Undercover (9 page)

Then it dawned on Jess. ‘Baked beans!' she exclaimed. ‘This brownie tastes like baked beans!'

‘Oh, no,' said Elly in dismay. ‘That means ...' She picked up a pie and took a bite. ‘Lemonade!' she said, screwing up her face.

Jess tasted the jelly. ‘Corn chips!' she said. She couldn't help laughing. ‘It's so weird. It tastes exactly like them. It'd be cool except —'

‘Except that no-one wants to eat corn-chip-flavoured jelly,' finished Elly bitterly. ‘Especially not at a party.'

Jess had to agree. ‘No. The flavours are getting muddled somehow,' she said. She picked up the box. It was probably something pretty simple. If she had enough time she might even be able to fix it. But there was no time left.

‘What are we going to do now?' wailed Elly so loudly that the Hover-Lamp began blinking its lights in distress.

Jess didn't know what to say. It looked like a hopeless situation.

Suddenly, there was a voice behind them. ‘Perhaps I could be of assistance?'

Elly and Jess turned around. It was Ms Buttercup. ‘Ms Buttercup!' said Elly, in surprise. ‘What are you doing here?'

It was
very
weird the way Ms Buttercup always seemed to turn up just when things were going horribly wrong.

‘Well, Elly,' said Ms Buttercup, smiling. ‘I'm your human godmother, and I'm here to give you a hand.'

Chapter Eleven

E
lly and Jess stared at Ms Buttercup with their mouths wide open. Thousands of thoughts rushed through their minds and got tangled trying to escape from their mouths.

But Ms Buttercup seemed to already know what they wanted to know. ‘Yes,' she said to Elly, ‘I know you're a fairy. I've known for a long time, in fact.' Then she looked at Jess. ‘And yes, I know that you know Elly's secret identity.'

Jess and Elly looked at her in alarm. This was bad news. If the Fairydom authorities found out Elly would be in big trouble.

‘No need to fret,' Ms Buttercup assured them. ‘I won't tell a soul. My job is to make life easier for you, Elly. Not more difficult! And besides,' she added, ‘Jess is exactly the sort of friend a fairy like you needs.'

Elly breathed a sigh of relief. But then she suddenly felt a bit annoyed. ‘Why haven't I seen you before, then?' she asked. There had been
lots
of times when she could've used a human godmother.

‘Sorry about that. I have loads of fairy goddaughters,' she said, ‘and sometimes I lose track of them all.'

‘Are you a fairy, Ms Buttercup?' asked Jess.

Ms Buttercup shook her head. ‘No, I'm a human. You see, humans have fairy godmothers,' she explained. ‘And fairies have human godmothers. I'm Elly's.'

Elly was puzzled. ‘If you're not a fairy, then how did you do all that magic?' she asked suspiciously. ‘The basketball and the sausage rolls?'

Ms Buttercup tapped her hand on the big black handbag she wore over her shoulder. ‘This is my human godmother kit,' explained Ms Buttercup. ‘It contains lots of useful gadgets. Most human godmothers hardly ever have to use their kits, but I've used mine a lot looking after Elly.'

She opened up her handbag and the girls peered inside. Jess was disappointed. ‘It looks just like my mum's bag,' she said.

Ms Buttercup smiled. ‘That's exactly how it's supposed to look. All the gadgets are disguised.' She pulled out a tube of lip-gloss. ‘This, for instance, is how I stopped the sausage rolls rolling. It's Gravity-Gel. I dabbed a little on the bottom of the tray and it added just enough force to keep those rolls weighed down.'

Jess examined the lip-gloss carefully. It looked so ordinary that she wasn't sure if she believed Ms Buttercup.

‘What would happen if you accidentally put some on your lips?' she asked curiously.

Ms Buttercup frowned. ‘Oh, you wouldn't want to do that,' she said. ‘Your lips would end up dragging on the ground.'

‘What about the basketball?' asked Elly. ‘How did you make it act that way?'

Ms Buttercup produced a small torch. ‘With this,' she said, handing it to Jess. ‘It is an Unpredict-a-Ball guiding light. The ball follows the torch beam.'

Jess turned on the torch. ‘I can't see anything,' she protested.

‘Of course not!' Ms Buttercup laughed. ‘Have you heard of a dog whistle?'

Jess nodded. ‘It's a whistle that's so highpitched humans can't hear it, but dogs can,' she said.

‘Exactly,' agreed Ms Buttercup. ‘Well, this torch is like that. It has a light so bright that humans can't see it. But objects — like basketballs and tennis balls — are drawn to it like a magnet.'

‘But why did you want me to do so well at basketball?' asked Elly.

Ms Buttercup shrugged. ‘I was sick of watching Clarabelle win. She cheats, you know.'

But Ms Buttercup looked a bit puzzled as she put the torch back in her bag. She looked like she was deciding whether or not to say something. ‘It's strange, though,' she whispered, looking over her shoulder to check no-one was listening. ‘The Unpredict-a-Ball batteries ran out halfway through the game!'

‘You mean ...?' began Jess.

‘I knew it!' squealed Elly. ‘I
knew
there was another fairy at the school.'

‘Well,' said Ms Buttercup. ‘I can't be sure, but I have been wondering for a while now.'

Suddenly Jess remembered the party and the ruined food. ‘Have you got any other cool things in there?' asked Jess hopefully.

‘I've got this!' said Ms Buttercup, pulling out a large white hanky. Then, to Jess and Elly's surprise she spat on it and started wiping vigorously at Elly's cheeks.

Elly didn't like it very much. It was the sort of thing her aunties did when they visited. ‘What magic does
that
do?' she asked doubtfully.

‘Oh, it's not magic,' replied Ms Buttercup. ‘You just had some fairy bread stuck to your face. It's incredible what you can do with a wet hanky!'

Elly checked the time on her Worry-Watch. If they were away for much longer the party would be over. ‘Ms Buttercup, have you got anything that will help fix this mess we're in?' she asked.

She couldn't see how a torch or some lipgloss was going to remake a whole lot of party food. She just hoped that somewhere in that enormous bag there were several large plates of fairy bread.

Ms Buttercup pulled something out from deep in her bag and handed it to Elly.

Jess stared at it in surprise. ‘Sticky tape?' she asked. ‘Are you suggesting we use sticky tape to fix all that food?'

But Elly knew what it was. And that was when she knew that Ms Buttercup really was her human godmother. ‘It's invisible mending tape,' she explained to Jess excitedly. ‘It's the coolest stuff.'

She picked up one of the baked-bean-flavoured brownies and broke it in half. ‘Watch this,' she said. She tore off a piece of tape and placed it carefully on one half of the brownie. Immediately the other half zoomed across the ground to meet it, until the two halves were joined back together again.

Jess picked up the brownie. ‘Amazing,' she said, peeling off the tape. ‘You'd never know it had been broken.'

‘It's very useful,' said Ms Buttercup. ‘I find it handy for locating missing socks.' Then she produced something else from the cavernous bag. It looked like an ordinary perfume bottle, but Jess had a feeling it would be something else. ‘This will come in handy,' said Ms Buttercup. ‘It's a Food-Fixer. If you spray any food that's been flattened, the Food-Fixer will pump it full of air again.'

Elly took the bottle and the tape and put them in her backpack. ‘Thanks, Ms Buttercup,' she said gratefully. It was still going to be difficult to fix up all that food, but it would be much easier with these gadgets.

‘That's quite all right, Elly,' said Ms Buttercup. ‘That's what I'm here for, after all.' Then she looked at Elly's face closely, and before Elly knew what was happening Ms Buttercup had pulled out her hanky again. ‘I can still see a couple of dirty spots, Elly,' she said, leaning close. ‘Let me clean you up before you go —'

But Elly grabbed Jess's arm and together they ran off hastily down the street. ‘Thanks again, Ms Buttercup!' called Elly over her shoulder.

Back at the party, the guests seemed to have forgotten all about the food anyway. They were still trying to get the teapot to fly.

‘Let's fix up the food while they're not watching,' whispered Elly. ‘And before Caitlin's mum comes out and sees what a mess we've made.'

So the two girls quickly set to work repairing the food. Jess used the invisible mending tape while Elly pumped up the flattened food. Jess found it fascinating. Adding tape to the tiniest cake crumb caused hundreds of other cake crumbs to come flying from wherever they had scattered. One large crumb was even whisked away from the beak of a very surprised bird.

It wasn't long before the food table was looking almost exactly as it had before. It was in the nick of time, too, for just as they finished, the teapot came hopping across the lawn, flapping its wings madly. The Hover-Lamp, which had been sitting on Jess's shoulder while she worked, made a growling noise when it saw the teapot, and started to swoop towards it. Luckily Jess grabbed it before it could do any more damage.

The Fairy Club girls stared in disbelief at the table. They walked around it, touching things.

Caitlin had a funny little half-smile on her face. ‘How did you do that?' she asked Elly and Jess. ‘It looks exactly like it did before.' She raised one eyebrow.

Elly smiled modestly. ‘Oh, it was nothing,' she said, looking at Caitlin's small feet.

Jess did a quick freckle-count. Caitlin had nine perfect little freckles.