"How many leaves is that?" Danique asked back in the dorm that same evening.

"A hundred and three, still mainly laurel leaves," Petal Mara replied. Then she dug a little deeper into the mass of hair in her lap and pulled on a knot.

"Ouch," Danique duly squealed.

"Sorry. A hundred and four," and the Greenvale girl placed her latest find which was still attached to a sizeable twig in the bucket next to the bed. "That was a rhododendron leaf I think."

"Don't remember running through any rhododendron bushes," Danique said thickly, wiping a tear from her eye.

"Well, what do you expect?" Pinky scoffed, looking up from a magazine that could only be about consumer fashions if the cover was anything to go by. Plus it was three inches thick and well thumbed. "If you must grow half the hair in the universe it is bound to get tangled in everything from bushes to machinery to passing vehicles," and she humphed dismissively.

"That's only happened once," the Evernight girl protested. "They were very apologetic about it and I improved my fitness level off the chart."

"Ooh, ruby incrusted page turner," Pinky said in response, thereby confirming she was not listening. She got up and wandered out onto the balcony of Dorm Sensation with her nose still in the thick brochure and everyone watching her was expecting to hear a scream, a thud and then involve themselves in an argument as to who might get her vacant bed.

A collective holding of breath ended first with a cough from Petal who was rubbish at such endurance challenges. There was of course no accident.

"Have you noticed how when things go wrong around her someone else always seems to come off worse and she remains unblemished every time?" Soo Toglak said while trying to sharpen a bath sponge to make it into a lethal weapon.

"For her the fates have made a charm, while we can only come to harm," Lyra musingly observed. "Taint fair," she added more prosaically.

"I once went to a Taint Fair," Petal said vaguely as she retrieved a forgotten grip from Danique's hair. "Very colourful."

"Hey, I remember that grip. Lost it when I was nine," Danique said on catching a glimpse of the shiny thing Petal was absently about to toss in the bucket with the leaves and twigs Danique had brought home with her. Then she sat up, as if the weight of all that detritus having been removed made her feel suddenly light-headed. It was instead a metaphorical bulb shining with the enlightenment of an idea.

"What say we," and she lowered her voice so the occupant of the balcony who could still be heard flicking through glossy pages eagerly might not catch her words, "we test this invulnerability charm of hers? Set up a few little, you know, harmless gag moments to put a spot or two on her spotlessness."

Soo jumped up too, a ready conspirator in this plan.

"We could push her off the balcony. You know, make it sure and quick."

Everyone to give them credit glared at the Mangoria girl following this suggestion, which made her tease the threads of the carpet with a dark toe.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"Only joking," she muttered sheepishly. Then she glanced up, looked around and added other suggestions. "Trip wire in the bathroom entrance? Super fizzy substance in her drink? Four hundred centipedes in her bed?" came a rapid series of equally outrageous plans.

"Or lace her food," Danique said as she paced the room. "Look, we all know how such things would end. We'd be the ones accidentally eating tainted food, drinking tampered water or tumbling over forgotten trip wires. And a big no to forty thousand tiny little legs scurrying about everywhere. It's that charm thing we've got to beat without dying ourselves, remember?"

"Or killing Pinky," Petal quietly reminded everyone. "We seek only a moment of discomfort for her, to prove she's the same as us, prone to misfortune. No disaster, nor serious harm."

"Some disappointment, quite mild and true, might make our Pinky like me and you," Lyra agreed, understanding Petal's motivation better than the others.

The room fell silent as the girls pondered ideas. Danique would chuckle to herself occasionally, no doubt picturing some unpleasantness befalling the pink-haired target, perhaps in her imagination not being such a mild moment of discomfort.

"Well, you all seem preoccupied," Pinky said, returning to the unusually silent room, having completed her own private consultation with Banter Folly's Catalogue of Tremendous Necessities, volume four, extended edition with supplements. She waved the heavy book at the others a moment, using both hands of course. "Spotted something interesting on page 878. Paper that changes the colour of writing as you progress down the sheet."

"That sounds really interesting," Soo Toglak said in a voice so flat there was but the barest hint of an inflection.

"I thought so. Might be worth a try, especially if I can get label-sized pieces for notebooks and things. I shall pop into Borrowed Time tomorrow and anyone is welcome to join me."

"Where?" someone slurred sleepily.

"It's a small settlement to the east, other side of the Crazy Streamlet. You know, the one with the Ricketty Racketty Bridge so many people keep tumbling off into the stream. Sounds crazy indeed. I think I'd take the upper path, a bit of a longer route but why risk it?"

With that Pinky tossed the book into a corner where it thudded ominously, making the occupants in the dorm a floor below complain about the noise, and then she prepared for the evening meal in the first year hall.

The next day everyone was surprisingly interested in Pinky's wild expedition to an out of the way place. Maps were consulted, accident videos studied as if they were part of the school curriculum, and plans laid.

"We've so got to get her to cross that Ricketty bridge thing," Danique said to Soo in a secret huddle. "Just look at that," and for the hundredth time the girls watched a short video clip of some tourists unwittingly sauntering across the narrow planking over the stream, finding their footing increasingly unsteady, and then the whole thing tilting so they slid into the stream with a tremendous splash to the sound of laughter from gathered spectators. They laughed too as they were fished out unhurt.

"Ideal!" Soo agreed, chuckling at the discomfort on display. Apparently the bridge had been constructed by some mischievous land developer years ago as a sort of prank and warning signs had been placed around the odd attraction. Over the years these had either been defaced, covered up or disappeared all together so only notices to take extra care were visible.

"It is said," Lyra pointed out, "an avoidance she'd prefer. How might we ensure a crossing can occur?"

"Pinky always plans ahead and only seems put out by the unexpected," Petal Mara offered intelligently, being of a thoughtful nature herself. She was also kindness personified and felt more than a little uncomfortable with these schemes. Her only justification was the growing belief that there was something unnatural about the way Pinky seemed to glide harmlessly through life and it was increasingly unsettling, for it set her apart from others. In her concern for the Perfecta girl's overall welfare she felt this otherliness was slowly isolating her from everyone and an attempt to bring her back to the normal world, to reclaim her so to speak, had become necessary. The only way was to tarnish her shiny perfection, just a little.

The others listened to this comment from the Greenvale girl and it was the active-minded Danique who came up with a solution.

She barked.