Kathryn the Gym Fairy

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Map

  Poem

  The School Superintendent

  Gym Class Problems

  Gloating Goblins

  The Dirty Ditch

  A Magical Inspection

  A Demonstration and a Display

  Teaser

  Copyright

  It’s time the School Day Fairies see

  How wonderful a school should be—

  A place where goblins must be bossed,

  And learn about the great Jack Frost.

  Now every fairy badge of gold

  Makes goblins do as they are told.

  Let silly fairies whine and wail.

  My cleverness will never fail!

  “I can’t believe that tomorrow is our last day at school together,” said Kirsty Tate. “It’s been a wonderful week—I wish it didn’t have to end.”

  Rachel Walker squeezed her hand as they sat next to each other in the auditorium. The best friends had loved every moment of the past week. Kirsty’s school had been flooded, so she had joined Rachel in Tippington.

  “It’s good that your school will be open again next week, but I am going to miss you so much!” said Rachel.

  They were sitting with the rest of Mr. Beaker’s class at the afternoon assembly. Miss Patel, the principal, clapped her hands together and everyone fell silent.

  “Good afternoon, everyone,” she said. “I hope that you have all had a good morning and are looking forward to class this afternoon.”

  “Yes, Miss Patel!” all the students said together.

  “Some of you have already met our school superintendent, Mrs. Best,” Miss Patel went on. “She is observing the school today and tomorrow.”

  A lady with a clipboard joined Miss Patel at the front of the auditorium, and everyone clapped politely.

  “I hope that you will all continue to show Mrs. Best what a wonderful school this is,” said Miss Patel.

  Just then, Rachel and Kirsty heard the sound of chattering nearby. They peered along their row and saw two boys in green uniforms, snickering and muttering to each other. The girls exchanged a knowing glance. They knew that the boys were goblins in disguise.

  Miss Patel made a few short announcements and then sent everyone off to their classrooms.

  “Look,” Kirsty whispered, peering over her shoulder. “Mrs. Best is following our class.”

  Rachel looked, too, and saw Mrs. Best a few steps behind them.

  “She must be coming to observe our gym class,” said Rachel.

  “I hope that the goblins behave themselves,” said Kirsty in a low voice. “It would be awful if they messed things up for Tippington School.”

  Feeling anxious, the girls changed quickly into their shorts, T-shirts, and sneakers. Then they jogged out to the field with their friends Adam and Amina and the rest of the class.

  Mrs. Best was waiting for them at the edge of the field, holding a clipboard. Mr. Beaker was standing beside her, and the girls saw him glancing down at the clipboard.

  “Oh, I hope this class goes well,” said Rachel, crossing her fingers. “Poor Mr. Beaker looks worried.”

  The goblins were at the back of the group, fooling around. Just as they had refused to wear the Tippington school uniform, they had also refused to wear the gym uniform. While everyone else matched in their navy-and-white uniforms, the goblins were dressed in scruffy, bright-green shorts and stained green T-shirts. They were wearing green baseball caps to hide their faces. Kirsty spotted Mrs. Best making notes on the clipboard, and her heart sank.

  “Good afternoon, everyone,” said Mr. Beaker, talking in an extra-cheerful voice. “We’re going to do an obstacle-course relay, so I’d like you to get into teams of four, please.”

  “Will you two be on our team?” Rachel asked Adam and Amina.

  Their friends agreed at once. There weren’t quite enough children for everyone to have a team of four, so Mr. Beaker told the goblins that they could be a team and do two obstacles each.

  Mr. Beaker led the children to the course. It looked like a lot of fun. There were all sorts of obstacles and challenges, with bean bags, balls, and cones laid out in a different color for each team.

  “You’ll all decide who on your team will go first, second, third, and fourth,” Mr. Beaker explained. “The first person has to balance a bean bag on their head and weave through the line of cones. The second person must throw a basketball through the hoop. The third person needs to jump rope twenty times, and the fourth person must finish the relay by crawling under a low net to the finish line. When each person finishes their part of the course, they have to tag the next team member as the signal to go. Do you all understand?”

  Rachel and Kirsty nodded, feeling very excited. They couldn’t wait to get started!

  “This is a tough course, so it’s important to practice first,” said Mr. Beaker. “I’ll give you all five minutes to discuss with your teams and then we’ll begin.”

  Rachel and Kirsty’s team decided that Amina would go first, Adam second, Kirsty third, and Rachel fourth. Their team color was purple, so Amina picked up a purple bean bag and set off around the cones.

  “Wait!” cried Kirsty. “You’re going the wrong way!”

  But Amina didn’t hear her, because all the teams were yelling at the tops of their lungs. The bean bag slipped off Amina’s head and she picked it up, but she had only gone a few steps before it fell off again.

  “Noooo!” cried Adam.

  Suddenly Amina realized that she was going the wrong way around the cones. She turned around and headed back in the opposite direction, and then the bean bag slipped off her head again. Adam groaned and the girls bit their lips. They couldn’t help but notice that the first goblin had already reached the end of the cones. Somehow he had managed to balance the bean bag on his hat without dropping it once!

  At last Amina reached the end of the cones and ran over to tag Adam. He sprinted toward the bucket full of basketballs and grabbed a purple one. He aimed it at the basketball hoop, but it went straight up in the air and came down on his head.

  “Ow!” he yelled.

  He grabbed the ball and aimed it at the basket again. This time it flew over the top of the basket and hit the second goblin on the shoulder. He was fiddling with one of his sneakers, and he gave a loud squawk. The ball bounced away into a muddy ditch.

  “This is strange,” said Amina. “Adam’s really good at basketball—he usually never misses a shot!”

  The second goblin had fixed his sneaker and then thrown the basketball through the hoop on his first try, but Adam had to try six times before he succeeded. Red in the face, he tagged Kirsty, who picked up a jump rope. She was usually good at jumping rope, but after just five jumps, the rope got tangled around her legs. I guess I didn’t jump high enough, she thought. But when she tried again, she dropped one of the handles.

  “You can do it, Kirsty!” Rachel called in an encouraging voice.

  Kirsty picked up the rope to try again. But after fifteen jumps the rope hit the back of her head, and she lost her balance. She felt her cheeks turning red. The first goblin was next to her, pulling at one of his sneakers. Then he started jumping so fast that the rope was just a blur.

  “What’s wrong with me today?” Kirsty muttered under her breath.

  She looked around to see if the other teams were looking at her, but to her surprise, they all looked just as confused and worried. Everyone was having problems with the obstacle course! One team was still on the bean bag section.

  Kirsty took a deep breath and concentrated on jumping. This time she managed to reach twenty, although she tripped over her own feet when she ran over to tag Rachel. She glimps
ed Mrs. Best shaking her head and making more notes on her clipboard.

  Even though the goblins had finished jumping rope first, they were both doing something with their sneakers.

  “It’s lucky they don’t have lace-up sneakers to slow them down,” said Kirsty.

  Rachel and the second goblin dived under the low net at exactly the same time. Rachel dragged herself along on her elbows. This was something that she had done many times, but suddenly she felt as if she had forgotten how to crawl. Her elbows ached, and the finish line seemed to be miles away. The second goblin was already a long way ahead of her.

  Suddenly Rachel felt a tug on her foot, and realized that one of her sneakers was caught in the netting. Nearby, she could see other children having problems, too. Some of them were still on the basketball challenge. Mrs. Best was shaking her head again and taking even more notes.

  Just then, the goblin scrambled under the finish line and jumped up and down, cheering. Mrs. Best smiled for the first time, and Rachel heard her speak to Mr. Beaker.

  “At least some of your students are satisfactory,” she said. “Those boys in green are excellent.”

  Rachel looked at her foot. It was so tangled in the netting that she knew she couldn’t get it out by herself.

  “Mr. Beaker,” she called out. “I’m stuck.”

  Mr. Beaker came to help her, and Mrs. Best followed him.

  “It’s almost as if they’ve never had a gym class before,” she said. “What have you been teaching them?”

  Mr. Beaker helped Rachel to her feet, looking flustered.

  “They have regular classes,” he told the inspector. “They all have satisfactory gym skills—I don’t understand what’s going wrong today.”

  “We’re usually much better,” said Rachel. “Please, will you give us another chance?”

  Mrs. Best looked at her watch.

  “It’s almost time to go,” she said. “I will give your class another chance first thing tomorrow morning. I hope things will have improved by then!”

  Mrs. Best strode back toward the school, and Mr. Beaker sighed.

  “All right, class,” he said. “Let’s clean up the course.”

  Most of the children wanted to help, but the goblins just kept messing around, giggling and shoving each other. Mr. Beaker didn’t seem to notice.

  “Rachel and Kirsty, could you straighten up the cones, please?” he asked.

  The girls jogged over to the cones and started to put them back in line.

  “What an awful gym class,” said Kirsty. “I hope that we can do better tomorrow—Mr. Beaker looked really upset.”

  Rachel didn’t reply, because she had just seen something very strange. A faint golden glow was coming from underneath one of the purple cones. She nudged Kirsty, who lifted up the cone to look underneath it. They heard the sound of a tiny whistle, and then Kathryn the Gym Fairy fluttered out and waved at them.

  “Hello, girls!” she called.

  She was wearing white jeans decorated with pink hearts, a pink varsity jacket, and a pretty pink ribbon in her hair.

  “Hello, Kathryn,” said Kirsty. “What are you doing here?”

  “Queen Titania was watching your class in her Seeing Pool,” Kathryn explained. “It went badly because the goblins have my magical gold star badge. I’ve come to ask for your help.”

  At the beginning of the week, Kirsty and Rachel had met Marissa the Science Fairy, one of the School Day Fairies. She had asked them to help her find her magical gold star badge, which naughty Jack Frost had stolen. The girls found out that he had taken the badges for four subjects—Science, Art, Reading, and Gym. He was planning to start his own school for goblins, and teach them all about himself!

  Without the badges, lessons had turned into a disaster in both the human world and Fairyland. But the worst thing was that Queen Titania and King Oberon were coming to look around the Fairyland School. Unless the fairies got their magical star badges back, the royal visit would be ruined!

  Rachel, Kirsty, and Marissa found out that Jack Frost had expelled two misbehaving goblins from his school, and that they had stolen the magical gold star badges from him. These were the goblins at Tippington School.

  Rachel smiled at Kathryn.

  “We’ve found the badges that belong to Marissa the Science Fairy, Alison the Art Fairy, and Lydia the Reading Fairy,” she said. “I’m sure we can help you find yours, too!”

  “Rachel! Kirsty!” called Mr. Beaker. “It’s almost time for the bell. Please join the rest of the class.”

  Quickly, Kathryn darted into the pocket of Kirsty’s gym shirt. The girls hurried over to join the other students.

  “Before you all go and get changed, I want to talk about tomorrow,” said Mr. Beaker. “There was only one team who managed to finish the obstacle course today—well done, boys.”

  The goblins snickered, but everyone else looked very glum.

  “It’s really important for the school that we do well in front of Mrs. Best in the morning,” said Mr. Beaker. “Could you please all try to memorize the rules tonight, and practice at home if you can? Remember, the first person has to weave through the line of cones with a bean bag on his or her head. The second person throws the basketball through the hoop. The third person must jump rope twenty times, and then the fourth person crawls under the net to the finish line. Don’t forget to tag the next team member as the signal to go.”

  “We’ll do our best to make everything all right tomorrow, sir,” said Kirsty.

  Mr. Beaker gave her a worried smile.

  “All I ask is that you do your best,” he said. “Now, I have asked today’s winning team to give you all a demonstration.”

  Puffing out their chests and looking very smug, the goblins stepped forward. Rachel suddenly realized that if everyone was watching the goblins, they wouldn’t notice if she and Kirsty slipped away.

  There were some spare cones stacked up behind them. As the first goblin set off with the bean bag on his head, Rachel pulled her best friend’s arm and ducked down behind the cones.

  “This is our chance to find out where the goblins are hiding Kathryn’s magical badge,” she whispered. “Kathryn, could you turn us into fairies? Then we can watch the goblins really closely without being seen.”

  The fairy had poked her head over the edge of Kirsty’s T-shirt pocket, and now she pulled out her wand.

  “I’m glad you’re going to be fairy-sized for a while,” she said with a smile. “It means that I can give you a real hug!”

  Rachel and Kirsty grinned at one another as Kathryn waved her wand in the air.

  Rachel and Kirsty felt themselves spinning and shrinking, and when they caught their breath they were as tiny as Kathryn, with delicate gossamer wings fluttering from their shoulders. The three little fairies hugged each other.

  “I’m so glad to have you with me,” said Kathryn. “I wouldn’t have any idea how to get my badge back by myself.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Rachel. “If we all choose a place to hide on the obstacle course, I’m sure we’ll see something that will give us a clue.”

  “Good idea,” said Kirsty. “I’ll go under the net.”

  “I’ll hide on the basketball hoop,” Rachel replied. “What about you, Kathryn?”

  “I’ll slip behind one of the cones,” said the fairy. “The first goblin has almost finished—I’d better hurry!”

  She zoomed toward the first part of the obstacle course and landed behind a cone, making sure that none of the students could see her. They were all watching the first goblin, who reached the end of the cones and tipped the bean bag off his head, laughing. Kathryn watched him run up to the second goblin and tag him. Both goblins bent down for a moment as if to check their sneakers, but Kirsty could see what they were really doing. The second goblin tucked something golden into his sneaker and then sprinted over to the basketball challenge.

  “Was that my badge?” Kathryn wondered aloud.

  The sec
ond goblin made a basket with ease, bent down to pull at his left sneaker, and then tagged the first goblin. Watching from the basket, Rachel could see that he had passed a gold star-shaped badge to the first goblin.

  “Kathryn’s badge!” she said with a gasp.

  With the badge tucked carefully inside one of his sneakers, the first goblin easily jumped rope twenty times. Kirsty was hiding under the low net, and she saw him pass the badge back to the second goblin.

  “That’s cheating!” she exclaimed.

  She felt so annoyed that she forgot about hiding from the goblin, and he saw her as he dived under the finish line.

  “Fairies!” he squawked.

  At exactly the same moment, the school bell rang in the distance.

  “Thank you for a wonderful demonstration, boys,” said Mr. Beaker. “Good luck tomorrow, everyone. Now hurry back inside and get changed—it’s time to go home!”

  As Mr. Beaker and the other students hurried away, the goblin swiped at Kirsty with his long, bony fingers.

  She dodged his hand and zoomed away toward the muddy ditch where Adam’s basketball had gone earlier.

  “Come back!” squealed the goblin.

  He chased her, closely followed by Rachel and Kathryn. Kirsty flew as fast as she could, gasping for breath. If she could reach the ditch and fly over it, maybe the goblin would run into it without looking!

  Kirsty flew over the ditch, but the goblin stopped on the edge.

  “I’m not getting my sneakers dirty for a silly little fairy!” he grumbled.

  Rachel and Kirsty darted up and hovered in front of him.

  “We know you’ve been hiding Kathryn’s magical badge in your sneaker,” said Rachel. “Please give it back. It doesn’t belong to you.”