The next morning, Isabelle got up early. She brushed her hair and put it in a high ponytail. She put on her nicest jeans and sparkly green sneakers.

In other words, she tried to look like a regular girl. With a little extra pizzazz.

When she showed up at Samantha’s door, she was relieved to find that Janet and Mason weren’t there.

“I have something important to tell you before we go to the audition,” Isabelle said right away.

But Samantha also had something important to show Isabelle. (And if it wasn’t yet clear, Samantha always got her way.)

“What do you think?” Samantha asked, twirling in a circle.

“About what?”

“About my dress! Isn’t it beautiful? Aren’t the wings cool? I know it’s a fairy godmother costume, but it was all I had. Besides, aren’t good witches and fairy godmothers basically the same thing?”

Her dress was beautiful—almost as sparkly and pink as Clotilda’s last Extravaganza dress—but those wings had to go.

Fairy godmothers and good witches (whatever they were) were not the same thing. Even worse, fairy godmothers only had wings in books, not in real life. “So, about that important thing I wanted to tell you …”

Samantha didn’t hear her. Instead, she introduced Isabelle to the fattest, fluffiest cat Isabelle had ever seen, Prince Oberon the Fifth. Samantha told Isabelle to keep a distance. “Unless he moves his tail. That means he wants to be picked up.”

They stared at his tail for five minutes. But that tail didn’t move, not even a smidge. So they left him alone.

Instead, Samantha demonstrated her dance moves. And her big song. And part of the song she would sing with the bad witch (which was an even better song, but not a solo).

She would have kept practicing and singing and dancing and flapping those dumb wings, but Isabelle shouted, “Samantha, please stop! For just for a second. I need to tell you something important. Fairy godmothers don’t have wings. In fact, wings are sort of disrespectful.”

Samantha laughed. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” Isabelle whipped out her wand and tried to stand as tall as possible. “I am your fairy godmother. I am here to make you happily ever after.”

Samantha laughed so hard Prince Oberon swished his tail. “You are hilarious,” she said, picking up the cat and scratching his head. “Can we pull this on Mason? He’s always complaining that boys never get wishes.”

“No, we cannot do that,” Isabelle replied. Instead of explaining the rules (and wasting precious time), she pointed her wand at a fuzzy gray yarn ball in the corner of the room. It was Prince Oberon’s toy mouse. “You need proof?” Isabelle took a deep breath and imagined the yarn running through a field. Or across the kitchen floor.

For a moment, nothing happened.

But Isabelle did not give up. She straightened her elbow and thought about determination. Then she envisioned Samantha and Nora on the stage. And to her surprise, it happened. Pop! Pop! Pop! Hiss! The yarn turned into an extremely frightened mouse! Luckily, Samantha was still holding Prince Oberon. By the time he wiggled free, the mouse had run out the open door to the woods outside.

Samantha did a little victory dance (unlike Nora, who had called for the police). Like Nora, she asked a ton of questions. “How does anyone choose? Can we tell Janet? Can I ask my dads?” Samantha paced in a circle. “This doesn’t have to be about love, does it? This is real life, you know. Not a fairy tale.”

Isabelle agreed. “No, it definitely doesn’t have to have anything to do with love. All you have to do is make a wish that you know in your heart will make you …”

“Happily ever after!” Samantha rubbed her hands together. “Oh, this is going to be so perfect.” Then she sat down. “How long do I have to decide?”

Isabelle counted all the days on her fingers. “By my calculation, you have exactly four weeks. But you can wish now. If you know what you want.” She winked. “Like a perfect audition, perhaps?”

To Isabelle’s surprise, Samantha didn’t jump all over that. “I don’t know. Maybe I should become a real princess with a real live kingdom and a gigantic castle. Or can I wish to be famous? On TV or on the stage? Can you make me the youngest president ever? Can you help me invent something that will change the entire world? Or can I wish for more wishes?”

Again the wish for more wishes. Regular girls were so unreasonable.

Isabelle begged Samantha to come up with something smaller (in other words, doable). “Why don’t you want to wish to get the part of the good witch?”

Samantha told her that would not be necessary.

“Are you sure?” Isabelle asked.

“One hundred percent,” Samantha replied. “Officially, I have to act like I might not get the part, but the truth is, no one else has a chance, and not just because I’ve been the star of every play since I was old enough to read. My dads know Dee. They told me the part is mine.”

Isabelle sat down. This was a big disappointment. And not fair at all. “So there’s nothing I can do right now?”

“Of course there is,” Samantha said. “Stick around. Cheer me on. Come to the audition. I’ll even take off the wings.” She told Isabelle to put her wand away. “When I know what I want, you’ll be the first to hear about it.”

So that’s what they did.

Isabelle went to the audition with Samantha, Mason, and Janet. (Even though Janet wasn’t auditioning, she stuck to Samantha like glue.)

Samantha was, indeed, a triple threat. Her song was great. Her dancing was perfection. She didn’t mess up a single line.

Mason was pretty good, too. Dee asked him to do a lot of funny things, like crawl on the ground and swing from a imaginary vine and pretend to have a New York accent. Isabelle didn’t know why this was important, but she could see that Dee thought it was great.

While Dee tried teaming him up with a girl named Teja—to turn the witch’s assistant into a two-headed assistant—Isabelle looked for Nora. She was sitting in the corner. Her hair was wilder than ever. And she looked terrified.

Isabelle felt bad. “When are you up?” she asked.

“Right after Mason and Teja,” Nora said. “I practiced all day. I think I’m ready.”

“What part do you want?”

She smiled. “The good witch. But since I’ll never get it, I decided to go for the bad one.” She picked up her fake wand and pointed it at Isabelle. “Do I look scary? I don’t, right?” She put the fake wand down. “I don’t know what I’m even doing here.” She got up and walked to the back of the room to pace.

Isabelle picked up Nora’s fake wand. It was sort of sad. It looked like a plain black stick.

Even though she was sure this was totally against the rules, Isabelle had to do something for Nora. She tapped the tip of her wand and secretly removed a teeny tiny fleck of sparkle—just enough for one night’s worth of happiness. As Isabelle pressed the sparkle into Nora’s fake wand, she imagined Nora having a great audition. And making up with Samantha. And making the whole world cleaner and better. (It was impossible not to cheer for Nora.)

When the fake wand glowed and hissed and sputtered, Isabelle practically jumped out of her seat. But right away, it looked normal—and fake—again. So nobody could tell it held a tiny bit of magic.

When Nora returned, Isabelle gave the fake wand back to her and wished her good luck. For a split second, it looked like maybe Nora remembered something, like she knew who Isabelle was. But then she didn’t. She just looked really, really, really happy.

“Have a good time,” Isabelle said. “I hope you’re the best bad witch ever.”

And of course, she was.

Nora still wasn’t a triple threat, but she sang with gusto! She only stumbled once. When she said, “Evil children deserve what they wish for,” she actually sounded a little bit like Minerva (especially when she was in a bad mood).

When Nora was done, Dee called everyone onstage. “Thank you, everyone, for auditioning for the play. I was very excited by what I saw tonight.” After quickly going over the bad news—that there weren’t enough parts for everyone—she told them, “All of you were great. It’s going to make casting very difficult. But I’ll get it done. The cast will be posted tonight. First rehearsal is tomorrow. So get some sleep and get ready to work. Once we get started, you need to be ready for anything and everything.”