Midnight Feast by Titania Woods Page B

jaunty oak-leaf cap that every student at Glitterwings wore.
    â€˜Look, we can have the same beds as last time!’ cried Bimi. She and Twink flitted quickly to the two beds nearest the window. ‘Oh, good!’ said Bimi, bouncing on hers. ‘I was worried that we wouldn’t be together.’
    A few of the other girls had already arrived and were putting away their things. Pix, a clever red-headed fairy, grinned and flapped her yellow wings. ‘We saved them for you!’ she called.
    â€˜Thanks!’ Twink called back with a smile.
    A fairy with a pointed face and silvery-green hair sniffed loudly. ‘Well, I don’t think it’s fair, saving beds for people! Maybe Lola and I would have liked to sleep there.’
    Twink made a face at her, and didn’t answer. ‘Mariella hasn’t got any nicer, I see,’ she muttered to Bimi.
    â€˜No, she’s still her same old wonderful self,’ agreed Bimi. ‘Lucky us!’
    Twink opened up her oak-leaf bag and began to unpack. Carefully, she arranged her things on the soft brown surface of her bedside mushroom: her thistle comb, a bottle of sparkly wing polish, the drawings of her family.
    .

    .
    Their faces smiled out at her. Twink sighed, her fingers lingering on the drawings. It was very odd, imagining them all at Gran’s house without her.
    â€˜It’ll be all right, Twink, really!’ whispered Bimi.
    Twink managed a smile. ‘I’m OK,’ she said. Suddenly she caught sight of something crouching on Bimi’s bedside mushroom, and her eyes widened. ‘Bimi! You’ve got a cricket clock!’
    Bimi nodded, patting the insect on his shiny brown head. He waved his antennae with a cheerful chirp. ‘Yes, my dad got him for me. He knows what a hard time I have waking up in the morning!’
    â€˜How does it work?’ Twink tickled the cricket under his chin.
    Bimi showed her a small petal pad. ‘You just write down the time you want waking up, and tuck it under his front foot. They forget otherwise – crickets love to help, but they don’t have very good memories!’
    Before Twink could reply, a shout rang through the branch. ‘Opposite! There you are!’
    Sooze! Twink whirled about as an energetic fairy zoomed into the branch, almost knocking her over with an enthusiastic hug.
    â€˜Hurrah, my Opposite is here!’ said Sooze, flapping her wings. ‘Isn’t it glimmery to be back?’
    Twink grinned. Sooze always called her ‘Opposite’, because where Twink had bright pink hair and lavender wings, Sooze had lavender hair and pink wings. The two girls had been best friends for much of the last term, and Twink still liked Sooze – even though she’d found out that she wasn’t the most dependable fairy in the world!
    â€˜It’s great,’ Twink agreed happily, tucking a strand of pink hair behind her ear. ‘Did you have good hols, Sooze?’
    Bimi’s expression had turned stiff the moment Sooze flitted into the branch. She fed her cricket a leaf without saying anything.
    â€˜Glimmery!’ Sooze threw herself on to Twink’s bed and bounced up and down. ‘My sister Winn and I did loads of things. Oh, and, Twink, she has all sorts of ideas for things we First Years can do to liven things up around here! We’re really falling behind compared to what she got up to last term.’
    â€˜What’s wrong with things the way they are?’ asked Bimi coolly. Twink winced. She knew that Bimi didn’t like Sooze very much.
    Sooze rolled her eyes. ‘Well, we only played one good prank on Madame last term! And we didn’t do anything really fun. We’ve got a lot of catching-up to do, I can tell you!’
    Twink saw Bimi’s lips tighten. ‘Have we got our new timetables yet?’ she asked quickly. ‘We’re supposed to start Creature Kindness this term – I can hardly wait! What about