A whole week went by and Cinders hadn’t been able to make a single wish come true.

Every morning, she woke up and did all her jobs: she washed the dishes, fed the animals and polished her stepsisters’ shoes until she could see her own sad face reflected in the super-shiny leather. She hadn’t teased Elly or Aggy, she hadn’t talked back to her stepmother and she hadn’t eaten a single cake all week long. Once the whole cottage was spick and span, Cinders snuck out of the house and into the forest with Sparks at her side where they spent each and every day wishing and wishing and wishing for Brian to come back and tell Cinders more about her mother.

But nothing happened.

‘Maybe you’re not magic after all,’ Sparks suggested, merrily chewing on a saveloy he had yoinked from the kitchen. ‘Maybe it was all a dream.’

‘Says Sparks the Talking Dog,’ Cinders replied. She lay down on the grass and stared up at the cloudless sky. ‘I don’t understand why none of my wishes are coming true any more. My fairy godmother hasn’t been back, and I don’t even get to go to the ball tonight. Everything’s just so rubbish.’

‘Sounds grand to me,’ Sparks said. ‘Nice empty house, no one yapping on while I’m trying to have a nap.’

‘Weren’t you the one who woke everyone up this morning?’ Cinders asked with a stern look. ‘Barking at a squirrel?’

‘That squirrel was quite clearly trying to break into the house and steal all the biscuits,’ he replied, his fluffy red fur standing on end. ‘I was merely protecting the family.’

‘Whatever.’ Cinders sighed. ‘I just really, really, really want to see the palace. You know that’s where my mum and dad met?’

Sparks sat up straight. ‘Then go,’ he said. ‘What’s stopping you?’

Cinders shook her head at her silly friend. He might be able to talk, but he was no genius.

‘I haven’t got a dress,’ she explained with her eyes closed. ‘Or a carriage. Or a horse to pull the carriage. Or a footman to take care of the horses I haven’t got to pull my non-existent carriage.’

Cinders stretched out in the grass and imagined how beautiful the palace must look. Even though she’d never seen it, she dreamed about it all the time and her father often sat with her in her room, telling her tales of the white marble staircase and tall white towers with turrets that stretched up high into the sky. Tonight it would be at its most fabulous, all lit up with candles, music playing, people dancing and, in the middle of it all, her father, proudly showing off the new ballroom he had built for this very occasion.

‘Perhaps your wishes haven’t been working because you weren’t wishing for things you really, really wanted,’ Sparks suggested after a quiet moment. ‘When do your stepsisters leave for the palace?’

‘Margery said the carriage was leaving after lunch.’ Cinders opened one eye. The sun was high in the sky and her tummy was rumbling. Lunchtime must have been hours ago. ‘Why?’

‘Let’s go home,’ he suggested,

‘and see                  

what we        

can see.’