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  Praise for

  HOW TO DITCH

  YOUR Fairy

  “How to Ditch Your Fairy is a stay-up-all-night read, full of clever twists, mature humor, and thoroughly believable characters. . . . Fast-paced and captivating, the storyline here never misses a beat.”

  —CurledUpKids.com

  “Set in a futuristic fantasy city, this book puts a fun spin on fairy tales: fairies exist, but you may wish they did not. . . . This vividly imagined story will charm readers.” —Publishers Weekly

  “Charlie is totally likable, smart, and sarcastic, a perfectly self-involved, insecure teen. . . . This ‘doos’ (brilliant) fantasy will not be ditched.” —SLJ

  “This comic coming-of-age novel will entertain teen readers.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Larbalestier’s inhabitation of Charlie’s voice is crisp, funny, and wholly believable. . . . [The] well-drawn protagonist will easily carry teens captivated by the hysterical first page through to the finish.”

  —VOYA

  “Thoroughly entertaining, totally enchanting, wickedly funny.”

  —Libba Bray, author of A Great and Terrible Beauty

  “Welcome to your new obsession! Not only will you believe in fairies after reading this book, you will know what kind you have.”

  —Maureen Johnson, author of 13 Little Blue Envelopes

  Books by Justine Larbalestier

  How to Ditch Your Fairy

  Liar

  HOW TO DITCH

  YOUR Fairy

  JUSTINE LARBALESTIER

  Copyright © 2008 by Justine Larbalestier

  First published by Bloomsbury U.S.A. Children’s Books in 2008

  Paperback edition published in 2009

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced

  in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher,

  except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Published by Bloomsbury U.S.A. Children’s Books

  175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

  Larbalestier, Justine.

  How to ditch your fairy / by Justine Larbalestier.—1st U.S. ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: In a world in which everyone has a personal fairy who tends to one aspect of daily life, fourteen-year-old Charlie decides she does not want hers—a parking fairy—and embarks on a series of misadventures designed to rid herself of the invisible sprite and replace it with a better one, like her friend Rochelle’s shopping fairy.

  eISBN: 978-1-59990-582-2

  [1. Fairies—Fiction. 2. Magic—Fiction. 3. Interpersonal relations—Fiction.]

  I. Title.

  PZ7.L32073Ho 2008 [Fic]—dc22 2008002408

  * * *

  Typeset by Westchester Book Composition

  Printed in the U.S.A. by Quebecor World Fairfield

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  All papers used by Bloomsbury U.S.A. are natural, recyclable products

  made from wood grown in well-managed forests. The manufacturing processes

  conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

  For Stephen Gamble and Ron Serdiuk,

  my two favorite fairies

  Table of Contents

  NOTE TO READERS

  CHAPTER 1 : Killer Top

  CHAPTER 2 : Rochelle

  CHAPTER 3 : Parking Fairy

  CHAPTER 4 : New Avalon the Brave

  CHAPTER 5 : True Love. Grr!

  CHAPTER 6 : Danders Anders

  CHAPTER 7 : More Demerits

  CHAPTER 8 : Best Dad Ever

  CHAPTER 9 : An Intervention

  CHAPTER 10 : Statistical Torpor

  CHAPTER 11 : Public Service

  CHAPTER 12 : Worst Sister Ever

  CHAPTER 13 : Steffi

  CHAPTER 14 : Doctor Tahn

  CHAPTER 15 : Rochelle’s Lucky Day

  CHAPTER 16 : Attack of Danders Anders

  CHAPTER 17 : Tamsin Burnham- Stone

  CHAPTER 18 : Two Fairies

  CHAPTER 19 : A Surprise

  CHAPTER 20 : A Revelation

  CHAPTER 21 : Ruins

  CHAPTER 22 : All Over

  CHAPTER 23 : Hope

  CHAPTER 24 : Metal Box

  CHAPTER 25 : The Ultimate Fairy Book

  CHAPTER 26 : Bleaching, Starving, and Flensing

  CHAPTER 27 ; Swap

  CHAPTER 28 : Waverly Burnham- Stone

  CHAPTER 29 : A Different Fairy

  CHAPTER 30 : Best Fairy Ever

  CHAPTER 31 : Impossibilities

  CHAPTER 32 : Possibilities

  CHAPTER 33 : Less Than Doos

  CHAPTER 34 : Love and Hatred

  CHAPTER 35 : Crossing the Field

  CHAPTER 36 : Luge Hall

  CHAPTER 37 : Cold and Ice

  CHAPTER 38 : Trying to Nearly Die

  CHAPTER 39 : Fairy Free

  CHAPTER 40 : Gambling

  CHAPTER 41 : Friends Again

  CHAPTER 42 : Monkey Knife Fight

  CHAPTER 43 : Reckoning

  CHAPTER 44 : Fairy Attracting

  CHAPTER 45 : True Best Fairy Ever

  DEMERITS AND SUSPENSIONS

  LIST OF KNOWN FAIRIES

  GLOSSARY

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PROMISE

  BEFORE

  HISTORY OF ME

  NOTE TO READERS

  How to Ditch Your Fairy isn’t set in Australia or the United States of America but in an imaginary country, perhaps a little in the future, that might be an amalgam of the two. Like both those countries, it has an East Coast and a West Coast and there are islands too. But no one eats apple pie or Vegemite sandwiches and they play cricket as well as baseball.

  CHAPTER 1

  Killer Top

  Days walking: 60

  Demerits: 4

  Conversations with Steffi: 5

  My spoffs looked funny in the top, which is odd because my spoffs are tiny. I pulled the top up and tried to push them back where they belonged. Didn’t work. Somehow the top was pushing my right spoff under my armpit and my left toward my neck.

  I wasn’t entirely used to having spoffs. I’m only four-teen and the lumps on my chest only started happening six months ago and, like I said, they’re tiny. Mom says having any at all at my age is lucky. Except that all my friends have them. Anyway, up till now they’d shown no indication of straying far from my chest.

  “Your fairy hates me,” I said to my best friend, Rochelle.

  “No, she doesn’t,” Rochelle said, admiring herself in the dressing room mirror. The little black dress she was trying on looked perfect; her spoffs were where they were supposed to be, not migrating to other parts of her body. The black brought out the gold in her eyes, which was strange seeing as how there’s not any gold in black. Maybe her fairy was leaking dust.

  “Your rentals won’t let you wear that,” I told her. Her parents were strict about Rochelle’s clothes being suitably becoming. I pulled off the spoff-destroying top. I stared at it. It looked like a top: two sleeves, a sweetheart neckline, straight seams. The material wasn’t even stretchy. How had it attacked me like that?

  “It’s not that short.”

  I looked at Rochelle in the dress. It managed to cover most of her thighs, but Rochelle is vastly tall, and dresses on her always seem shorter than they really are. “Yeah, but it’s that low. You’ll be shopping-grounded again.”

  “No, I won’t.” Rochelle hoicked up the top of her dress, disappearing all spoffage. “See? I’ll wear it like this in front of the rentals and D
ad’ll think it doesn’t reflect badly on him and won’t say a word. Mom never notices what I’m wearing unless she thinks it’s disgraceful.” She struck a pose in front of the mirror, shoulders back, chest out (Rochelle is not spoffs-lacking), and fingers splayed like a fancy dancer. “Anyway, it’s only twenty dollars.”

  “What?” I exclaimed, though it wholly figured. You’d think I’d’ve stopped being surprised years ago. “Those dresses are all two hundred dollars.”

  Rochelle reached around to dig out the tag hanging down her back and awkwardly held it out while turning so that I could see it. The tag was tattered and heavily crossed out. I peered closer. The top crossed-out amount said , then , then , all the way down to the very edge of the ticket, where it said in teeny- tiny (dare I say fairy?) writing: damaged, $20 only.

  I sighed. “Where’s the damage, then?” The silk of the dress shone, exuding an aura of unwrinkled never- been-worn- before- ness. I couldn’t even see a stray piece of thread. The top I’d just removed had several. The tag said $75. It was not reduced.

  “Isn’t any.” Rochelle was staring at herself in the mirror, not smiling, but looking deeply satisfied.

  “Your fairy never lets you down, does she?”

  Rochelle nodded. “Yes, she does. She didn’t do anything for that top of yours.” She picked it up, turned it over, picked off another thread. “I was so sure this would look fantabulous on you . . . I like her best when she works for you too. You know I read in Stars Weekly that Our Tui says that fairies work best for virtuous people? That when she’s been a bit naughty her fairy won’t—”

  “Oh! Did she finally say what kind of fairy she has? It’s a charm fairy, isn’t it?”

  Rochelle shook her head. “Nope. She didn’t. Anyway, I’m wondering if I’ve done something bad, and that’s why she’s only working for me today.”

  “That’s silly. If fairies only worked for good people, then how do you explain Fi-or-en-ze Stupid-Name? Her fairy never takes days off and she’s vastly up herself.”

  “You have a point,” Rochelle said.

  “Also I have four demerits, which indicates badness, right? But I’m certain my fairy’s working as hard as ever.”

  “That’s different! You got your demerits trying to get rid of your fairy!”

  I sucked my teeth at her objections. “Anyway, Ro, you never do anything bad.”

  “I didn’t let Joey come to practice.”

  “Your brother’s a brat. He’s almost as bad as Nettles.”

  “Nettles isn’t a brat. Neither is Joey.”

  I allowed as how they weren’t always that bad, which was true. Just a week earlier Nettles had baked me a lemon cake—my favorite. On the other hand she had “borrowed” one of my tennis rackets, broken all the strings, and stripped all the paint off it to use for one of her art projects. Instead of killing her, Mom and Dad had praised her creativity and then docked her pocket money to buy me a new racket.

  “Are you girls finished in there?” the shop assistant asked, yanking the curtains open before we had a chance to respond. Just as well we were dressed already.

  “Oh,” she said, staring at Rochelle, “that looks lovely. Wow! It’s like the dress was made for you.”

  Rochelle grinned, enjoying the new shop assistant. Suzy, her name tag said, though that most likely wasn’t her real name. The owner of Best Dresses, Leatherbarrow, rarely got around to having new name tags made, so all the girls who worked there just swapped around the five old ones. As there were never more than three girls working at once, even on super-busy days, it worked out. But it meant that everyone was called Suzy, Ilian, Daisy, Rhani, or Lucinda.

  The other girls knew Rochelle and her fairy and no longer bothered to compliment her. Too jealous, I reckoned. They were all standard boring pulchritudinous: big eyes, big mouth, little nose, and Rochelle wasn’t, but she always looked better than them.

  Rochelle, as you might have gathered, has a clothes-shopping fairy. Most people find it hard to like her because she has such a doos fairy, but they soon forgive her because a) she’s a sugar, b) sometimes her fairy will work for her friends (though sadly not often), and c) her family is jawdroppingly atrocious. Rochelle deserves her fairy.

  Rochelle stripped off the dress and put on her own clothes (tartan skirt, white T-shirt, tailored black jacket with matching tartan cuffs and collar, which you’d think would look vile, but on her was far from it). She paid for the dress and we made our way out of Best Dresses, past Fairy World—where a stack of plastic Fairy Catchers were on sale (round hoops with sticky filaments attached that are supposed to catch fairies; I happened to know that they’re useless)—and out of the shopping center.

  I slipped my lucky cricket ball out of my pocket, rubbed my thumb over the seam, and started spinning it. “Time for ice cream?” I asked. “I haven’t touched my fat allowance today.”

  “Me neither. Plus Dad’s picking me up there.”

  “Fruit-flavored fat it is then.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Rochelle

  Days walking: 60

  Demerits: 4

  Conversations with Steffi: 5

  Doos clothing acquired: 0

  I had chocolate and strawberry in a crunchy nut and brioche cone, and Rochelle had lemon and lime in the vanilla cone. Neither of which put us over our fat or sugar limit for the day, though it did mean dinner was going to have to be lean. Worth it!

  When I went to pay, Rochelle stopped me. “My shout. A little apology for my fairy not working for you.”

  “That’s okay, Ro. She hardly ever does.”

  “Yeah, but she doesn’t usually actively sabotage you . . .”

  “No worries. I’m used to doxy fairies.” I took a bite out of my ice cream and my brain went on the frizz.“Oh! Oh! Oh!” I clutched my right temple, trying not to drop the cone.

  “Shouldn’t take such big bites,” Rochelle said, demurely licking her lemon and lime to demonstrate how ice cream should be eaten. “Small licks and nibbles, Charlie, not big bites.”

  I nodded even though stating the obvious is the most annoying thing in the entire world. Maybe her fairy did double duty as a saying- the- fragging- obvious fairy? The freezerization in my brain started to ebb away. “Steffi isn’t—”

  “Steffi?”

  “The new boy. Stefan.” His family had moved in just around the corner from my place, so we’d been hanging out.

  “The wholly pulchritudinous one?” Rochelle said.

  I felt my cheeks get hot. He is vastly pulchy—cheekbones so high they almost touch the sky, and glorious long black curls; not to mention his skin, which is the color of a chocolate kiss, my favorite candy.

  “You still with me, Charlie?” She took another demure bite of her ice cream.

  “Oh, sorry. Yes, that boy. He says where he comes from everyone calls him Steffi.”

  “He does, huh? Isn’t that a girl’s name?” Rochelle said, mock punching me.

  “Ow!” Her mock punches are harder than most people’s actual punches.

  “Baby.”

  “Am not.”

  “Are.”

  “Not.”

  “Are. Infinity times a million.” Rochelle punched me again, hard. “You lose, I win!”

  “Don’t tell anyone else about his nickname, okay?”

  “Fairy’s honor,” Rochelle said solemnly. She always keeps her promises. “You been hanging out with him a lot, have you?”

  “Um,” I said. So far we’d had five conversations. Not that I was counting. “He’s smart. Funny too.”

  “And pulchy.”

  My face got hot again. I took a small bite of my ice cream. “It’s not just that. He’s not like anyone I’ve ever met before. It’s hard to explain.” I thought I’d had crushes before. But this was different. As different as imagining summer on a cold winter’s day. When your cheeks sting from the cold, it’s hard to imagine being out in the waves under the sun, surfing. How I felt about Steffi was real; my ot
her crushes had been vapor.

  “You really like him, huh?” Rochelle said.

  I nodded.

  “And he likes you?”

  “I think so. I mean, he likes me as a friend. He laughs at my jokes, but it’s not like he has stacks of other friends. He only just got here.” I shrugged. “It’s hard to tell what kind of like it is.”

  “Well, at least you get to hang out, right? Remember Sandra’s crush on Freedom Hazal?”

  I nodded. He hadn’t given Sandra the time of day. There was much suffering before she realized that while Freedom was pulchy, there wasn’t much more to him than clear skin, big eyes, and moppy hair.

  “It could be that she’s in a bad mood,” Rochelle said.

  “Who? Sandra?”

  “No, my fairy. My aura’s been kind of thick today. You know? Soupy, almost.”

  I pushed air through my teeth, mocking her. “Auras? Please!”

  “Fiorenze says fairies create an aura around you. If your fairy’s in a bad mood they make it all hazy around your head.”

  “You don’t believe anything Stupid-Name says, do you?”

  “Just because Fiorenze’s vile,” Rochelle said, “doesn’t mean she doesn’t know about fairies. Both her parents have PhDs in Fairy Studies.”

  “From an old- country university. That doesn’t count! I bet they only have those degrees ’cause they paid for them. You know how rich her family is.”

  “But her mom teaches at UNA now. She wouldn’t have a job there if her degree was dodgy.”

  “Oh.” My mother studied biology at UNA. It’s the best university in the city, which, naturally, makes it the best in the world. “Well, I heard they’re only rich because they inherited the money.”

  “I heard that too. Apparently her grandmother invented some kind of computer thing.” Rochelle shrugged. “That’s not the point. Fiorenze’s parents know about fairies, and fairy auras are her mom’s pet theory. She has these special mirrors and you can see your fairy’s aura floating all around your head. Mine’s purple.”