Carly the School Fairy Read online

  Carly waved her wand and transformed Kirsty into a girl again. The three friends peered at the stage.

  Jack Frost was firing spelling challenges at the goblins.

  “How do you spell the word Tennessee?” he asked.

  “Easy-peasy!” squawked a goblin in an oversized school hat. “T-E-N-N-E-S-S-E-E.”

  “Excellent!” The female judge applauded. “Four hundred points to the Icy Towers team. How about psychology?”

  “This is soooo simple!” scoffed a goblin wearing a tennis skirt. He spelled the word in super-quick time.

  “The satchel is turning the goblins into amazing spellers!” Rachel groaned.

  Just then, one of the goblins correctly spelled the word gnocchi. When the goblins learned that gnocchi was a type of delicious Italian pasta, they started whining about how hungry they were.

  “That’s it!” declared Kirsty. “The way to get the satchel from the goblins is to offer them food in exchange. They’re so greedy, I’m sure they’ll fall for it!”

  “Great idea, Kirsty!” Rachel cheered. “But where will we get the food? And how do we distract Jack Frost? I think he’s way too smart to fall for that trick.”

  “I’ll use my fairy magic!” cried Carly. “I’ll create some delicious cakes. Then I’ll make Jack Frost’s beloved sunglasses fly away! He’s bound to try to catch them and he won’t notice what the goblins are up to.”

  “That’s a terrific plan!” chorused the two girls.

  Carly waved her wand and a cart of delicious-looking cakes appeared. Then the little fairy turned to the stage. She closed her eyes. A moment later, Jack Frost’s sunglasses floated off his head!

  “What’s going on?!” he screeched, jumping up to grab the soaring glasses. He looked like a spidery-blue ballet dancer! Carly’s magic made the glasses fly off the stage.

  When Jack Frost ran into the audience after his sunglasses, the girls shouted, “Cakes! Cookies! Delicious treats! Come and get them!”

  The goblins immediately ran to grab treats from the cart. But Rachel wagged her finger at them. “Wait a minute! You have to give us something before you can have the cakes,” she said with a smile.

  “Boooooooooo!” whined the goblins. “We don’t have anything to give you!”

  “Well …” said Kirsty, pretending to think. “How about that blue satchel?” She pointed at Carly’s bag, which one of the goblins clutched in his green fingers.

  “Jack Frost said we need to keep this,” said the goblin in the tennis skirt, sulkily. “We need it to be good spellers.”

  “But you’re AMAZING spellers!” Rachel smiled sweetly. “I’m sure that silly satchel doesn’t do much at all!”

  “She’s right,” muttered one of the goblins. “We are VERY smart. Let’s get rid of the bag. We deserve some treats!”

  “Yay!” His friends cheered and the goblin threw the satchel at Kirsty. The greedy creatures immediately stuffed all the treats into their mouths.

  Kirsty handed the blue satchel to Carly. It shrank to fairy-size and started to glow magically.

  “Thank you!” Carly cried. “I’m going to take this back to Fairyland at once. But I’ll see you again very soon!” After blowing a kiss to the girls, Carly disappeared in a sparkly cloud.

  There was a loud howl from the stage.

  “You silly goblins!” shouted Jack Frost, who had just discovered the satchel was missing. “You’re never going to win the spelling bee now! We’re heading back to the Ice Castle. I want to make sure the other fairy items are safe.”

  The girls heard the goblins and Jack Frost trudge off the stage and out of the auditorium, squabbling loudly.

  All of a sudden the real spellmaster appeared onstage, looking flustered.

  “I’m so sorry about the delay,” he told the teams and the audience. “I went into a closet to get a notebook and the door somehow got jammed behind me! Now we can start the spelling bee!”

  Kirsty gave Rachel a big hug and headed into the audience. Everyone settled down quietly.

  As the spellmaster asked the first question, Kirsty caught Rachel’s eye and the two girls exchanged a secret smile. They knew that now, the best team would win fairly. But they still had to find two of Carly’s magic objects, and more adventures to enjoy!

  “Bye, Mrs. Walker, thanks for the ride!” said Kirsty, hugging Rachel’s mom.

  “See you later, Mom!” called Rachel, as Mrs. Walker got into her car and slowly drove off down the road, waving to the girls.

  Kirsty Tate was visiting Tippington with her school. Her best friend, Rachel Walker, lived in Tippington and both Kirsty and Rachel’s schools were taking part in two exciting contests! Four schools were competing in a spelling bee and a science contest. When both events were over, a dance was to be held at Rachel’s school.

  Yesterday, the spelling bee had taken place at Tippington Town Hall. The competition had almost been a total disaster, thanks to Jack Frost and his goblins. The goblins had stolen Carly the School Fairy’s three magic objects. Because the objects weren’t with their fairy owner, nobody could concentrate or learn new things!

  Thankfully, the girls had managed to outwit Jack Frost and return the magic satchel to Carly. The spelling bee eventually went ahead and was won by a school named St. Martin’s, with Rachel’s team a very close second! But there were still two magic objects to find: a pair of safety goggles that made all science experiments in school safe, fun, and successful, and a glitter ball that helped make dances and other events fun. Today the science contest was taking place at the Tippington Science Museum.

  “It was so nice having breakfast with you this morning,” said Kirsty. “And getting to play with your dog, Buttons!”

  “It was so much fun.” Rachel smiled as the girls walked up the steps of the Science Museum. “It was very nice of your teacher, Mrs. Richards, to give you a ride from the hotel to our house so early this morning! Now, where are you meeting your science team?”

  “There they are, by the museum map,” replied Kirsty.

  “Hello!” called a girl with long blonde hair.

  “Hi, Sophia!” said Kirsty. “Hello, Ed and Paul. This is my friend, Rachel.”

  “Hi!” said Rachel, smiling at the others.

  “Oh, there you are, Kirsty,” said Mrs. Richards, Kirsty’s teacher, joining the group. “I hope you had a good morning with Rachel’s family. I have the schedule for today.” Mrs. Richards waved a piece of paper in her hand. “Our science display is due to start in one hour. We’re on stand 1D. All the stands are to the side of the main hall between the Space and Flight zones. You have forty-five minutes to explore and then we’ll meet by the stand at 9:45 A.M.”

  “Great!” cheered the whole Wetherbury team.

  “Let me show you one of my favorite exhibits,” said Rachel. “It’s really cool!”

  The girls and the rest of the team walked through the museum. There was a huge wheel in the center of the ground floor. Rachel explained that it was powered by steam, and normally turned around very quickly, but today it was strangely still.

  In the Space zone there was an enormous rocket and lots of glowing stars hanging from the ceiling, but as they passed by, the glowing stars faded. The girls exchanged glances. They wondered if the exhibits weren’t working properly because Carly’s goggles were missing.

  “We’re going to take a closer look at the rocket,” said Ed. “See you back at the stand later!”

  “See you soon, we’re just going over here,” said Rachel, pointing to a room called Light It Up! that was all about electricity. In the center of the room, there were two bicycles connected by wires to a giant light bulb!

  “This is really fun,” said Rachel to Kirsty, jumping on a bike. “If we both pedal quickly, we’ll generate enough electricity for the bulb to light up!”

  “Cool!” cheered Kirsty, hopping on the other bike and starting to pedal.

  The two girls pedaled as fast as they could, but nothing happened.
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br />   “That’s really strange.” Kirsty frowned.

  Suddenly a glow started to come from the light bulb. But it looked like a very magical glow!

  Kirsty stopped pedaling. Rachel slowed to a stop, too. Could it be Carly?

  The girls watched the glow becoming brighter and brighter until they had to close their eyes. They heard a POP! and a tiny voice said, “Good morning, girls!”

  They opened their eyes and there, hovering in front of the bikes, was Carly the School Fairy!

  “Hello, Carly,” said Rachel. “It was very smart of you to appear near the light bulb!”

  Their fairy friend sighed. “Because my magic safety goggles are missing, you could have pedaled all day and you still wouldn’t have made the bulb light up! Until I get my goggles back, no experiments will work. I’m afraid that also includes all the school science contest experiments.”

  Kirsty frowned. “We noticed that some of the other exhibits aren’t working either. We have to find your goggles!”

  “Yes,” agreed Carly. “The good news is that my safety goggles are here, in the museum. The bad news is that they are being guarded by five goblins.”

  “The museum is big,” said Rachel, thinking of all the different places where the goblins could hide. “Let’s split up to look for the goggles. I know the museum really well so you two should stick together and I can get around quickly.”

  “Good plan.” Kirsty nodded.

  The three friends exchanged a quick hug and Carly fluttered into the top of Kirsty’s backpack. Kirsty hurried toward the Space section and Rachel headed into the Eco zone, which was at the back of the building.

  The front part of the Eco zone was a mini rain forest, with lots of exotic plants, flowers, and butterflies. It was always really hot and humid in there. But as Rachel went into the section, she shivered. It was freezing cold! The exotic plants and flowers were drooping and the butterflies looked very sad. Two children, who were monitoring moisture in the air with a special machine, looked worried. Rachel knew that the zone wasn’t working properly because Carly’s goggles were missing! She left the chilly rain forest and went into the Garden section.

  As she went through the swinging doors, she heard a loud screech and a cry of “No!” coming from the back of the garden, near a big muddy flowerbed.

  “Aha!” cried Rachel. “Goblins!” She crept over to the flowerbed. As she got closer, she could see several small people playing in the mud with spades, wearing overalls and caps. But, as one of the small figures turned around, Rachel saw that it was a muddy little boy, not a muddy green goblin!

  As Rachel headed out of the Eco zone, a strange announcement came over the loudspeaker.

  “HELLO! We are now doing The Best Experiment Ever with some cool chemicals, and—OW! Get your silly green hands off my special goggles!” There was the sound of squabbling and then a loud screech, followed by silence.

  That must be the goblins! Rachel thought, and she started to run toward the stalls that had been set up for the school experiments in the main hall.

  As Rachel ran into the hall, she almost bumped right into Kirsty. They heard the sound of clapping coming from a large group of children nearby, who were gathered in front of a display area. The girls quickly pushed their way to the front of the group. In the display area they saw four green goblins!

  Rachel and Kirsty watched as the goblins pranced around the display area, enjoying all the attention they were getting from the crowd of children.

  The green goblins were wearing very long lab coats that they kept tripping over. Long gloves covered their hands and arms, and each goblin was wearing a pair of safety goggles.

  “Carly!” whispered Rachel, peering into the top of Kirsty’s bag. “They’re all wearing safety goggles! Which ones are yours?”

  Carly peeked out of the bag. “I don’t think any of them are,” she replied. “Mine are a gorgeous golden color. But if you help me out of here, I’ll take a closer look.”

  Kirsty took off her backpack and put it on the floor. Rachel bent down and carefully lifted Carly out. The little fairy flew under Rachel’s hair, and the three friends made their way to the front of the group.

  In the display area one of the goblins was holding up a huge basin of water. Another goblin had a very large test tube clutched in both hands, full of white granules.

  “We will now show you how to make snow!” shouted a bossy goblin with two warts on his nose. He was holding a clipboard. “Beautiful, fluffy snow! We’re going to pour just a few granules into the water. Oh!”

  The goblin with the test tube had emptied all of the white granules into the water. As the crowd watched, the water in the basin started to bubble and foam. The goblin holding the basin shrieked in terror and dropped it on the floor.

  The warty goblin quickly slipped, grabbing hold of another goblin on his way down and making him fall over, too! Within seconds, all four goblins were on the floor, slipping and sliding on the gooey, sticky snow. The crowd thought that this was all part of the show. They applauded as the goblins squabbled and threw handfuls of gooey stuff at each other.

  “Oh, dear.” Kirsty sighed. “What a mess! Your magic safety goggles can’t be here, Carly, or the experiment would have gone really well.”

  “You’re right,” said Carly, peeking out from behind Rachel’s hair. “We’d better keep looking for them.”

  “Let’s look in the Flight zone next,” Rachel suggested.

  As the three friends made their way through the Science Museum, they could see all sorts of things going wrong.

  In the Manning School’s display area, the students were trying to demonstrate how magnets worked, but the magnets kept falling to the ground!

  Rachel waved at her friends from the Tippington School science team. They all looked very sad. She could see that the balloons they were trying to blow up for their balloon rocket experiment had big holes in them, and that the nose cone had fallen off the rocket.

  “Look out!” cried a voice suddenly as the girls walked into the Flight zone. A model airplane swooped down close to the girls’ heads, forcing them to duck!

  “Sorry!” called a young boy, running past them with the plane controls in his hand. “The plane seems to have a mind of its own today!”

  “It must be hard to control because your goggles are missing,” said Kirsty, turning to look at Carly. But both Rachel and Carly were staring up at the ceiling of the Science Museum. Kirsty followed their gaze. There, dangling from the window of a real fighter plane hung from the ceiling, were Carly’s magic goggles!

  “Hooray! We’ve found the goggles!” cheered Kirsty. She looked up at the plane again. It was a long way up. “But how do we get them back?”

  Carly, who was fluttering up and down in excitement, paused. “Maybe I could fly up,” she said thoughtfully. “But I’m worried about being hit by one of those big model planes.”

  “Why don’t you turn us into fairies too?” Rachel suggested. “That way we can work as a fairy team!”

  “That’s a great idea,” agreed Carly.

  The three friends headed to a quiet corner. Carly waved her wand and a trail of fairy sparkles surrounded Kirsty and Rachel. The two friends held hands as they felt themselves shrinking to fairy-size. It was the best feeling in the world!

  The three fairies looked up at the goggles.

  “We’re going to have to be very careful up there,” said Rachel thoughtfully. “There are lots of airplanes flying around.”

  “I have an idea!” said Kirsty, as she looked at the small planes flying through the air. “Why don’t we use a model plane to reach the goggles? We’re just the right size to fit in one!”

  “Great plan, Kirsty!” said Carly. “I’ll use my fairy magic to fly the plane. We can go right past the goggles and grab them!”

  The three friends carefully made their way to the model planes. There were quite a few people around, but luckily, they were very busy trying to control the low-flying planes
! The fairies quickly hopped into a dark blue model plane and Carly waved her wand. The propeller started to turn and seconds later they were off!

  In no time at all, they were up in the air next to the fighter plane. But as they swooped closer to the window, they got a shock: there was a goblin in the cockpit!

  “Oh, no!” cried Kirsty. “That goblin is guarding your goggles, Carly. If we get close enough to grab the goggles, he’ll be able to grab us!”

  Carly landed the model plane on top of the real plane and the three friends carefully climbed out. As they peered over the side, they gulped. They were a long way up. Rachel and Kirsty were very glad they had wings!

  “What’s that strange noise?” asked Rachel. The friends listened. There was a glugging, squelching noise coming from inside the goblin’s plane, like water going down a drain.

  “Ooooooooh! Poor me! Why do I have to guard the silly goggles? It’s so high up! I’m so scared!”

  The girls realized it was the goblin, sniffling and crying!

  “I wonder how we can trick the goblin into giving us the goggles,” said Kirsty thoughtfully.

  “I know!” squealed Carly. “If I use my magic to make him small and give him wings, he’ll be able to join his friends down on the ground and we can get the magic goggles!”

  “Let’s try it!” said Kirsty, and the friends fluttered over to the plane’s window. It was time to trick the goblin!

  The goblin spotted the three friends and opened the window.

  “What do you want?” He scowled.