"Dad, I'm telling you, someone's after me!" Amanda half-screeched, half whispered. She hoped he would believe her soon; the bathroom stall that she was hiding in in order to use her mobile phone was cramped.

On the other end of the line, a masculine voice sighed. "Amanda, this is a ridiculous way to try and skip school. Can't you just tell me you're sick like every other teenager?"

"Dad, I have proof, please just let me come home."

There was a pause, then, "Fine, but I better see this proof the moment you step into the door."

Amanda sighed in relief. "Thanks. I swear I'm telling the truth."

"You better hope so. See you soon, Amanda."

"Yeah, Dad. Be home in half an hour or so."

She ended the call and shoved her cell phone back into her messenger bag before exiting the stall. As she did, she saw a mirror. Her appearance, only an hour ago something she was proud of, now seemed sick and sallow. She half-laughed. She could have told her father she was ill. If she looked like this, he would have believed it.

She left the bathroom and signed out of the school; the office had no issue with that, so she supposed her father had already called them. Then, she stepped out into the rain. It had been storming for over two days now, and though it was better than burning sunlight, it wasn't exactly convenient. Amanda ran to her car with her jacket over her head as a shield. Around her, she heard fat raindrops splatter on the pavement of the parking lot, and thunder crash in the distance. It was a relief to get into her banged-up hand-me-down minivan.

Amanda started the van up and pulled out of the secondary school parking lot and onto the road. Her house was not horribly far away, but it required some careful driving; not easy in a storm like this. Normally, she liked to listen to a CD as she made her way home, but between her frantic thoughts and the rain, it seemed like a bad idea to have any distractions.

She hoped for the best as she started up one of the many mountain roads in her town.

"Where's Amanda?" asked Roxy.

Saf frowned. "I don't know. I dropped my mobile hoping she'd return it. Come to think of things, though, I've not even spotted her since I found her the first time, and that was what? Two hours ago?"

"I think." Roxy checked her watch. "Yeah."

"Maybe we'll see her at lunch," Saf suggested.

"Probably… I was kinda hoping we'd have found some way to talk to her by now."

"Are you getting impatient?" Saf teased.

Roxy frowned. "It's been months since I've been in a regular high school," she explained. "Even with my normal classes at the Royal Fairy Academy, I'm behind. I can't say I missed high school, either, so it isn't so much fun to be here."

"You could have let Avi come instead."

A vision of Avi sneaking up behind the new fairy, grabbing her, and screaming "GUESS WHAT? YOU HAVE MAGIC!" made its way into Roxy's head. "No," she said to Saf. "No, I really couldn't."

Saf frowned, then nodded. Roxy decided she had probably imagined a similar situation. "I can see your point."

"Anyway, I think maybe it's time for drastic measures."

"I'm supposed to be in my maths class right now, so let's make this quick. Are you going to use the fairy tracker?"

"Not yet," said Roxy with a smile. "I'm going to call your cell phone."

From one of Amanda's cupholders, a song began to play loudly and obnoxiously. Saf's cell phone, she realized.

She wasn't sure what to do. She was driving on the mountain in the pouring rain. The music was breaking her concentration, but turning it off was sure to be just as bad, if not worse, consequence-wise. She toyed with both options for a few seconds before deciding to ignore it as best as she could.

The music stopped, and Amanda sighed in relief. She briefly glanced down at the phone gratefully, then back to the road.

What road?

She felt the bump of rocks underneath her as the car rolled towards the oncoming cliff. Other mountains, only barely seen through thick rain, loomed in the distance, haughty and cold, as if to say "we knew this would happen eventually." Amanda slammed on the breaks with all the force of her large, strong body, hoping it would be enough.

The car skidded, and Amanda was thrown back into her seat. Immediately, she felt a pain in her back and grimaced.

She had a couple seconds to assess the situation. The car was definitely falling off the cliff, and the breaks likely wouldn't hold against the slope, the unsteady rocks, and the water for too much longer. Her only logical hope was to get out of the car, and do it quickly. Her breath seemed to almost stutter as she choked on emotion. It was her only hope, yet it was almost impossible.

The other option was death.

Quickly, but with an unsteady hand, she unbuckled her seat belt. As the car started to slip slowly down, she opened the door. "It's going to roll as soon as I release the breaks. I need to jump the second I do," she said aloud, as if spoken word would convince her.

She moved her foot from the break.

Amanda started to jump, but caught herself as she noticed the way the car was moving. The driver's side was facing down to the cliff. If she jumped now, she'd be crushed by the vehicle she was trying to escape.

No hope.

The vehicle tumbled off the side and almost did a 360 in the air. As Amanda waited to die, she saw a flash of light surrounding her.

At least she could pay attention to that, and not what it felt like to splatter on the rocks below.

Roxy and Saf stared at the phone as it rang, only looking away when it came to voicemail. "Okay," said Roxy. "Now we use the fairy tracker."

They had been standing in an abandoned hallway, but they moved to the bathroom for the next part. A cell phone was just a cell phone. The fairy tracker that Gunner had built, however, looked like a weapon, something that should not belong in a school. Metal prongs stuck out of a hand-sized black box, almost like a taser. The girls stood in the corner of the girls' bathroom, shielding it from view, as they turned it on.

The metal prongs glowed silvery grey. The glow on the left prong was stronger than the glow on the right. It led out the door. "I think we need to follow it," said Roxy.

"That might be an issue in a school," Saf noted. "You cannot exactly walk around with a weapon out and open."

"Yeah." Roxy thought. "One of needs to scout ahead and cause distractions as necessary."

"I can do that."

"Sounds good."

Despite their careful planning, the way that the tracker led them was abandoned. They saw no one, not even a small bug, and soon found themselves at the backdoor of the school. "She left?" exclaimed Roxy.

"I'd say so, if the tracker's to be believed."

Roxy sighed, and opened the door.

Sirens wailed.

"Crap!" Roxy exclaimed. "That was probably the emergency exit."

"I'd say so!" Saf yelled over the blare of the alarm. "What now?"

"We run for it! I don't want to explain why we were sneaking out of the school!"

Saf nodded, and the girls raced into the rainstorm, heading for their car, just across the lot that the backdoor opened up onto. Around them, they could see students filing out from other doors. The two hopped into the car and Roxy quickly started it up, pulling out of the property as quickly as she could.

"Man," she said as they were on the road, "That would have been super awkward. With the rain, it's going to be obvious that it wasn't a real fire… no way could one survive in this weather."

"How likely is it that they figure out we're the ones who did it?"

"Considering that we're going to be the ones not accounted for? Very, very likely."

"Bugger."

She floated above the ruins of her minivan, smelling coolant, smoke, gasoline... it seemed even the continuing rain could not quell the fire of the van's explosion. Despite everything, Amanda felt calm, painless.

Dead.

Even the height, normally something she was instinctively afraid of, didn't bug her much. Experimentally, she willed herself to lift. It happened with ease. Left, right, front, back, up, down. She tried it all; it was all easy. Being a ghost didn't require a lot of effort, and there was no learning curve.

She floated away from the car, still in an almost trance-like calm. She might as well go back to the road she had lost so many seconds ago. How long had it been? No more than five, six minutes. Everything had happened so quickly.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that her body was kind of sparkly and grey. Weird. She'd always imagined that if she was a ghost, she'd look the same to herself, even if she looked different (or even invisible) to others. She shrugged it off and found the road, deciding to land there. For a moment, she worried she'd go right through the pavement, but she felt the solidness of the ground beneath her feet as she landed.

For a moment, she stood there, not talking, moving, or even thinking.

Then, everything hit her.

It hit her how she'd never be able to prove her honesty to her dad. It hit her that she'd never see her mother, little brother, or cat ever again. It hit her that she'd never be able to explain to Sir Fluffybutt that she would never see him again… at least her human family would understand, but a cat? He'd never forgive her.

Amanda thought about the kids at school who barely knew her and would barely mourn; the colleges she'd never get to attend; the spouse she would never get to meet. She thought about how she would never have a real job, or nieces and nephews, or be an old woman who could yell at kids to get off her lawn.

Then she thought that she was lucky she never wanted kids. Now she'd never have any.

Somehow, that almost joking thought was the one that broke her. She choked out a sob and tears began to roll, quicker than she'd ever experienced before.

I'm dead. I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead, and there is so much I'll miss.

I'm not just dead.

I'm a teenage death, a car crash death. A statistic. My parents will speak out about me, and people will listen. "It's horrible, what happened to Amanda," they'll say, and then they'll forget about me. Just a posterchild death, nobody important. Nothing that hasn't happened before.

She fell to her knees. Not even good enough to pass on to an afterlife. Not even good enough for anyone but my family to mourn. What have I done? I lived a normal life, and then I moved here after the fire, and what did I do here? Hated Kamloops. Thought bad things about all the girls at school. Didn't try hard enough to make friends.

Wasn't I good enough?

No, I know that answer. I wasn't.

For a moment, she sat on the side of the road, curled into a ball. She cried until she couldn't cry anymore, until her cheeks were sticky with water and salt. Then, she sat in silence, unsure of what to do next.

"What way do I turn?"

"Right," Saf said with confidence, and Roxy obliged. Saf looked down at the tracker to see that both prongs were glowing steadily. "I'd chance we're almost there," she said. "The glow is strong enough that it's almost connecting both prongs."

"That's supposed to happen when we're like five feet away. I think." Roxy frowned. "Lysis taught me how to use it, but she used so much jargon I could barely understand. Avi wasn't much better."

"She wouldn't be. Before starting at the Royal Fairy Academy, she worked at her father's hardware store. She grew up around repairs and tools." Saf frowned thoughtfully. "Actually, that does beg a question. Did she become fairy of tools because that's what she knows? Or was it simply coincidental?"

"I'm not sure," Roxy admitted. "Lysis is probably the fairy to ask. Which way now?"

"Keep going straight."

They had drove only a minute longer when Saf grinned. "I see her!" she said. "Just a little ahead."

"Yeah, I see her too! At least, I think that's her. I can't see her face."

"The tracker seems to agree with us. I'd say we're correct."

"Why are her wings out?"

Saf squinted through the rain and saw that Roxy was right. On Amanda's back were sheer silver-grey wings that looked like someone made them out of storm clouds. Her body was curled into a ball and covered with dark grey sparkly fabric, almost more like a robe than a dress. It cascaded onto the ground around her, making Saf think it was knee-length or even ankle-length when she was standing.

Roxy parked the car on the side of the road, about twenty feet from the girl, and both she and Saf vacated the vehicle, shivering under the cold raindrops that immediately soaked both girls.. "Amanda?" Roxy called out tentatively.

Amanda looked up. "Oh, great," she muttered, her voice sounding sore and choked. "They've started looking for me now. Well, my body's down off the cliff. Not that you can hear me."

"I can hear you just fine," Roxy said, puzzled.

Amanda jumped up. "Wait, you can hear me?"

"…yes?"

"And see me?"

"Very clearly."

"You must be a… a…"

"A fairy?"

"Are you?" asked Amanda. "I thought you were a medium."

Saf frowned. "Amanda, could you tell us what is going on?"

For the first time, Amanda looked over at Saf. Her eyes, smudged black from ruined mascara, narrowed. "It's you!" She didn't sound happy; in fact, she sounded angry.

"What?"

"You killed me!" Amanda snapped. "If it wasn't for you and your phone, I wouldn't have died."

"Whoa, hold up," Roxy ordered. "Start from the beginning."

"And I bet you're Roxy!" Amanda shot.

"Yeah. I am. And?"

"You were in on it! Oh man, if I meet someone else who can talk to ghosts, I'll tell them what you did. You two are getting so arrested!"

"Can you just tell us what happened?" cried Roxy, her voice confused and distressed.

Amanda glared, but began to tell the story. "This Saf girl dropped her phone after rudely running into me this morning." She pointed at Saf for good measure. "Don't ask for it back, by the way. I was driving home and it began to ring. It distracted me. I crashed my car off of the mountain. I died. Now I'm here."

"But how's it our fault? Aren't you supposed to be in school?"

"Aren't you?" retaliated Amanda.

"Yes, but we were looking for you!"

"To kill me! At least I beat you to the punch."

"What?"

"Saf's phone said I was a target!"

Saf and Roxy couldn't help but giggle. "Yeah," Roxy said eventually. "A target to protect. You're a fairy. We needed to get to you before anyone else did, so that you would be safe."

Amanda looked at them suspiciously, and Roxy sighed. "You aren't a ghost. Check over your shoulder." The curvy girl looked back and cursed. Roxy smirked. "Told you. You're a fairy. We're trying to protect you. Now, do you want a ride home? We're going to have to talk to your parents about this."

Amanda looked wary, but nodded. "If you try anything funny, I'll jump out of the car," she warned. "I've already almost died once today; I'm much less reluctant about trying it again."

"Duly noted," said Saf.

Explaining her newfound fairyhood to her dad was easier than Amanda expected.

"…so yes, the message we sent might have been read as threatening," Roxy explained to Mr. Gordon. "She wasn't intended to read it, but still, we'll take full blame. In addition, the royal family of Tir Nan Og is more than happy to pay the full price of a new car, as well as a large allowance for trauma. We would also like to extend a full scholarship to the Royal Fairy Academy, our most prestigious fairy school."

Amanda almost smirked. Most prestigious? Roxy and Saf had explained on the way that it was the Earth's only fairy school, not to mention a requirement of any underage fairy. Even if Dad said no, they would press, even giving a royal order if they had to.

Mr. Gordon turned to his daughter. "All that is up to Amanda. Mandy, you're seventeen, and the car belonged to you. This is your life; I won't begrudge either choice."

Amanda didn't have to think. She'd already thought in the car. "I'll happily go to the school. As for money, I do want a new car, so I'll take that. No trauma money, though." She almost regretted saying that, but she decided it was more important to be gracious than rich.

"Oh, we insist on at least a little," Roxy said. "We can take it down some, if it makes you uncomfortable. At least accept ten thousand American dollars."

Amanda had to stop her jaw from falling open. How much was the large amount? Though part of her knew that what Roxy offered wasn't all that much in the long run, she'd never so much as had one thousand in her junior bank account at any one time. "Okay, if you insist," she said, her voice wavering in amazement.

"Great!" said Roxy enthusiastically. "We'll leave for Harrisburg tomorrow, if that gives you enough time to pack and be ready. Sound good?"

"Yeah."

Roxy and Saf stood, and Roxy… a princess, despite her looks… curtseyed smoothly. "We'll be by to pick you up at five in the evening tomorrow. Have a good day, Amanda."

"You too," said the new fairy, still kind of in shock.

A week after they left Harrisburg, they returned. This time, plus one.

Amanda had never been in the United States before, though didn't seem so impressed with it. Saf heard her mutter, "it's just a more backwards Canada" when Avi showed off many landmarks on their way to the school.

As the airplane drew close to Harrisburg, Amanda chanced a panicked glance downwards. She didn't like flying and had avoided looking out the windows, but Saf supposed the curiosity was too much. As she looked down, she cursed.

"What?" asked Lysis. "Fear of heights again?"

"Kind of."

"Kind of?"

Amanda sighed. "Nobody told me that Harrisburg had mountains, too!"

Roxy and Saf couldn't help but laugh at that, and though at first she threw a mean glance their way, eventually Amanda joined in.

AN: I have nothing to say this time except "Enjoy!"