Free How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier

is entirely without originality. You’re al learning to do something that’s been done before over and over and over. Bounce the bal, hit the bal, throw the bal. I don’t know how you can stand it.”
    “You’re only twelve,” I said just to annoy her. “What would you know?”
    “Like fourteen’s so old. And I know heaps about originality!
    More than you ever wil!”
    Originality is Nettles’s other religion. I couldn’t be bothered arguing with her about whether sports are worthwhile or not. I got bored with that conversation years ago. If my little sister couldn’t understand the joy of your body in motion, of making a cricket bal do exactly what you wanted it to, of going under someone’s guard and bending the point of your foil into their chest, of hearing the swish of a basket that is al net, then there was nothing I could say to explain it to her.
    Nettles thought my school was an insanely strict nightmare run by sadistic uptight prison guards; I thought it was heaven.
    “That’s vastly doos for you, Nettles. Yay Arts and al of its creativity and originality .” I yawned. Not to raz her, but because I was so exhausted I couldn’t not. She snapped a photo. I’m sure my tonsils looked gorgeous.
    “I won the Arts Junior PR special event promotion,” she said in her it’s-no- big- deal voice, which always means that it’s a huge deal.
    “You did?” I wasn’t sure what she was talking about.
    “Results were announced this morning.”
    I gave her a much- lighter- than- Rochele punch.
    “Congratulations! What did you win?”
    “Ful credit. Family pass to the show. And my counselor says I should think about making PR one of my majors when I get to Arts High.”
    “Doos.”
    Nettles shrugged. “I don’t want to be a PR hack, explaining why Our Vida uses elephant dung instead of clay to a room ful of reporters who stil think the word ‘poo’ is funny. Not joyous.”
    “The word ‘poo’ is funny.” I yawned again. “I thought you said Arts PR was a vastness of creativity and originality?”
    She shrugged again. “Anything can be creative and original.”
    “Even sports?”
    “Except sports. Are you going to come?”

    “Come?”
    “To the show? It’s a family pass.”
    “What show is it?”
    Nettles teeth-sucked again. “Monkey Knife Fight. It’s only their monstrous comeback. Sold out decades ago. They’re fourth- row tickets. Right in the center.”
    “Doos seats,” I said.
    “So, you coming?”
    “When is it?”
    “Wednesday after next. Eight o’clock.”
    What would I be doing in two Wednesdays? Let’s see … public service. And after that catching up on homework. Or, I could stil be walking back from whatever oval I was playing on. Assuming I was playing. I might run up enough demerits to be off my teams and have my coaches hating me even more. I started to say I couldn’t.
    Nettles was giving me her ful-bore, eyes- cut, nostrils-flared, teeth-bared glare. I sighed. “I’l try.”
    “You’l try ?” She was so cranky she wasn’t even taking pictures.
    “Wel, I’m kind of—”
    “If you weren’t being so stupid about your fairy you could come.
    I don’t even have a fairy! I’d love to have a parking fairy!”
    This time I yawned so hard my jaw cracked. I winced and rubbed it. “Nettles, I’m tired. It’s late, and I have lots more homework to do. Trying is the best I can give you.”
    “Don’t then. I only wanted you to come for Mom and Dad. But you’re too selfish to ever think of anyone but yourself. Forget about it.” She hissed and then left the room in an angry but quiet stomp (mustn’t wake Mom and Dad). Her closing of the door was the quietest slam possible, but it rang in my ears as if it had been the loudest.
    I turned back to my unoriginal and uncreative assignment. By the time I’d cut and pasted and reworded and reordered the questions off the transcript, my eyes were so tired the words on the screen blurred into each other.
    By five a.m.