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Wanda landed gently on the windowsill and looked through the window. She tucked her wings back so that a stray gust of wind would not sweep her off the ledge.
Inside the room she saw a young girl sleeping. Her lips were drawn up in a small smile as she slept. It was the smile of a birthday girl, dreaming of her birthday to come.
‘Well, are you going in?’ a voice drifted to her on the wind.
Wanda looked over and saw another fairy sitting on a tree branch, watching her.
‘Yes, Mirella. I’m just making sure she’s asleep,’ Wanda replied.
‘She can’t see you anyway! At least not until she makes her birthday wish,’ Mirella reminded her. ‘You’d better get in there and look at the list.’
Wanda took a deep breath and nodded. It was her first day as a wish fairy and she was a little nervous. She patted the bag over her shoulder that had her wand and fairy dust inside. Then she checked the golden wish watch that hung from a gold chain around her neck. It had a single pointer and three words on the dial - WAKE, CAKE, SLEEP. At the moment the pointer on the watch was pointing to WAKE.
‘Do you remember what to do?’ Mirella asked.
‘Check the list.
Practice all the wishes on it.
Sit on the cake and make the wish come true.’
Wanda had repeated it many times, most of the night actually. It seemed a fairly simple list but she had been told by other fairies that things could go wrong.
‘You never know which one she’ll pick when she blows out her candles. And remember to tell her she has one day of her wish - until she goes to sleep tonight!’ Mirella reminded her.
Wanda nodded. She heaved on the window and pulled it open a small way then slipped inside. Excitement bubbled inside her. At last she was a real wish fairy. She fluttered over to the nightstand and hovered. This was where she would find the wish list - she hoped. She looked at the cluttered items and then grinned. There it was, tucked inside her diary. She moved a toy pony off the diary and with a tug she pulled the list out. She flew over to the window to look at it. She had been practicing wishes for months and was sure she could handle most things - well, some things.
She looked at the list. At the top was a name. Amanda. The first birthday wish was... A Horse.
Wanda had been warned of this. It seemed almost all little girls wanted a horse of their own. It was a tricky one and Wanda wasn’t sure she could do it. She read the next wish. Surely this one would be easier.
A Horse.
Wanda frowned. She read the next one.
A Horse.
With a small sigh, Wanda saw all the wishes were the same. She wasn’t very good at horses. Maybe she could get Amanda to wish for something else. Something easy like a pretty dress.
Wanda heard a small sound as Amanda began to wake up. She quickly flew to the nightstand and put the wish list back. With a soft flutter of her wings she flew back to the windowsill and sat watching. She had to find out when they were going to have the birthday cake. She hoped she would have time to practice her horses.
Amanda sat up, rubbed her eyes and grinned. She snatched up the wish list and grabbed a pencil. She wrote on it, put it back on the table and ran from the room.
‘Mum, Dad... it’s my birthday!’ she yelled.
Wanda flew back to look at the list. Maybe she had changed her mind about the horse. She looked at the last line on the list.
A Pony.