spells for her liking — all that ‘pinch of this, splash of that' stuff. Elly tended to get the pinches muddled up with the splashes. In fact, the only food that Elly could cook was party food.

Mrs Snidely was waiting for them when they arrived, wearing a neat white apron that looked brand new. Written on the board behind her was a recipe.

‘Today,' announced Mrs Snidely, ‘we are going to make sausage rolls. Work in pairs and follow the recipe on the board.'

Elly was relieved. Party food! Maybe this wouldn't be so hard after all. ‘We won't need to follow the recipe,' Elly said confidently to Jess. ‘I've made sausage rolls heaps of times.'

‘Are you sure?' said Jess. ‘Human sausage rolls might be different.'

Elly laughed. ‘How different could they be?' she asked.

Elly measured out the ingredients while Jess did the mixing. Caitlin and Clarabelle were working on the next bench along, and Elly could tell that Clarabelle was working extra hard to try and beat them. But they didn't know the recipe and had to keep looking at the board. It wasn't long before Elly and Jess were miles ahead.

‘I can't believe you had so much trouble at fairy school,' said Jess. ‘You're practically the best student here already.'

Elly felt embarrassed. She wasn't used to being told she was good at things, especially school things. Even Mrs Snidely looked impressed when she came over to inspect the trays. She put the tray in the oven and turned on the timer.

‘Let me know when they're done,' she said, looking hungrily at Jess and Elly's sausage rolls as she shut the door. ‘I'll come over and try one.'

Elly smiled. Jess had been right. Cooking
was
fun. It was much more fun than fairy cooking. Fairy kitchens have lots of appliances but sometimes the appliances make things harder rather than easier. Like the fairy mixing bowl. It was designed to really enjoy mixing things, but the problem is it enjoys mixing so much that it often doesn't want you to take the mixture out! It just keeps stirring and stirring and if you get too close it splatters you with batter. The human mixing bowls seemed much better behaved.

When the oven-timer rang, everyone gathered round. Jess lifted out the tray.

‘Wow,' said Caitlin. ‘They look so great!'

It was true. The sausage rolls were golden brown on top and smelled great.

‘I'd better try the first one,' said Mrs Snidely, pushing to the front of the crowd. ‘Just in case anything is wrong with them.'

But as she reached towards the biggest, juiciest sausage roll, something very unusual happened. The roll began to roll! It moved slowly at first, but the closer Mrs Snidely's hand got, the faster it rolled. Mrs Snidely pulled her hand away in fright. The roll stopped rolling.

Mrs Snidely shook her head. ‘I must have imagined it,' she muttered to herself. She cautiously reached her hand out again. But the moment she got close, the sausage roll began to roll again, this time at double the speed.

Jess looked at Elly in alarm. ‘Did you put a spell on them?' Jess whispered.

‘They're sausage
rolls
,' Elly whispered back. ‘That's what they're
supposed
to do, isn't it?'

Jess rolled her eyes. She should've known better than to follow a fairy's cooking instructions. ‘Generally humans prefer food that stays still,' she said.

Jess looked around at her classmates. Did they know what was going on? A few people were laughing, but most of the faces in the kitchen wore shocked expressions. And the most shocked expression of all was on the face of their teacher.

Mrs Snidely turned and glared at Elly and Jess. ‘Would either of you care to tell me what's going on?' she said sharply. ‘I suspect funny business and I don't like it. Not one bit.'

But before the girls could say anything the door opened and Ms Buttercup's smiling face popped around the corner.

‘It smells great in here,' she said. ‘What's cooking?'

‘That,' said Mrs Snidely, ‘is precisely what I'm trying to find out.' She had taken several steps away from the tray and was looking at it as if she was afraid the sausage rolls might leap off the tray and attack her.

Ms Buttercup walked cautiously over to the bench. She reached out her hand and, sure enough, the rolls began to roll madly. Ms Buttercup frowned for a moment. Then she smiled.

‘Oh, I get it,' she said. ‘The tray is on a slope. See?'

Everyone looked. It was true. One edge of the tray was resting on a lump of pastry.

‘That's obviously causing the sausage rolls to roll about like that.'

Mrs Snidely shook her head. ‘That's utterly illogical,' she said sternly.

But Ms Buttercup didn't seem to hear her. She lifted the tray and removed the lump of pastry.

‘There,' she said, and reached out towards the sausage rolls again. Everyone held their breath but the sausage rolls didn't budge.

Ms Buttercup picked one up and took a bite. ‘Delicious!' she announced, smiling at Elly and Jess.

Mrs Snidely looked puzzled. ‘That doesn't make sense ...'

‘Have one, Mrs Snidely,' urged Ms Buttercup.

Mrs Snidely looked like she really didn't want to go anywhere near the oddly behaving sausage rolls. But everyone was watching her. Mrs Snidely took a deep breath and gingerly stretched out her hand. The rolls stayed put. She picked one up and, once she was convinced that it wasn't going anywhere, took a cautious nibble.

‘Not bad,' she said eventually. ‘But they need a pinch more salt.'

Chapter Eight

A
fter that Jess kept a watchful eye on Elly, and somehow they managed to get through the rest of the day without any more disasters. It kept Jess very busy though, and she didn't have any time to think about Caitlin's party. But as they cycled home that afternoon, Jess started worrying about it again.

‘Maybe you could go without me,' she suggested.

But Elly shook her head. ‘A good detective needs a partner,' she said.

Jess sighed. She had a feeling Elly would say that. And she was quite looking forward to being a detective. That, at least, sounded like fun.

But there was one other problem. ‘I don't have anything to wear,' she said. It was true. Jess's clothes could not have been less like fairy clothes if she'd tried.

But Elly had already thought of that. ‘It's OK,' she said. ‘We're going to stop at my place. I've got heaps of things that will be perfect.'

‘Really?' said Jess. She had always wanted to see inside Elly's house.

But when they pulled up outside number 27 Raspberry Drive, Jess wasn't so sure any more. The house looked very dark. Jess stood behind Elly as she unlocked the front door and they both peered inside.

Jess was amazed at what she saw. ‘Everything's tiny!' she exclaimed.

It was true. Just inside the door was a normal-sized room, but beyond that the house looked like it was made for dolls.

‘Oh, I forgot to tell you,' said Elly. ‘We always shrink the house when we go away.'

Jess was puzzled. ‘But it looks the same size from the outside,' she said.

Elly smiled. ‘Pretty convincing, isn't it?' she said. ‘But I wouldn't lean on it. It's not really there at all.'