It was the weekend, and Lola was going to a fancy-dress party.

But she had nothing to wear to a fancy-dress party!

She did have an old princess dress in the back of her closet.

But when Lola dug it up, she saw a big square cut out from the front of it.

Lola smiled. Oh, that’s right! She’d cut it out to make a blanket for her toys. She didn’t really like princesses these days, anyway.

Hunting around in her cupboard, she found some long stripy socks, and an old pair of jean shorts that she had almost grown out of.

She also found some of her mum’s old scarves, and a belt.

It was hopeless!

Just then, her brother Nick looked into her room. ‘What are you going to wear to the party?’ he asked.

Lola shrugged.

‘I know,’ Nick snorted, ‘you can pretend you’re one of the ugly sisters from Peter Pan.’

Lola rolled her eyes.

‘Or you could go as the ugly duckling from Where the Wild Things Are!’ he said gleefully.

Then he bounded off down the stairs.

‘You’re muddling up your stories!’ Lola called after him.

She slumped onto her bed next to her favourite toy, Buddy.

Buddy was a learn-to-dress clown, with lots of zippers and poppers, buckles and buttons.

‘Easy for you,’ she told him. ‘You could just go as yourself. A clown!’

Lola was tired of looking for a costume. And anyway, the party was hours away.

She had much better things to do.

At the end of the bed was her toy box. But this was no ordinary toy box. Oh no.

This was Lola’s magical toy box.

Lola picked up Buddy and climbed inside her toy box. Then she carefully closed the lid.

The toy box filled with light and started to shake. Lola held onto Buddy as they jiggled around like a baby’s rattle.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

Then, as suddenly as it had started, the shaking stopped. The lights went off again. Everything was still.

Lola took a deep breath, opened her eyes, and climbed out.

She had climbed into her toy box, but she had climbed out of …