Free The Fairytale Curse (Magic's Return Book 1) by Marina Finlayson

chairs, craning their necks to see the frogs. Mrs Harcourt yelled for silence but no one was listening.
    One of the frogs hopped onto the next desk, which happened to be Julie Lee’s. That quiet little Chinese girl, who rarely spoke above a whisper, let out the loudest scream I’ve ever heard—and that was it. The room descended into complete chaos.
    Three boys leapt up to try to catch the frogs. Every girl in the room—including CJ—was either standing on a chair squealing, or pushing towards the door. I stood in the middle of it all and glared at Rob Burke. Jerk face. This was all his fault.
    One poor frog, probably terrified out of its froggy wits, hopped my way, trying to evade the frog hunters, whose numbers had grown. One of the more enthusiastic hunters ploughed straight into me and sent me flying.
    “Watch what you’re bloody doing!” I snarled, sprawled among the overturned furniture.
    Oh, dammit. When would I learn? Three more frogs and a dirty big toad joined the mayhem. I should have just stayed in bed this morning. How could this day get any worse?
    Silly question. As soon as I looked up I knew how. At least three iPhones were trained on me, capturing every last damned frog that spewed out of my mouth, ready to be uploaded to someone’s YouTube channel.
    “Vi! Are you all right?”
    CJ was down off her chair, pushing her way through to me. Her sisterly concern was touching, but OMG did she have to pick that moment? Couldn’t she see people were recording this whole disaster?
    I lunged for her hand.
    “Shut up ,” I yelled, but it was too late.
    Rob Jerk-Face Burke scrabbled on the floor at her feet, and came up with a look of mingled awe and greed on his face.
    “Look at this!” He held something sparkly up to the class. “It’s a diamond!”
    The stampede to the door reversed itself, and thundered back our way. We backed up against the wall, ignored by our classmates while they pushed and shoved to be first to find a diamond. Some found frogs instead, and the crowd rippled and eddied around those spots like some great heaving screaming animal. Mrs Harcourt roared for silence the whole time, but no one paid the slightest attention until a deep male voice bellowed from the doorway.
    “WHAT IS GOING ON IN HERE?”
    It was the English head teacher, whose office was next door. He waded into the room, manhandling boys up off the floor, pushing bodies back into seats, until some semblance of order was restored. Then he stood at the front of the room with a face like thunder, letting the silence stretch to ominous lengths.
    “I would expect a display like that from Year 9, perhaps, but not from Year 11. You are supposed to be setting the standards of behaviour for the rest of the school, not acting like a pack of wild animals. My dog is better behaved than you.”
    No one laughed. No one dared.
    “But, sir, there were frogs—” Jerk Face didn’t know when to keep his mouth shut.
    “Silence!” Mr Ormond shot Jerk Face a glare so icy he was lucky not to get frostbite. “When I want to hear from you I will rattle the pig bucket. Mrs Harcourt, I assume I will be seeing some of these boys in my office shortly?”
    Boys always got the blame. Of course, that was because ninety-nine per cent of the time they deserved it.
    Mrs Harcourt gave me a chilly glare. It needed work; it was nowhere near the standard of the English head teacher’s. “Actually, Mr Ormond, it’s Violet and Crystal Reilly who are the troublemakers here.”
    The toad hopped out from under her desk. All the girls in the front row squealed. Mr Ormond recoiled from the ugly thing.
    “What is that doing in here?”
    “I’m afraid you’ll have to ask Violet about that,” said Mrs Harcourt. “I believe it belongs to her.”
    A scream and a sudden relocation of students down the back of the room revealed three of the toad’s more attractive friends.
    Mr Ormond turned that cold stare on me. “How many of these things are