All the way home, Isabelle and Clotilda argued. It wasn’t the first time. They were sisters. When something terrible happened, this was what they did.
“I told you to be ready for anything,” Clotilda reminded her in that older perfect sister know-it-all way.
Isabelle said, “But why did they have to give me an ex-friend of Nora’s? Isn’t that sort of mean?” Fairy godmothers, she was 99.9 percent sure, were always supposed to be nice. Never mean. She asked, “Isn’t there a big chance that Samantha will want something that will make Nora unhappy?”
When they got home and there was no truce (or answers) in sight, Clotilda went to her room and Isabelle said good-bye and gladly went to hers.
In her room, Isabelle made a plan. First, she waited as quietly as she could until she was positive Clotilda had gone to bed. Then she tiptoed down the hall, past Clotilda’s closed door, to Grandmomma’s office and the Official Fairy Godmother Spyglass. There was no better, faster way to see what Samantha was up to.
When she got to Grandmomma’s office, she pulled hard on the big brass handle, opened the gigantic door, and found her sister sitting behind Grandmomma’s desk.
“I knew it!” Clotilda said. “You were going to cheat.”
There was no point in denying it. “Not cheat. Study.” Isabelle tried to justify her actions. “Grandmomma let me do it. There’s no rule against it.”
Clotilda wasn’t buying any of Isabelle’s excuses. “Well, Grandmomma put me in charge, and I say no spyglass or anything else out of the ordinary. Got it?”
Clotilda ushered Isabelle back into the hall and locked the office door behind them.
“Isabelle, if you are going to be a great fairy godmother, you have to do this the right way. I know the assignments seem sketchy, but it won’t be that hard on Nora. I promise.”
Isabelle wasn’t sure she believed her. She remembered how sad Nora had been when they saw Samantha. She pleaded with her sister. “Are you sure I can’t peek? Just once? In the name of happily ever after?”
Clotilda sighed. (She could be a softie when it came to happily ever after.) “Do everything by the book for fourteen days. If you get nowhere, we’ll talk.”
Fourteen days was a long time.
But it was a compromise.
So Isabelle went back to her room, and for ten days (or nine days more than she wanted to), she did everything Clotilda told her to do. She loaded the sparkles into her wand, just in case. And she waited. And waited. And waited just in case Samantha made her wish. But just in case never came.
So, on the eleventh day, she tried sitting between the girlgoyles and continued to wait there. While she waited, she pretended the girlgoyles were Samantha and Nora. She pretended to make them pretty dresses and colorful sneakers. She pretended to make them magic matchsticks and spoons and lie detector necklaces even though girlgoyles obviously never lied.
Pretending to grant wishes is not dawdling. It’s also not as much fun as actually granting wishes. And it doesn’t make listening for a practice princess (or a regular girl) to wish easier.
But it does make you hungry.
So on the twelfth day, Isabelle headed to the kitchen to bake a cake. Because she was more a cake fan than an icing fan, she made the icing layers very, very thin. When the whole thing was finished, she brought three slices to the girlgoyles and ate them all, because obviously, this was a ploy. Girlgoyles don’t eat.
While she ate, she decided to open up the rule book. She glossed over the pictures of fairy godmothers. She wiped some icing off the picture of Clotilda. Then she scanned the index to find out how to make a princess wish faster. But there wasn’t a rule about that.
Isabelle did find a rule about determination and enthusiasm and gusto and why those things were good, though. And she also found one about why fairy godmothers don’t grant every wish of every girl. Finally, she found the section that explained humility and grace and why fairy godmothers must listen before they grant a wish. She even found a footnote about the number of sparkles and training. She was going to read that (as well as the part about sparkle conservation) but then she stumbled on some pages printed in red letters.
This was Rule Four. It was about probation and other problems.
Rule Four A: A fairy godmother might need to go to retraining, probation, or reassignment to the Fairy Godmother Home for Normal Girls if she
Rule Four B: Fairy godmothers in retraining (also known as Worsts) are automatically on probation. If they fail or refuse to grant a wish (or use too many sparkles) or do anything unsafe, they will need to return to Level One or retire.
Rules Four A and Four B were even worse than Three C.
It was so unfair and confusing.
All Isabelle wanted was to make princesses and regular girls happy. She didn’t want to be a Best. She just wanted to be good. Or even average. Isabelle threw the book on the ground right between the girlgoyles. The gusts of wind turned the pages one after another until Isabelle spied a page covered in hearts and flowers and mushy testimonials from fairy godmothers. And also princesses. Most of them started, “When I wished on a star …”
This gave Isabelle a great idea.
The next morning (or, if you’re counting, Day Thirteen), right as the sun began to rise (but Isabelle could still see the moon), she took one sparkle out of her wand and for some reason—she had no idea why—imagined playing catch with her mom. She also imagined Nora’s house and then Nora’s school and the tree where Isabelle had met Samantha. Maybe Samantha just needed a signal from Isabelle—a reason to wish.
Isabelle used her wand like a magical fishing pole and catapulted the sparkle high into the air. When it hit the sky, it looked like a shooting star.
And then Isabelle listened.
This time, she didn’t have to wait long to hear something wonderful. It was singing. A beautiful singing voice. Definitely princess caliber. And whoever she was, she was singing about wishes and all kinds of gifts from the heart.
Isabelle beamed. Clotilda was right! Samantha must be the perfect regular girl for her. She was sure that somewhere in that book it said that fairy godmothers who heard their princess’s (or regular girl’s) wishes loud and clear had a strong bond and could always grant their wishes, lickety-split!
In other words, as Samantha wished, “I really want to be in the show. It doesn’t have to be a big part. Just a little one. I really, really, really want it,” Isabelle felt a bolt of confidence.
She didn’t care that technically, three reallys did not equal one I wish. Isabelle was tired of waiting. She figured an I want with some reallys was as good as an I wish. Unfortunately, Isabelle was wrong. But she didn’t know that. So she grabbed her packet of sparkles and loaded them into her wand. Then she imagined the tree and puffed down to the regular world.
She landed (with a thump) next to the spot where the really reallys had been uttered.
Luckily, it was a quiet thump. And the tree was by some shrubs, so no one saw her. This was a good thing, because one of the difficult parts of getting a regular girl was that regular girls scared easily. They didn’t necessarily believe in fairy godmothers. Or at least, Nora hadn’t appreciated her arrival. She thought fairy tales and fairy godmothers were all made up.
Down on the ground, Samantha’s voice rang in Isabelle’s ears. It made her heart swell. Isabelle felt really confident. As she tiptoed around the tree, she was sure she could grant this wish in record time.
At the base of a tree sat a girl. She had unruly hair and a scab on her knee. She was reading a book.
This was not Samantha. The girl who wanted the part (a lot) was Nora.