Free Undercover by Meredith Badger Page A

at strange angles from her head and her shirt was on back-to-front.
    â€˜Our plans have changed all of a sudden. I have to leave immediately on a work trip with Kara and your dad.’
    Mrs Knottleweed-Eversprightly is an inventor at the famous Fairy Inc Corporation. Fairy Inc designs most of the gadgets that fairies use in their daily lives. The Self-Packers, for instance, were designed by Elly’s mum. They’re meant to make packing quicker. You just throw your clothes at the suitcase and it catches them in a mechanical arm, folds them and places them neatly inside itself. The only problem is that Self-Packers are very fussy about what you pack. They don’t like clothes that have holes in them, for one thing — even buttonholes.
    As fast as Mr and Mrs Knottleweed-Eversprightly threw clothes at the suitcases, the mechanical arm of the Self-Packer would throw them back out again. It was making packing a very long task indeed.
    Elly noticed that one suitcase was still on top of the wardrobe. Her suitcase.
    â€˜What about me?’ she asked.
    Her mother looked worried. ‘Unfortunately you’re not allowed to come. It’s a top-secret project.’
    This was a shock. Elly had never been left behind before. She had a horrible feeling she might cry. ‘I won’t tell anyone,’ she said, blinking a lot. ‘I promise.’
    Mrs Knottleweed-Eversprightly sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Elly. It’s against the rules.’
    â€˜So where will I go?’ asked Elly.
    Her parents looked at each other. ‘We were hoping that you could stay with your grandmother,’ said Mr Knottleweed-Eversprightly.

    Elly’s heart sank. Grandmother Knottleweed-Eversprightly has strong ideas about the way young fairies should — and shouldn’t — behave. And she doesn’t like the way Elly behaves one little bit.
    â€˜But your grandmother seems to be away,’ continued Mrs Knottleweed-Eversprightly. ‘She’s not answering her wand messages.’
    Elly tried not to smile. Finally, some good news!
    â€˜But,’ said her father, ‘there is another possibility. Cherrydale Fairy Academy has a vacancy.’
    Elly looked at her parents in horror. Cherrydale is a fairy boarding school. A very strict boarding school. It is so strict that students are only allowed to let their feet touch the ground three times a day. And they have to wear their uniforms on the weekends, too.
    Elly started thinking. It was the sort of thinking you do when you have to come up with a solution very quickly. The sort of thinking that makes whirring sounds come out of your ears. Elly wasn’t ready to give up just yet. She really wanted to go undercover at a human school. There had to be something she could do to get there.

Chapter two

    E lly’s brain whirred for a while. Then it started grinding. Then finally it made a bing ! sound, because Elly had an idea. It seemed like the perfect solution to her, but sometimes it took adult fairies a little while to catch on to good ideas.
    You may have had the same trouble with adult humans.
    â€˜Mum,’ said Elly. ‘I could stay with Jess’s family while you’re away.’
    Elly could see from her parents’ faces that they were going to be slow to catch on to this good idea. So she kept explaining. ‘It’s perfect for an undercover operation! And I’ll learn so much about humans if I live with a human family,’ she said. ‘It will be good research for being a better fairy. I might even be able to put some of the things I discover into the Human Research Database.’
    But Elly’s parents were being stubborn.
    â€˜I don’t know,’ said Mrs Knottleweed-Eversprightly. ‘I’d feel better if you were staying with fairies. It’s not that I don’t like humans, it’s just that they’re different from us.’
    Elly decided to use another tactic. Cold, hard facts.