It was a slow, sleepy Saturday. Isabelle didn’t expect anything to happen.
Nora was sitting at the window watching a cute bunny hop around her backyard. She opened her window and tossed it a carrot. Then she yawned without covering her mouth. She made a sound like “Aaaaaah-waaaaah,” which was really just a very loud yawn, but Isabelle strained her ears and imagined that if she had a cold—which was technically possible—“Aaaaa-waaaah” could actually be “I wish.”
Isabelle seized the moment.
She didn’t care that she was supposed to wait for the exact right moment, or that she was supposed to foster independence in her practice princess.
Nora was not a usual princess. She was a regular girl. Isabelle wasn’t going to follow even the few rules she knew.
She put as many sparkles as possible on the tip of her thumb. Then she pinched them as hard as she could and held her wand high. She swished and she twirled. For luck, she crossed her fingers. She was pretty sure she needed it.
And then she did it. She felt herself go and be transported to Nora. It was the best feeling ever. Not exactly like flying. More like flying at supersonic speed until everything stopped and you were somewhere else and it was really hard to control yourself and not jump up and down in the sparkle dust.
Sparkles were really messy. First, they floated up to the ceiling. Then, just when the air began to feel clear, they turned into dust and drifted down to the floor until everything in the room—every trophy, notebook, and pillow—looked shiny and slippery. In a way, sparkle dust resembled tree pollen—or a whole field of dandelions exploding at once. When it had settled, everything looked slightly fuzzy.
Isabelle smiled at the speechless, shocked girl who stood in front of her. She waved her wand back and forth the way she’d seen Clotilda do. Then she said the words she’d dreamed of saying since before she’d even passed her training:
“Hello, Nora. I am your fairy godmother. I’m here to make your wish come true!”
Nora looked one-third disgusted, one-third amused, and one-third in need of a shower and a stretch. The first thing she did was run to the door. “Help! Someone! Police!”
Isabelle would’ve run after her, but she had a sparkle stuck in her throat. So instead, she coughed until Nora stopped shouting and brought her a glass of water and a long list of very obvious questions.
“Who are you, really? Why are you here? How did you get here? What do you want from me?”
Isabelle was only too happy to answer. “Like I said, I’m your fairy godmother. I’m here to grant your wish and make you happily ever after! Just name it, and you’ve got it.”
Hearing this, Nora should have felt like dancing, too. But she didn’t. She crossed her arms over her chest. She looked suspicious. “But I didn’t make any wishes.”
Of course, Isabelle knew this, but she wasn’t going to admit it.
“Yes you did.”
“No I didn’t.”
“Yes you did.”
“No I didn’t.”
This was not going well at all. “Fine. You didn’t. But since I’m here, you must want something.” When Nora stayed silent, Isabelle had to think fast. “I could make you a rabbit,” she said. She pointed her wand at the stuffed animals on top of Nora’s bed. “I know for a fact that you thought that bunny outside was super cute.”
Isabelle flicked her wrist and swooshed around in a half twirl. She prayed that something would happen.
At first, nothing happened. It was a little embarrassing.
So she raised her wand higher and thought very hard about pets and how great it was to have one. She thought about that rabbit outside, and how sad Nora must be because she couldn’t go outside and pet it. And then she looked at Nora, and she wanted her to be happy. For a split second, Isabelle could feel that Nora wanted to believe.
A white bunny appeared on Nora’s bed in a small cloud of white sparkles. It was a small one. But it was real. And fluffy. And when it twitched its nose, it looked very cute.
“Ta-da!” Isabelle cried. “Aren’t you happy now?”
To Isabelle’s surprise, Nora did not clap her hands. She did not look even mildly happy. Her eyes started to water. Her skin changed from pale to pink to this blotchy red that was very unbecoming and un-princess-like. If that wasn’t bad enough, she began to scratch her arms and legs and fingers and head. Then the sneezing started.
Between sneezes, Nora managed to say, “Get that thing out of here. I’m allergic!”
“Sorry!” Isabelle raised her wand to use some magic, but then she stopped. She didn’t want to risk messing up a second time. Plus, she was already low on sparkles. Instead, she chased the bunny around the room until it was so tired it let her pick it up and take it outside.
When she came back, Nora was almost done vacuuming. Her skin looked back to normal. She only sneezed a few more times.
“So maybe you don’t want a pet,” Isabelle said. “But there must be some other kind of wish I can grant for you.”
Nora didn’t say anything at first. “Okay then, Fairy Godmother. I thought about it, and I know what I want. I would like to wish for world peace!”
Isabelle didn’t know what to say. “World peace? I can’t make that.”
Nora tried to hide her disappointment. “What about clean air, then?” When Isabelle shook her head no, Nora paced around her room. Suddenly, she snapped her fingers. “How about clean water for everyone in the world? Or no, I’ve got something better. Let’s end world hunger.”
Isabelle lowered her wand. She sat down on Nora’s bed.
Nora said, “Can you possibly make mean people nice? Or, even better—turn them into frogs?”
Although this sounded like a really excellent idea, Isabelle knew she couldn’t pull that off, either. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I can’t do any of those things.”
This was getting really awkward.
Isabelle explained one of the few things she knew for sure: that fairy godmother magic was limited and that personal happiness was the key to successful wish granting. “Do you have a piece of fruit? Maybe a peach or a nectarine? If it’s a little bit ripe, I can probably make you a bike. Do you want two wheels or three?”
“I don’t really need a bike.” Nora frowned deeply.
Isabelle wiggled her feet to keep her toes from turning numb. “What about some amazing shoes?” She pointed to her own black-and-white shoes with silver-tipped pointed toes. They were hand-me-downs from Clotilda—cute, but a little tight. “Aren’t these nice? If you want, I can make a pair just like them.” Isabelle raised her wand again.
Nora shook her head. “I like the shoes I have.” Isabelle checked them out. Sneakers. They looked worn in, and the laces were bright green.
Isabelle wouldn’t want to trade those in, either. They looked pretty much perfect, like they’d be great for twirling.
But this was beside the point, and Isabelle knew it. Now that she was here, she had no time to waste. She had to make this visit count and grant Nora some kind of wish.
She didn’t have that much time left before the deadline. But she couldn’t admit that to Nora.
Isabelle wondered if she could scare her into wishing for something. “You know,” she said in her most threatening voice, “if you can’t think of anything to wish for, I could get my sister to put you in a deep sleep for a hundred years.” Although she wasn’t sure Clotilda would agree to do that, in theory it wasn’t the worst idea ever. While Nora slept, Isabelle could go home and look in a book for suggestions on dealing with difficult princesses. But Clotilda probably wouldn’t help. No doubt, there was a rule about that.
Nora lay down on her bed. “Fine with me. Go get your sister. I’ll leave my family a note. You say a hundred years? This is going to be so amazing.”
“Are you crazy?” Isabelle cried. The deep-sleep idea was supposed to be for emergencies only, and this was not an emergency. Or maybe it was …
> Isabelle didn’t know. She really didn’t know anything.
She paced around the room. “There must be something that would make you happy right now, this second.”
“As a matter of fact, there is,” Nora said, finally smiling in a sort of sneaky (and un-princess-y) way. “I’d be very happy if you would leave.”
Over the next five days, things didn’t get better. But they didn’t get worse, either. Nora stayed serious. Isabelle stayed determined. She decided that the best place to hear her princess’s wish was right next to Nora, whether Nora liked it or not!
When Isabelle showed up the sixth day, Nora said, “I think I’m going outside to pick up garbage,” so Isabelle grabbed a garbage bag and walked around the park with her. This might sound sort of boring, but the sun was warm, and it turns out running around making things look nice was a lot of fun. People in the regular world were slobs! In just one afternoon, Isabelle and Nora picked up five bags of trash and two bags of glass bottles. When they brought them to the dump to be recycled, Nora didn’t look happily ever after yet, but her good mood was definitely encouraging.
So the day after that, when Nora wanted to collect clothes for the needy, Isabelle helped knock on doors. She was willing to magically repair the clothes, but there was no need. Nora was too fast. She sewed up every hole all by herself.
When Isabelle thought about it, Nora was not that different from a fairy godmother. She was just more practical and solved problems with her hands that Isabelle would have covered in sparkles.
“You might want to spend a little less time glued to your princess and a little bit more time planning,” Clotilda said. “But don’t ask me. I’m just your sister who landed one of the best princesses ever. What do I know?”
She wasn’t joking.
Three more days passed. Isabelle and Nora made lemonade for Nora’s stepbrother and his friends. They recycled plastic bottles. They saved a caterpillar from getting squashed on the sidewalk. Isabelle was having so much fun with Nora, she almost forgot she was a fairy godmother on a deadline.
Grandmomma, however, was on top of things. Every night, when Isabelle returned from Nora’s house, Grandmomma pointed to the calendar and asked, “Do you have any progress to report?”
Unfortunately, all Isabelle had were hopes and excuses. It apparently wasn’t going to be enough to spend time with Nora. She had to do something more—something she didn’t want to do.
She had to ask for help.
She knocked on Clotilda’s door.
“Is it okay if I talk to the brother?” she asked Clotilda, after Clotilda ushered her inside.
“That would be highly unusual,” Clotilda said, but that wasn’t the same as no. This technicality gave Isabelle a sliver of hope. She was sure she was on the right track.
Even though he was young (and a boy), Gregory practically worshipped his stepsister. Before Clotilda could change her mind and alert Grandmomma to a possible problem, Isabelle grabbed a couple of sparkles and made her way to Nora’s house.
Travel was getting easier. This time, she hardly left more than a sprinkling of sparkle dust on the kitchen floor.
“Bella,” Gregory said when he saw her. “Stand next to me. We’re making purple macarons!” Gregory and his mother were nice people with big imaginations, but not big enough to believe in magic or wishes or fairy godmothers. It didn’t matter how many times Nora told them who Isabelle was. They thought she was just a girl who was new to the neighborhood. They didn’t seem to notice that she never knocked. Or that she had a knack for showing up right before treats were about to come out of the oven.
As they put the cookies on cooling racks, Mrs. Silverstein sang. During cleanup, she danced with the broom. She acted almost exactly like an old-fashioned storybook princess. Only she made her purple macarons with food coloring, not with the help of cheerful mice.
After she was done, Nora’s stepmom turned to Isabelle. “Would it make you happy if I packed some of these up so the three of you could go to the park and eat them?”
No one had ever asked Isabelle what would make her happy. “What about Nora? Would that make her happy?” Isabelle asked.
“It would make her very happy,” Gregory said.
Isabelle ran into Nora’s room to get her. “Your stepmom made cookies. And they look amazing. You want to take some to the park to eat?”
Nora did not look happy. “Not today,” she said. And she was serious about it.
“What’s the matter?” Isabelle asked. “Did something happen?”
“I just don’t want to go to the park,” Nora said. “What if we stay here and the two of us climb a tree instead?”
Isabelle understood. Having a little brother was probably almost as annoying as having a bossy older sister. The girls collected their cookies and headed out to Nora’s backyard.
Sitting in Nora’s tree was almost as perfect as sitting between the girlgoyles. The tree had a thick trunk and many strong branches perfect for sitting. Isabelle noticed a bunch of initials, hearts, and flowers carved into the strongest branch. “Are those from your friends?” Isabelle asked, but Nora must not have heard her.
“Look over there,” Isabelle said, pointing toward the highest leaves. “It’s a nest.”
When Nora’s back was turned, Isabelle waved her wand, and a baby robin peeked its head out and flew onto Nora’s outstretched hand.
“It’s so cute,” Nora said with a huge smile on her face.
For the first time, Isabelle noticed that Nora had a dimple.
“Did you do that?” Nora asked. “Did you make that happen?”
This was the kind of thing that happened to lots of real princesses (not regular girls) in stories, but Isabelle refused to take any credit. She remembered what Grandmomma had said about giving your princess independence, and how Raine had grown powerful without taking credit for her magic. “Not my expertise,” she said with a shrug. “What do you want to do next?”
“Let’s climb down and see if Gregory wants to play a game,” Nora suggested.
On the ground, Isabelle taught them how to play the trust game. She still didn’t think it was really a game, but she was sure they both would like it. It was sort of fun to fall into each other’s arms. After they had each taken a turn, Gregory demanded another round. So first, Nora caught Gregory. Then Isabelle caught Gregory. Then Nora caught Gregory again. Gregory would have fallen ten more times, but Nora wanted to show Isabelle something secret inside—without her younger brother tagging along.
They went inside and upstairs to her room. Nora crawled under her bed and came out with an old wooden box that had a smooth top and a silver lock on one side. Isabelle was pretty sure Nora had never shown it to anyone before.
“It belonged to my mother. My real one,” Nora said.
Isabelle understood how important this must be. “What’s in it?”
“Just little things that she liked.” There was a porcelain cat, a baseball cap, and a couple of paintbrushes in the box.
“I bet she was nice,” Isabelle said, holding a picture of someone who looked a lot like Nora, only older.
Nora nodded. “She was the best mother in the whole world.”
Isabelle thought about her own mother and how much she wished she had a picture or a box of mementos.
“In the beginning, I thought all of this fairy godmother stuff was a little silly,” Nora confessed. “But you’re nice. And hanging out has been really fun. And not that silly at all.”
Isabelle smiled. “And I really wish I could make world peace for you. Or clean air. Or end poverty.”
Nora might not be like any of the other godmothers’ princesses, but Isabelle was happy about the way things were going. Nora was right—those things would make the world (and the fairy godmother world, too) a happier place. Being serious was not the same thing as being sad.
Plus, there were snacks at Nora’s house.
“Would you like me to make you a picture of the fairy godmoth
er world?” Isabelle asked. She wanted to share everything with Nora.
When Nora nodded, Isabelle whipped out her wand and began to show off. With one flick, she painted a map of the entire fairy godmother world. With another, she filled the northern part with giant yellow flowers and green-and-pink trees that reminded her of Angelica. For the southern part, she tapped her wand to make light-blue clouds and soft waves for Fawn. And in the middle, she flicked her wrist a few times to make the fields and the lakes and the perfect sunny days that she had lived in all her life. She even had enough sparkle power to make the castles and her secret hiding place. And, of course, the girlgoyles.
She wanted Nora to love them as much as she did. “They’re beautiful,” Isabelle said. She wished Nora could see them. “They’re my best friends.”
Nora didn’t smile. The truth was she looked a little strange. But maybe she was just thinking about her real mom. “You would totally love them,” Isabelle continued, waving her wand to give the girlgoyles a little extra pizzazz. “You can see everything when you sit right between them.”
Nora didn’t look at the painting. She didn’t look like she wished she could sit there. “I don’t get what’s so special about them. They’re not alive. They can’t talk. They don’t do anything.”
Even though everything Nora said was technically true, her words still stung.
Isabelle stopped painting. Something was wrong. It was something Isabelle hoped she could fix. But she didn’t know exactly what to say. Or do. So she sat still and listened.
Nora said, “There’s a place I know that’s even better than my tree or your girlgoyles. It’s beautiful. And no one goes there but me. If you want, I’ll take you there tomorrow. Unless you like having blisters, magic yourself a good pair of shoes.”
She’s taking me to her special woods! Isabelle thought to herself.
Later that night, Isabelle sat with the girlgoyles. She tested out the new shoes she’d made for the next day’s hike. She even thought about opening the rule book.
But she was confident Grandmomma had taught her everything she needed to know:
The Worst Fairy Godmother Ever! Page 5
