Stardust by Linda Chapman

CHAPTER
One
    â€˜They are
so
cute!’ Lucy declared to her best friend, Allegra, as they flew above the clearing, watching three otter cubs rolling around on the riverbank. The cubs’ brown coats were slick with water and their mouths were open as if they were grinning.
    â€˜Look, here come the badgers,’ Allegra said as a mother badger shambled out of the trees. Two fluffy badger cubs were at her side. In the moonlight the white stripes on their faces shone.
    Lucy flew down to land on the short grass.
I love being a stardust spirit
, she thought happily.
    Stardust spirits were special people who had more stardust than normal people. At night-time, stardust spirits flew through the sky to gather together and do magic. They met up in woods and on beaches and used their stardust powers to help protect nature, in particular putting right any wrongs done by humans. Lucy would never forget the night that she had found out she was a stardust spirit – it was just over a year ago now.
    The mother badger nuzzled Lucy’s hand. As she ambled on her way, Lucy heard the sound of voices in the air. Tucking her long brown hair behind her ears, she looked up. Ella and Faye, her andAllegra’s friends, flew into the clearing.
    â€˜Hi!’ Ella called, her dark ponytail bouncing on her shoulders as she landed.
    Faye, who was smaller than Ella with short blonde hair and wide blue eyes, swooped down too. ‘The river’s looking full tonight,’ she commented. ‘I’ve never seen it so close to flooding.’
    â€˜It must be because of all that rain,’ Ella agreed. ‘Did you two see it earlier this evening? It was like someone was just tipping water out of the sky.’
    Allegra nodded. ‘It really chucked it down, didn’t it?’
    â€˜There’s been lots of weird weather stuff happening,’ Lucy commented. ‘There was that tornado a month ago and then the mini hurricane and now all this rain.’ She gave Allegra a concerned look.
    â€˜Your mum thinks dark spirits might have been interfering with the stardust in the sky, doesn’t she?’
    Allegra nodded. The others shivered. Dark spirits were stardust spirits who had turned bad. They loved power and were always trying to get more, either by taking the stardust from normal stardust spirits or by drawing it down directly from the stars in the sky. ‘I hope there aren’t any dark spirits near here,’ Faye said anxiously.
    â€˜Me too,’ agreed Lucy. She had met two dark spirits in the past. They had both tried to steal her stardust powers. Lucy was a very special stardust spirit. She had more power than any other stardust spirit her age – more power even than most adults. The dark spirits she had met had wanted that power. Luckily Lucy had managed to escape both times.
    The night suddenly seemed to grow darker. Clouds scudded across the moon.
    â€˜It looks like it’s going to rain even more!’ Ella exclaimed.
    There was a long low rumbling in the distance. The badgers hastily turned and began to head back towards their sett in the trees. The otters scrambled out of the river. Big fat raindrops began to fall. They splashed on to the girls’ bare arms.

    â€˜If there’s lots of rain the river might overflow its banks!’ Faye said in alarm. ‘What about the badgers? Their sett will be flooded.’
    Lucy looked round. It wasn’t just the badgers who were in danger. The nearby bushes had birds’ nests in them and there were many mice, voles and shrews and other small creatures living in the undergrowth. Their homes would be destroyed too if the river flooded. ‘We have to stop it!’
    â€˜We can’t stop a storm,’ Ella said as the rain started to fall faster.
    An idea burst into Lucy’s brain. ‘We might not be able to stop a storm!’ she shouted over a crash of thunder. ‘But we can stop rain from falling into this part