The little pink cottage was as quiet as a mouse when they returned. Actually, it was as quiet as the two white mice Cinders and Sparks saw running to hide behind the sofa when they opened the door.

‘Right, we need a dress, a carriage and two horses,’ Sparks said, kicking the door closed with his back legs while Cinders grabbed half a leftover doughnut from the kitchen worktop and gobbled it up in two big bites. ‘There’s no fairy godmother here to conjure those up, so what are you going to do?’

‘I’ve waited my whole life to go to the palace and today’s the day. If no one’s going to help me, I’ll just have to help myself,’ Cinders said, determined. She squeezed her hands into tight little fists, scrunched up her face and concentrated as hard as she possibly could. ‘I wish I had a ballgown of my very own.’

At first the fizzing feeling was very faint. Just a tiny tickling in the tippity-tips of her fingers.

Then it began to grow. Her whole hand started to glimmer and gleam and suddenly Cinders’s entire body was covered in gold sparkles.

‘Ooh, steady on,’ Sparks said, backing away and hiding under the settee.

‘I think it’s working!’ Cinders shouted, spinning round and round and round.

‘That or you’re about to turn into a human firework display,’ Sparks called back. ‘Which would really be very inconvenient.’

Slowly, the spinning stopped and the sparkles faded away.

‘Did it work?’ Cinders asked.

‘I think it did,’ Sparks replied, his tongue hanging out of a big doggy smile.

‘Good golly gosh,’ Cinders whispered as she turned to look in the mirror. ‘It most certainly did.’

Instead of her usual rags, Cinders saw something altogether different. Gone was the messy girl with blueberry stains on her skirt and her wild hair. Instead she was staring at a fine young lady wearing a glorious gown. At first it looked as though it had been spun from silver silk, but, every time she moved, the fabric shimmered with all the colours of the rainbow. Her hair was soft and curly and, for the first time in what felt like her entire life, she was spotlessly clean. Cinders had never seen herself look that way before. If she didn’t know who she was, she wouldn’t have even recognised herself.

‘What do you think?’ she asked Sparks, still stunned.

‘I think you need to put something on your feet,’ he said, disappearing into the cupboard, his tail wagging behind him. ‘Let’s see if these fit.’

Sparks dropped a pair of beautiful shoes in front of his best friend. They looked as though they were made of glass and, just like the dress, they sparkled in the light, shining with more colours than Cinders could name. She slipped them on and gasped with delight. A perfect fit!

‘Wherever did these come from?’ she asked, tapping and turning in her new shoes. It felt as though they’d been made just for her.

‘They were your mother’s,’ Sparks replied, still smiling. ‘I’d have given them to you before, but glass slippers don’t really go with rags.’

She couldn’t be sure, but Cinders was fairly certain she could feel the same magical tingle in her toes as soon as she slipped on the shoes.

‘Come on then,’ Sparks said. ‘We’re not done yet. We still need a carriage, horses and a footman, and we haven’t got all day.’

‘Hmm …’ Cinders took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She really, really, really wanted to go to the ball. ‘I wish I had a carriage and a horse and a footman.’

‘Two horses!’ Sparks corrected. ‘Or you’ll be riding round in circles.’

‘Two horses!’ Cinders agreed as the tingling began again. ‘Ooh, here we go!’

As the sparkles began to surround her, she felt herself spinning round and round and round again.

‘Oh, no!’ Sparks yelped. ‘Cinders, make it stop!’

‘Is everything all right?’ she shouted. She couldn’t see a thing.

‘I should say not,’ Sparks replied as the spinning and sparkles subsided.

Once she had steadied herself, Cinders opened her eyes and gasped. A short, stout, red-headed man with big brown eyes stood in the centre of the room, dressed in a red satin suit, wearing a very familiar leather collar.

‘Sparks?’ Cinders asked.

‘The utter indignity,’ he muttered, brushing off his spotless sleeves. ‘However am I supposed to stay up on my hind legs all night long? And would you look at those poor mice?’

Cinders turned to see two tall speckled horses standing in the middle of the kitchen.

‘They’ve still got their whiskers,’ she said, grabbing two sugar lumps from the tea tray and offering them to her new four-legged friends. They both shook their heads, whinnying in disgust. Thinking fast, Cinders grabbed a big block of cheese from the cupboard, chopped it half and held out her hands. The horse-mice gobbled it up in two seconds flat.

‘Well,’ she sighed, ‘I suppose I am still learning.’

‘Yes,’ Sparks agreed as he pushed past her to open the door. ‘I suppose you are. And don’t forget we have to be back before midnight – Brian said magic usually runs out at midnight.’ He began leading the way to the carriage.

As he went, Cinders noticed a bright red bushy tail poking out from the back of his trousers.

‘Oh, dear,’ she said, pushing her horse-mice through the kitchen door and out towards the huge crystal carriage waiting for them in the yard. ‘Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.’

‘Too late to change your mind now,’ Sparks replied, wagging his tail.