Defend — Jill Marshall

Matilda Peppercorn is being watched. Weirdy women keep popping up in all sorts of strange places - on the special mosaic in her garden; up a tree at the tumbledown building where she and BFF Mattan hang (literally) out, and even at the competition for her beloved kick-boxing. When she finds out just what they're testing her for, though, it all gets weirder than ever. And that is just the beginning. For Matilda Peppercorn is the stuff of legends. She's going to be 'guardian of us all' - as soon as she finds out who or what that means, and just how she's meant to do that. In the meantime, she has to work out how to stay in the same school as Mattan, and keep her extra-protective parents in line as kids very like Tilly herself are disappearing closer and closer to home. It's tough being a living legend. But if anyone's up to the task, it's Matilda Peppercorn.