I turned on the torch. In front of me was a metal ladder. Our class was on the second storey, so I climbed as high as I could. At the top was a narrow crawl space that I guessed was above the ceiling of the second floor classrooms. There was an air vent over the middle of our room and that’s where I was heading.
I crawled along, past one air vent which I figured would be over the first class, and then I saw a second one which I hoped was above ours. I crawled close and looked through it. Mr Tompkins was below, hunched over his papers!
I put my mouth near the vent. ‘BAAAAD TEEEACHER,’ I called softly in a deep, slow, sort of zombie-like voice. ‘BAAAD TEACHER.’
Mr Tompkins looked up. I stopped. He went back to his papers. ‘BAAADD TEEAACCHHER,’ I called again. He looked up again. I stopped. He stood and walked over to the whiteboard, where he stared suspiciously at the markers.
‘NAAASSTY TEACHER,’ I called. Mr Tompkins whirled around.
‘BEEEEE NIIIICCEER,’ I called. Mr Tompkins was looking all around, turning in circles.
‘BEEEE NICCCEERR TO YOUR STUUUUUDDEENTS,’ I called. I was really enjoying this.
Then Mr Tompkins looked up at the vent. His eyes narrowed. He pulled a desk under the vent, and put a chair on top of it. I started wiggling backwards, then turned and crawled as fast as I could back to the ladder. As I reached it I heard clomping behind me. He was coming! I half-climbed, halfslid back down the ladder, and then rushed out the trapdoor. I ran back up to the hall, hid the torch in my pocket and slid back into the room, hoping no one would notice.
Soon after Mr Tompkins came in the other back door, puffing. He stared around the room for a bit, then put his hands on his knees and stared at his shoes. Then he slowly turned and trudged out.
• • •
Next day, when the lunch bell rang, Mr Tompkins asked me to stay behind. Suddenly, I was scared.
He pulled up a chair in front of my desk. His hair was untidy, and his eyes were red.
‘I know it’s you,’ he said in a hoarse voice.
‘What, sir?’ I said in my innocent voice, but my heart was hammering.
‘My lunch, my bike, the textas, my backyard, the roof. It’s all been you, hasn’t it?’
‘I’m not sure what you mean, sir,’ I said, a quiver in my voice.
‘The textas were swapped when Adam had his coughing fit. I realised that he must have been in on it. So I had a word to him. I threatened him with a few detentions and he told me it was you.’
That little coward!! I tried to stay cool. ‘Anything else, sir?’
Mr Tompkins eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Adam doesn’t like me, sir. We had a fight. Of course he’d try to get me in trouble. He says I did it, but he’s lying. You need more than that to pin this – whatever it is – on me. You need some proof.’
Mr Tompkins was breathing heavily. He grabbed my bag from under the desk and searched it and then rummaged through my desk. But there was nothing incriminating in there either.
Mr Tompkins slumped back in his chair. He knew it was me, but he couldn’t prove it. Just what I’d wanted!
His breathing slowed. Then he looked up at me and did something scary. He smiled.
‘You’re right,’ he said calmly. ‘I have no proof. I apologise. Off you go.’
‘Really?’ I asked uncertainly.
‘Of course,’ he said.
Slowly I stood.
‘You know,’ he said. ‘This has been good for me. It’s made me think about things. I think you’ll notice some changes.’
‘That’s . . . err . . . great,’ I said.
‘Run along then, Darren.’ Mr Tompkins smiled. ‘Enjoy your lunch.’
As I walked down the corridor I realised that I had done what I had set out to do. I had tricked and unsettled Mr Tompkins and got away with it. Plus, it seemed like I had prompted him to think about what sort of teacher he was and make some changes. Best of all, he knew it was me, but he couldn’t prove it. It had all gone perfectly.
So why did I feel uneasy?
• • •
It was only when I went to overtake someone on my way home that I realised that the bell on my bike was missing.
• • •
The next day my pencil case vanished. The day after it was back on my desk, but it was full of leaves that looked like the ones I’d seen in Mr Tompkins’ backyard. The next day my chair had one leg shorter than the rest, and I spent the whole day wobbling. The day after that the chair was back to normal, but my desk had one leg short.
On the other hand, Mr Tompkins is being a lot nicer to the class. He’s shouting less and yesterday he even gave Olivia Ronson a jellybean for getting a perfect score in her maths test.
• • •
I’ve decided something. I’m going to be really, really nice to Mr Tompkins for the rest of the year and do all my work properly. I studied really hard for yesterday’s maths test and got 14 out of 20. If I keep being a really good student, then maybe he’ll stop.
You see, I know it’s him, but I just can’t prove it.
FAIRY
STORY
by
Judith Rossell
Hi, Bella here. So this is what happened. I’m not expecting you to believe me, but it’s true, all the same.
It’s the school holidays, and I’m clearing out my bedroom. I’m going to chuck everything out and have my room just the way I like it. I have these horrible pink walls and a strip of wallpaper all along the top with little pink roses and butterflies on it. But Mum says I can paint the walls any colour I like and I’ve chosen black. Dark Night, the paint’s called. And I’m going to put up my movie poster of Vampire Prince and a new doona cover, which is also black, and I’m chucking out all my old stuff.
In my new room, everything will be just the way I like it. No pink sparkly little-girl stuff. And definitely no bits of Lego or matchbox cars or tiny little fire trucks everywhere, like in the rest of the house. I have these three little brothers. Three. Max, Will and Olly. They are very annoying. I can hear them fighting, right now, in the lounge room. I’m supposed to be minding them while Mum nips down to the shops. They’re always squabbling and screaming and covering everything with sticky fingerprints. There is no way those dribble monsters are getting into my new room. No way. This room will be just for me, and it will be perfect.
So I’m clearing out all this stuff, pink bunnies and dolls and glittery music boxes and those little diaries, you know the ones with the sparkly cover and the plastic locks that don’t work, and all the pink pens that write in glitter and hundreds of pink rubber bands and plastic bangles and rubbers. And then I start burrowing into my wardrobe and I find ribbons from swimming last year and a T-shirt from school camp two years ago and I find my old oneeyed teddy, Mr McFluffy, who I thought was lost three years ago. And then I find a broken snow globe that Uncle Brian brought me back from Hawaii when I was in about Year Two and an apple core that’s so completely petrified it’s almost a fossil. It’s like an archaeological dig of my life, this wardrobe. And I chuck everything into a garbage bag. (Not actually everything. I don’t chuck poor old Mr McFluffy in the garbage bag. I sneak him under my pillow.)
Then, right at the back of the wardrobe, I find this big cardboard box. So I haul it out and open it up. And inside, at the top, there’s a picture of me in kindergarten. I was a cute-looking four-yearold, with a big wide smile, but I’m wearing a pink sparkly fairy dress and about 20 pink sparkly hair clips in my tufty hair. I’m even wearing fairy wings. I look like a maniac.
Also in the box, there’s a lame certificate for Trying Hard and some artwork, finger-paintings in pink sparkly paint. All I can say about them is that I don’t seem to have been a very gifted artist when I was a little kid. And there are some dead flower petals. And a fairy wand made out of pink plastic with sparkly plastic jewels stuck on it.
I remember I was obsessed with fairies when I was in kindergarten. Really, seriously obsessed.
I used to wear a fairy dress all the time and I always used to have fairy tea parties and make potions out of flower petals. I even used to have this imaginary tiny fairy friend. What was her name again? Pinky something, I think.
Right at the bottom of the box, there’s another box. A shoe box. And it’s decorated with sparkly lolly wrappers and glitter, and heaps of little pink stickers, stars and flowers and fairies. On the lid, in wonky, little-kid writing, it says fary hous. And here’s when this story gets weird. Because there’s something moving inside.
Rustling.
Squeaking.
A mouse? Or a moth? Or . . ?
Anyway, I give the box a poke with my finger, and the squeaking gets louder, and there’s something fluttering and banging around in there. I get a ruler and I lean back, right away from the box, and I reach out with the ruler and I cautiously lever off the lid.
And there’s this high-pitched squeaking sound and a bright little light shoots right out of the box with a whoosh. And this tiny little thing is zooming around and around my head, twittering, and I scream and try to whack it away with the ruler and then there’s a loud pop, like a tiny explosion, and I’m covered in a cloud of pink glitter.
And then this tiny shiny thing is right in my face, squeaking, and I can see its little face and its shimmering wings. And suddenly, I realise it’s not just squeaking. It’s talking.
‘It’s YOU!’ it’s saying, really excited. ‘Bellabellabellabella!’
And I make some kind of gasping noise.
And it zooms right around my head and comes back to my face in a flash and says, ‘It’s ME!’ and there’s another pop and the air’s full of pink glitter again and it says, ‘It’s MEEEE! It’s Pinkywinky Sparklefairy!’ And she shoots in and plants a kiss on the end of my nose. It feels like a tiny electric shock. ‘I waited for you! I waited and waited and waited. And at last you FOUND ME!’ And she does a little loop-the-loop in the air and makes a shower of rainbow fireworks.
I’m gaping and spluttering and choking on bits of glitter.
‘I MISSED you!’ she squeaks. ‘Did you miss ME??’
‘What—?’
‘But now we’re together again.’ She giggles. ‘Forever and ever and ever and ever.’
‘But,’ I spit out some glitter. ‘But—’ Aren’t you imaginary? is what I’m going to say. But she’s not imaginary. Obviously.
Also, I don’t believe in fairies. Just to be clear.
‘You FOUND me!’ Pinky squeaks. ‘And now we can have tea parties and make daisy chains!’ And she zooms around the room like a firefly, sparkling and glittering and giggling. ‘But FIRST let’s get you DRESSED!’ She twirls around and around and pink sparks appear and swirl and crackle. I feel the air whip around like a whirlwind and I look down and my black Vampire Prince T-shirt is gone and so are my jeans and I’m wearing this sparkly, glittery dress with a sticky-out skirt, like overlapping flower petals. I gasp. It’s really, really pink and really, really glittery.
Pinky giggles and twirls and says, ‘Perfect! Now, come on! Let’s GO!’ And she zooms out the door of my bedroom and disappears down the hallway like a tiny rocket.
I jump up and run after her, as well as I can with the stupid dress trying to tangle around my legs and trip me, down the hallway to the lounge room. And there are my three little brothers, fighting over their Lego robots, and up there is Pinky, circling the ceiling light. The boys don’t see her at all. They’re staring at me with their mouths hanging open in shock. They’ve never seen me dressed up like a sparkly pink cupcake before.
‘Goblins!’ Pinky squeaks, eyeing the boys. Angrylooking green sparks appear around her like tiny bits of lightning. ‘Nasty little goblins! Don’t worry, Bella! I’ll save you!’
‘No!’ I yell.
But it’s too late. Green lightning crackles and flashes. Bang! Then, three wet-sounding pops and where there were three gaping brothers, there are now three fat, green frogs, sitting among the scattered pieces of Lego.
‘Max?’ I say. ‘Will? Olly? Oh no!’ One second, three brothers. Next second, three frogs. I can’t believe it. They look a bit surprised too. Although that might just be their goggly frog eyes.
‘I saved you from the GOBLINS, Bella!’ squeaks Pinky.
‘No, no, no. Not goblins! Brothers! You have to change them back!’
‘Back?’
‘You have to!’
I scramble to catch the frog brothers before they can get away. I grab two of them. The third one gets up onto the couch and tries to leap onto the bookshelf, but I catch him too. Olly, I bet. He’s always climbing on things.
I clutch them to my front. They wriggle and croak. I can feel their little cold hands grabbing at my fingers. I look around for something to put them in.
‘They’re better like this, anyway,’ says Pinky. She sounds a bit sulky.
‘No, no, no, they are not. You have to change them back,’ I yell. ‘You have to! And before Mum gets home!’ This is terrible. I’m supposed to be minding them. What will Mum say? And she’ll be home any moment.
‘You’re ANGRY with me!’ Pinky wails. ‘Bella! Don’t be angry with me!’ She shoots around and around in a spiral.
‘Stop it!’ I yell, as she zooms past my head. ‘Stop it! Stop crying! You have to fix this.’ I grab the Lego box, and put the three frogs inside and shut the lid. (It’s OK, it’s cardboard. They can breathe in there.)
‘Noooo,’ Pinky wails. Her tears are a shower of silver glitter.
‘Please, Pinky!’
‘You’re still ANGRY with me!’ she cries.
I clench my teeth together. ‘No, I’m not angry.’
‘So we’re best friends again?’
Could she be more annoying? ‘Yes, yes,’ I say.
‘And we can have tea parties and make daisy chains, and be best friends forever and ever and ever and ever?’
Arggh! It sounds terrible. I say, in the nicest voice I can manage, ‘Yes.’
‘You PROMISE?’
‘Yes, I promise.’
‘Then I FORGIVE you!’ she squeaks and she shoots out some coloured sparkles and zooms down and kisses me on the nose again.
‘So now, will you change them back?’
‘Fairy sparkles don’t go backwards,’ says Pinky.
‘What?’
‘So we need to make a special potion,’ she says. ‘It’s very, very complicated.’ She starts spinning around, and she sings in this tiny tinkling voice:
‘One is pretty, two are blue,
Three are precious just for you,
Four are sparkly, five are pink,
Six are something you can drink,
Seven flowers, make a wish.
Drink it up and give a kiss.’
It doesn’t sound that complicated to me. It doesn’t sound like magic, either. It sounds like a stupid game from kindergarten.
‘Okay. So we have to collect some things together. One is pretty . . . ’
‘NO!’ giggles Pinky. ‘First, we need a special potion bottle. Come on.’
She shoots out of the room. I put the Lego box of frog brothers carefully onto the table, where I hope they will be safe, and I run after her. She zooms around the kitchen, down the hall, in and out of the laundry, the boys’ bedroom, Mum’s room, and then into the bathroom.
‘Bellabellabellabella! Looky-loo!’ she says, spinning around and pointing. ‘There!’
It’s Mum’s special perfume. It was a present from Aunty Jaz at Christmas. It’s called Love Mist and it’s a fancy purple crystal bottle in the shape of a heart. I hesitate. Because Mum loves this perfume, and it’s very, very expensive. She only uses it on special occasions. It’s still nearly full.
‘Are you sure? Can’t we use something else?’
‘Noooo!!!’ wails Pinky. She sounds as if she might start to cry again.
So I pick up the bottle. Mum’s going to be really upset about this. But not as upset as she will be if she finds out that I’ve let the b
oys get turned into frogs. And there’s no time to waste. So I pull out the stopper and pour it all down the sink. Glug glug glug.
‘Okay,’ I say, my eyes watering a bit from the fumes of Love Mist. ‘Here we go then. One is pretty . . . ’ I look around the bathroom, but it’s just wet towels and old toothbrushes, nothing pretty.
Pinky has shot away again and I can hear her twittering in Mum’s bedroom, and there she is, circling above Mum’s bedside table. ‘Pretty!!’ she squeaks.
It’s Mum’s nice brooch, which is shaped like a little bow and has sparkly stones set in it. It is pretty, that’s for sure. I only hesitate for a second, then I grab it and shove it into the Love Mist bottle.
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘One is pretty, two are . . . ?’
‘Blue!’ trills Pinky.
That’s easy. Two little bits of blue Lego from the lounge room floor. One, two.
‘Three are precious just for you,’ sings Pinky.
‘What?’’
‘Three special treasures,’ she explains.
I know what this means. Reluctantly, I go into my bedroom and find my school bag. I have three little Vampire Prince badges pinned to it. They’re my best things. They’re really cool. I love them. But I unpin them and shove them into the Love Mist bottle. I have to bend them a bit to get them in. One, two, three.
‘Four are . . ?’
‘Four are sparkly, five are pink,’ sings Pinky, spinning around.
Easy. The garbage bag is full of things that I’ve been chucking out from my bedroom. I find four sparkly little hair clips and five pink rubbers and I drop them all into the bottle.
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Six?’
‘Six are something you can drink,’ sings Pinky.
In the kitchen, I open the fridge. What can you drink? I pull out the milk and pour a bit in. One. Orange juice. Two. Lemon squash. Three. What else can you drink? I fling open the cupboard. Soy sauce? Yes! Four. Olive oil? Five. I’m rummaging around the bottles and jars. Vinegar!! Yes! I splosh vinegar into the bottle. Six!
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