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‘Just hold on a minute!’ Wanda called and waved her wand. The candles were half blown out. She turned to Mirella. ‘How do I do that?’
Mirella flew down to join Wanda on the cake. She looked up at the startled birthday girl. ‘What part of the circus do you want to be in?’
‘All of it!’ Bethany replied with a grin.
‘Are you sure?’ Mirella asked. Bethany nodded. ‘Okay. Close your eyes.’
Bethany closed her eyes.
Mirella turned to Wanda. ‘You remember how to do doubles?’
‘Doubles? On my second wish?’ Wanda gulped and nodded slowly. Both fairies tapped their wands on their bags of fairy dust and the room filled with rainbows and sparkling lights.
When the lights faded the fairies were outside, looking through the window. Bethany, Sarah and Jo were there too.
‘What’s going on?’ Sarah asked. She looked at the two fairies and tried to grab hold of Wanda. Wanda fluttered out of the way.
‘Why are we out here?’ Jo said, peering through the window. ‘And who are they!’
Bethany looked as well as an exact double of her stood cutting the cake. A double of Sarah and Jo stood next to her.
‘They’re doubles of you,’ Wanda explained. She grinned at how well she had done. The doubles looked exactly like the girls. ‘They’ll take your place for the rest of the day while you join the circus.’
‘We’re joining the circus?’ Jo said, jumping up with delight.
‘Shhh... or they’ll hear you,’ Bethany said. ‘I get a birthday wish, and this is it.’
‘We’re going to be in the circus!’ Sarah said in a quiet but very excited voice.
‘The doubles don’t speak much though. Only a few sentences at most,’ Mirella added. ‘Are you sure about your wish? This type of wish can’t be changed once it’s done.’
‘Yes!’ all three girls said at once.
‘I’m sure you can handle this from here, Wanda,’ Mirella said and flew off over the roof.
Wanda raised her wand again and tapped the bag of fairy dust. Again there was an explosion of coloured lights.
When the sparkles faded Wanda was inside the circus tent. She looked around for the three girls but they were nowhere.
‘Bethany,’ she called softly.
‘Wanda!’
It was more of a screech and Wanda looked at the cage of monkeys next to her. There were three of them.
‘Wanda. I’m a monkey!’ came another screech.
She looked closer and sure enough the three monkeys were wearing matching pink bracelets.
‘Oh dear,’ Wanda said. ‘Well, you did say you wanted to be in all of the circus.’
Just then a man came along and opened the cage.
‘Come along girls. It’s time to practice our horse riding.’
The three monkeys wriggled and screeched as the man picked them up and took them away. Wanda flew behind them. Had she done the wish wrong? She watched as the monkeys were put on the back of a horse. The girls/monkeys had stopped screeching and looked to be quite happy up on the horse as it was led around the centre stage of the tent. There were no people on the seats around the sides yet.
‘Wanda, this is fun!’ came a screech that could have been any one of the three girls.
After riding the horse for a while the monkeys were dressed in pretty dresses and had a pretend tea party in the middle of the arena.
‘That’s enough for now girls,’ the man said, gathering them up. ‘People will be arriving soon. You can do it all again in a while.’
As the man went past Wanda there was a small flash of rainbow colours. Wanda blinked. She looked at the monkeys and saw the pink bracelets were gone. The monkeys were real ones now. So where were the girls?