Fair Faerie Academy: Alumina the Light Faerie - Part Two

Three months later...

Rose and I were lounging in the garden. I was lying on the grass on my stomach reading the Neopian Times and Rose was painting the scenery. Fair Faerie Academy is so beautiful during the fall. The leaves on the trees in Fair Faerie Academy that were enchanted to have pink leaves, where now turning purple and falling off. I sighed. I loved these days. Nothing could ever ruin them. I was getting into this really great story when Claire, one of my faerie cloud racer teammates, came flying towards us.

     "Hi, Alumina," she said, a little bit out of breath.

     "Oh hi, Claire, what's going on?" I asked. Nobody usually bothered us here.

     "I'm here for Rose. The headmistress wants to see her about something."

     "She wants me?" asked Rose, a little confused.

     "Yeah and she says she needs to talk to you asap," she said, trying to catch her breath.

     "I guess I better go. Alumina, can you take my stuff to our room? Don't worry about the paint; I got the fast drying kind."

     "Sure," I said, and with that, they flew off, leaving me alone.

***

      I was finishing my English essay on how I would escape being captured and put in a bottle when Rose came in. Already I knew something was wrong.

     "What's wrong?" I asked, already imagining the worst. She wouldn't look at me, so I got up from the desk and got right in front of her. She finally met my eyes, but I could tell it wasn't without effort.

     "The Headmistress wants to change my classes to the advanced ones."

     "What, that's not that bad. You should be happy. Haven't you been saying that you wished you had more challenging work?"

     "The Headmistress also said it would be best if I'm around the other advanced faeries."

     "What are you saying?" I knew what she was saying but I wanted to be wrong.

     "I have to move dorms."

     Her last sentence hung in the air. I didn't know what to say. I could tell she was upset but what could I do? Suddenly she flung her arms around me and started crying. I patted her back. I tried to soothe her. We had grown so close over the past few months. I thought of her like a sister, but I knew that this was the best for her. I didn't want to hold her back.

     Three months later...

      I was reading the Neopian Times in the court yard alone, on a Saturday, like I have done for as long as I can remember now. Rose and I don't hang out anymore. It's hard to believe a couple of months ago we were joined by the wings. After she moved to another dorm, we tried to hang out together but something always came up. She was busy with her advanced classes and I was busy with cloud racing. I sometimes would see her around school with her new friends and we would wave at each other, but that was it. I guess we grew apart.

      I looked up to check the time on the school's clock tower. It was half an hour before I had to go to practice. I decided to get my stuff and leave. I was halfway to my dorm when someone rammed into me. All my things flew out of my hands and I fell on my back. At first I didn't know what had happened. The faerie that had just rammed into me was trying to pick everything up. She had dropped more stuff than I had, so I started to help her. I was so busy trying to pick up everything I didn't notice who the faerie was, so when I finally looked at her to give her her stuff that she dropped, I almost dropped them all over again.

     "Rose?" I said. This was the most contact we'd had for months and she wasn't even paying attention. She had picked up my copy of the Neopian Times and was reading an article on the front page. Then, as if she finally realized I was there, she looked up from the article and handed me back my copy.

     "Oh, I'm so sorry, Alumina. I hope I didn't hurt you. I was in a hurry and I wasn't paying attention to where I was going."

     "That's okay. I'll live." I started to turn to walk away when she stopped me. I wondered what was going on; it wasn't like this happened all the time.

     "Alumina, if I told you something, would you think I was crazy?"

     "Why, what is it?"

     "Well, you know about all the faeries that have been disappearing? That's the article I was looking at. Well, I think there's something fishy and I just can't put my finger on it and I've been trying to figure it out for weeks. Honestly, I think my roommate thinks I'm crazy."

     "Oh yeah, I've heard of that. I think the headmistress is going to give one of her famous speeches about it soon. Why would you think I would think you were crazy?"

     "Because I think I'm crazy and I don't even know why I'm doing this."

     "Because you want to figure who is doing this and you feel strongly about it. Remember what I told you to do when you feel strongly about something?"

     "Speak up." She smiled, remembering.

     "Exactly." I smiled back.

     "You always know what to say."

     "I don't know about that. Now I have a question. Why are you telling me this?" I was a bit curious.

     "Because you're my friend and I couldn't imagine anyone else to help with my crazy plan."

     Now this made me feel bad for thinking that we weren't really friends anymore, but as she said this I knew that we still were. Even after all that had happened.

     "But what can I do?" I asked. I still didn't know exactly how I was supposed to help out.

     "Well, the names of all the faeries that have gone missing are in the Neopian Times, so we could ask around and try to find out how they are all connected."

     "Okay, well, I have to go or I'll be late for practice, but I'll ask around. We could meet tomorrow after breakfast at the court yard."

     "Sounds like a plan, and thanks for not thinking I'm crazy."

     "Oh, Rose, don't you see? If you're crazy, then that means I'm crazy too!"

     We laughed and I rushed to go to practice.

     One day later...

      Rose and I were waiting for Claire to meet us at the court yard. Thanks to Claire, we had found out a lot more about the mystery of the disappearing faeries. Turns out that all the faeries that had been taken were all beauty queens. Rose and I didn't know who would want to take beauty queens, but we were going to find out. Ten minutes later than we had planned to all meet up, Claire came.

     "So what do you all want to talk to me about?" she asked.

     Rose and I both looked at each other. The plan was in progress.

     "Remember when you told Alumina that you wanted to enter the Miss Fair Faerie because you might actually win this year because the best contenders didn't enter this year?" asked Rose.

     "Yeah, but I might have won with them entered," she said defensively.

     "Of course, we were just wondering if we could be your beauty assistants. You know help with the wardrobe and make up and help with all the other stuff?" I asked. She just had to say yes.

     "Really, you want to help me? I would love it. I really do need the help. This is going to be great," she gushed. We weren't going to tell her about the plan Rose and I had. We didn't want her to worry.

     Two weeks later...

      Who knew being a beauty assistant was going to be such hard work? Especially if the person you're assisting is a perfectionist. I was so glad when the day of the pageant came but I was also worried. I hoped everything went according to plan. For everything to work, Claire had to win and for all of the work Rose and I had been doing, she had better. The plan was for Claire to win and see if anybody tried to take her, but of course we would always be watching and stop the person and take them in. Rose also had this enchanted powder that could track anybody; we were going to use it on Claire and on ourselves just in case we got separated.

      "Are you ready, Claire?" I asked. She was just seconds away from going on stage and finding out who Miss Fair Faerie would be. She looked a little green.

     "Oh gosh, what if I don't win? I'll be humiliated!" she said, mortified.

     "You're an amazing faerie who deserves the crown. If the judges can't see that, then they must not be good at all, but I'm sure they are very good," Rose said reassuringly. This seemed to help Claire a little bit.

     "Now go; they can't crown the Miss Fair Faerie if she's here chatting it up with us!" I said, giving her a nudge.

     "Okay, okay," she said, giving us a quick hug before she headed towards the line with all the other faeries that were waiting to see if they were the next Miss Fair Faerie.

     One hour later...

      She won! She won! I don't know who was happier, Rose and I or Claire, the new Miss Fair Faerie! We were now at the after party to celebrate the new Miss Fair Faerie. There were so many famous faeries and neopets at the party. Rose, Claire and I were having a blast there. Then the actual Faerie Sundaes started playing! I've never been to one of their concerts, so I was ecstatic. I was so distracted listening to my favorite band that when Rose nudged me and told me to follow her, I was kind of confused.

     "Where are we going?" I asked Rose.

     "I can't find Claire. She told me that she was going to go freshen up, but it's been a while now," she said.

     "What! Where do you think she is now?"

     "Don't worry too much, remember the tracking powder? She's heading outside. Come on, we don't have much time to waste if she is in trouble."

      When we finally got outside, we saw that Claire was being led away by this big mutant Grundo. Rose and I started full out running after them. This was the opportunity we'd been waiting for. I didn't know how Rose and I were going to capture him because he was huge, but I guess Rose didn't care because when we finally were close enough she started shouting at him.

     "Hey, big guy! Yeah, you. Why don't you let go of my friend?"

     "This has nothing to do with you, little faerie," the mutant Grundo said.

     "I said to let go of her!" she shouted again. She wasn't going to back down.

     "My boss wouldn't like that very much."

     "Who?"

     "Dr. Sl- I mean no one. So please let me do my job."

     "Sorry, but I can't just let you take my friend," she said, taking out an earth faerie slingshot and some baby cabbages.

     "You don't want to do that," he warned.

     "Really?" she said, aiming the slingshot at him and hitting him square in the face with a baby cabbage. He didn't seem happy about that. The good news was he let go of Claire, but now he was coming straight for Rose. I jumped in font of Rose to protect her but it didn't do much good. I'm sure I looked scared out of my mind and he just swatted me away like I was just some pesky petpetpet.

     I didn't know where I landed, but everything suddenly went fuzzy. I could hear Rose and the Grundo. I could hear a struggle but I couldn't make anything out. Then everything went black.

To be continued...