At the first rehearsal, Dee spent most of the day talking about “life on the stage,” which was another way of saying she talked for a really long time about how hard she worked on the script and how to get into the mood to act and that she had written many books, but this was her first play, and that she was excited to say something “important” and “meaningful” about the nature of good and evil.
Isabelle couldn’t help noticing that Samantha wrote down every word she said.
And so did Nora.
She also noticed that both Samantha and Nora had the same kind of notebook. And the same kind of pen. Isabelle caught them staring at each other when they didn’t think the other was looking.
During a break, Isabelle asked Janet what that was about (even though she knew).
Janet explained that Samantha and Nora used to be best friends. But then one day, they weren’t.
“I wish they’d both get over themselves and make up,” Janet said.
Isabelle wished Janet were her regular girl. She could grant that wish right now. “Do you have any theories?”
Janet talked quietly, so no one else could hear. “All I know is that they’re both miserable! And so am I! I miss doing things with Nora. Neither one of them is ever going to be really happy until they make up.”
So the next day, Isabelle decided to see what she could do without sparkles. (Remember: She didn’t have that many.) She suggested to Samantha, Janet, Nora, and Mason that they all get together after practice—to practice some more.
Samantha shrugged. “As long as we practice at my house.”
Unfortunately, Nora refused. (Mostly because of Prince Oberon. She had bad allergies.) “Why can’t we practice at mine?” When Samantha wouldn’t budge, Nora suggested that Isabelle come to her house alone. That made Samantha so mad she almost looked like the bad witch instead of the good one.
For the rest of the first week, neither one of them would give in, so Isabelle had no choice but to stick with Samantha. They practiced at school. And then they went home. Or to the Dairy Twirl. It seemed that every chance she got, Samantha complained about Nora.
“She’s so serious. And so inflexible. Did you see the way she messed up the dance? She kept standing and singing right in front of me.” Samantha crossed her arms over her chest and stamped her foot. “I wish Nora Silverstein had never tried out for the play.” Then she covered her mouth. Because of the word wish.
Isabelle knew this wasn’t official. “Don’t worry, I understood what you meant.”
Samantha looked relieved. “Knowing Nora, she’s messing up on purpose just to get on my nerves.”
It was really frustrating. Even though Samantha said she’d never be happy until Nora performed up to speed, Isabelle was pretty sure Samantha’s happily ever after had less to do with the play and more to do with friendship. The problem was, all these practices (and trips back and forth from the fairy godmother world) took a lot of sparkle power. So she just had to hope that Nora’s dancing got better. She didn’t have enough sparkles to experiment too much.
Act II
By the middle of the second week of practice, Nora was still struggling. She was still standing when she should be sashaying. And tiptoeing when she should be stomping. So Dee called an extra practice for Samantha, Nora, Mason, and Teja.
She made them do it four times. But each time, something went terribly wrong.
First Mason didn’t want to hold hands with Teja. Then Nora stepped on Samantha’s toe. Then Dee thought “the composition” was wrong and made everyone change places, and then she even added some lines—two for Nora and one for Mason. And then Nora stepped on Samantha’s toe again.
“I think it’s broken,” Samantha complained.
(It wasn’t.)
When they finally got through the scene without Dee having to yell “Cut,” Dee asked Samantha to “take five” so she could work with just Nora all by herself. After that, she’d work with Samantha. And then maybe they’d do the whole thing one more time.
Samantha did not like this at all. She hated waiting. More than that, she hated going second. She thought that Dee was paying more attention to Nora, and then she began wondering if she should have wished for someone other than Nora to get the part. “I thought this was supposed to be a professional production, but Nora walks around like she has two left feet.”
It was the perfect time to use some sparkle power.
(Just a tiny bit.)
Before Nora took the stage, Isabelle put a sparkle fleck on Nora’s fake wand. She told herself she was doing this to help Samantha relax, but the truth was, Isabelle also wanted Nora to be great. And with half a sparkle of confidence, she danced pretty well.
When Dee called Samantha to the stage for her dance, Isabelle got another fleck ready. Then she sat down next to Nora.
“I wish my mom could see this,” Nora said. Then she told Isabelle all the things she already knew. That her mom had died. And that even though she loved her stepmom, she missed her mom every day.
“What’s your family like?” she asked Isabelle. “Are they coming to the play?”
Isabelle told her they were still too busy getting settled in. Because that seemed like not enough of an excuse, she also told Nora that she had a sister and that her sister was making “life difficult.”
Nora understood completely. “My brother can be a pain, too. You know, Dee is letting him introduce the show before they open the curtain. My stepmom thinks it’ll be really cute. He practices all day.” Nora mimicked him. “Welcome to the Secret of the Magic Wishing Well.” She rolled her eyes. When she said well, she held it for a really long time.
Isabelle laughed. “You’re funny.”
Nora smiled. “No, I’m not. At least, that’s what Samantha says.” She looked at her lines and her ex-friend and got ready to go back onstage. “I wish I could be as good as her. And funny. It would be great to make everyone laugh.”
Isabelle knew she shouldn’t, but two more sparkles couldn’t hurt. “When I don’t think I can do something, my grandmomma says that practice makes perfect.” She pressed the sparkles directly into Nora’s hand and wished her luck. “My sister likes to give me sparkles. She tells me to keep calm and sparkle on.”
Nora stared at the glitter in her hand. “Thanks, Isabelle. I love it! My auntie Viv is into glitter, too. She calls it magic dust! I have a feeling you’re going to like her.”
Act III
For the next week and the one after that (so almost the entire fairy godmother season), Dee made the cast practice every single day, morning, noon, and night, until everyone knew their lines and their steps and their cues. By then, they were all exhausted, and frankly, no one cared about the secret of the well, magic or not.
The experience should have brought Samantha and Nora together, but it didn’t. Instead, every time they stepped onstage, they seemed to like each other a little bit less.
On the plus side, with and without a little sparkle magic, at least Nora was improving. With each rehearsal, she seemed a little more confident and a little less nervous. Now, when Dee wanted someone to sing louder, she sometimes meant Samantha. When Dee wanted to review a dance, it was because Samantha forgot a step, not Nora.
Janet blamed Dee. She thought she was putting too much pressure on all of them. “It’s a school play. It doesn’t have to be perfect.”
Samantha disagreed. “Of course it has to be perfect. This is my big opportunity. If I want to be a famous actress, this has to be great.”
By the morning of the dress rehearsal, Isabelle was sick of practice. She was sick of waiting. She reminded Samantha she had a deadline. “I think you should wish for a great performance.”
Samantha didn’t want to “waste” her wish on one event. (She was down, but still confident.) “My problem isn’t me. It’s Nora. When she messes up, we’ll all look silly.”
Isabelle didn’t think she was being completely honest. “You’re not worried about being upstaged, are
you?” Even though her wand was starting to feel dangerously light, she plucked a sparkle from her wand. “Are you sure you don’t know what you want?” Isabelle asked.
Samantha was only sure that she wasn’t sure. “Why don’t you go home and come back tomorrow,” she said. “I’ve saved my wish this long. Are you sure I can’t wish for a whole bunch of wishes?”
Isabelle knew an emergency when she was in one. She had to do something—something she didn’t want to do.
She puffed herself back to the fairy godmother castle as fast as she could.
She had to ask Clotilda for help.
She knocked on her sister’s door and got ready to grovel.
Took you long enough,” Clotilda said.
Isabelle flopped onto her sister’s perfectly made bed. “She won’t make her wish! I don’t know what to do.”
As Clotilda paced around the room, Isabelle shook out her wand and counted her sparkles. She was down to eight. (This wasn’t a lot.)
Clotilda wasn’t really in the mood to hear her sister’s complaints. “You gave her a deadline?”
“I did.”
“Do you know what she might want?”
“I do, but she won’t wish for that. She’s too focused on the play.”
This was the problem. Even though it seemed that Samantha had everything, she’d never be happy until she was friends with Nora again.
“Have you heard from Grandmomma?” Isabelle asked.
“Just to check in. Nothing big,” Clotilda said, walking around her room, not making eye contact.
Clotilda might be the fourth best fairy godmother, but she was a terrible liar.
“You know, I know what Grandmomma’s doing,” Isabelle said.
“Then you should also know that there’s more mayhem going on than ever!”
Now Isabelle was concerned. “What do you mean?” she asked.
Clotilda looked unusually eager to get this off her chest. “Angelica’s new princess wished to win the annual regatta that her first princess was sailing.” Isabelle was pretty sure this didn’t seem like that big a deal for a godmother with Angelica’s skills, but apparently she was wrong. Clotilda said, “Just as her first princess was approaching the coast of Greece, the water turned choppy. She couldn’t control her sail. Her boat nearly capsized.”
Isabelle had to agree that must have been terrifying. “But it didn’t capsize. And the right princess won? Everyone got to shore safely?”
“That’s not the point.” Clotilda stamped her foot and paced around the room. “It was supposed to be a little race between rivals. Instead, it felt like someone or something was making mischief.”
Isabelle had never heard Clotilda doubt anything in the fairy godmother world. “What about Fawn?”
“Her new practice princess wanted desperately to ski—for whatever reason—please don’t ask me. So Fawn made another snowstorm. That should have been easy peasy, but then just like Angelica’s, her wish went rogue! In this case, the snow kept coming. And coming. And her poor princess skied, but she didn’t wish for the whole eastern half of the globe to get snowed in. Luckily, her first practice princess had the determination of ten princesses. She helped dig everyone out. Before she was done, she saved three puppies and a cat and even a goldfish.”
Isabelle made a mental note not to do anything that depended on weather. “And Minerva?” she asked.
“Minerva is in the wind.” (In other words, Clotilda wasn’t sure.) “She used her sparkles to help her first princess.” Clotilda shook her head. “Zahara is taking it personally. I doubt either one of them will be at the Extravaganza.”
“Why do you think this is happening?” Isabelle asked.
Clotilda shut her door, even though no one else was in the castle to snoop. “Things are so bad that Luciana won’t even let me visit Melody. Did you hear about her spill?” She wrung her hands with worry. “Grandmomma and the Bests are convinced that someone’s up to no good.”
A feeling of dread came over Isabelle. “You don’t think it’s Mom, do you?”
Clotilda paced around her room. “I hope not,” she said. “But who knows? Maybe her heart turned dark? Maybe being away for this long changes you.”
“Clotilda,” Isabelle said, “bad things happen. It can’t be her.”
Clotilda sighed. “Listen. Whatever you do, be on the lookout for anything or anyone that looks odd. But most of all, make Samantha happily ever after, and do it quickly. Tomorrow’s the play, right? Well, let’s hope she gets some stage fright and wants to use her wish on something straightforward like that. Or maybe some nice boy will come to watch her. Be ready for anything, and then come back home.”
With a warning like that, Isabelle had to go straight to the girlgoyles. (There was no better place to think.) She felt like everything was off-balance, especially her. If Grandmomma thought that Mom was sabotaging wishes, it meant Isabelle’s mom had turned bad. But it also meant that she was actually out there in the regular world. Isabelle held up her wand and catapulted one tiny sparkle into the sky. (It was all she could spare.) She hoped that maybe tonight, Nora and Samantha could figure things out. More than that, she hoped that Mom was out there, and that she was looking up at the sky. Maybe she could even see Isabelle’s sparkle. And wish her back some luck.
The next day, Isabelle arrived at Samantha’s house first thing in the morning. This was a good thing, because just as Clotilda had predicted, Samantha was in a tizzy.
Her hair was too wavy.
Her shoes felt a little tight.
The dress rehearsal had not gone well. Samantha’s throat felt a tiny bit scratchy. Not scratchy enough to cancel, but just scratchy enough so that one of her dads was busy making tea with honey and toast with cinnamon and sugar while the other one had gone out to get a babka ice cream sandwich, since that always made Samantha feel better.
Isabelle got out her wand. “So, do you want to wish? Shall I make everything perfect?”
“That’s not going to be enough.” Samantha paced around the room. “Last night, Nora sounded better than me. It was like she had her own fairy godmother! Dee couldn’t get enough of her. All Dee cared about was Nora, Nora, Nora, Nora. She kept calling her an unknown talent. And she couldn’t believe how amazing her hair looked. You’d think she never saw teased hair before.” Then Samantha looked at Isabelle’s hair and apologized. “No offense.”
Isabelle shrugged. The truth was, she liked her puffy hair. “Are you sure I can’t convince you to wish?”
Samantha shook her head. “Not yet.” First, she wanted to get there early. She also wanted to practice her song one last time.
She was nervous. (Isabelle could tell.)
When they saw Janet, she noticed, too. “I think the pressure is getting to Samantha,” she told Isabelle, giving her a cookie. “It used to just be a fun play. Now no one even wants my cookies. Instead, they hired a caterer!”
Isabelle took a bite. The cast of the play didn’t know what they were missing! She spied Nora saying good-bye to her dad; stepmom; her brother, Gregory; and a lady in a long flowery dress and old-fashioned shoes. Isabelle walked over to say hi (and to give Gregory a cookie for luck).
But when she got closer, she almost turned around and ran. Nora’s hair and wand were covered in sparkles. “How did you do that?” Isabelle asked. The sparkles—or what Nora called glitter—looked just like the sparkles Isabelle had left in Nora’s memory box. Or, in other words: This was going to be a disaster with a capital D.
Nora pointed to the lady in the flowery dress. (She was too busy flicking her wand to notice that Isabelle was freaking out.) “My favorite auntie, Viv, did it.” In this case, favorite had to be another word for eccentric. Or maybe magical. Because besides the dress, Viv wore eighteen bracelets on one wrist as well as a ring that looked like it had come out of Zahara’s accessory box. And Viv’s shoes weren’t just old-fashioned. They looked like they were made of gold. But dirty. The way old shoes get when you wear t
hem all the time.
Nora’s stepmom said, “When Vivvy and I were little girls, we used to play with glitter all the time. We slept on our braids, too. It’s the fastest way to make curly hair magical!”
Isabelle looked at Viv. She didn’t know what a rogue fairy godmother looked like. She didn’t know if sparkles lost their power if they were exposed to air. Or if her seven sparkles were any match for this.
Viv said, “I could do the same thing with your hair,” but Nora said no. She wanted to give the extra glitter to Mason and Teja for their costume, so they could all match. They were already “stuck together” in a special shirt that they shared. They demonstrated their special walk, which wasn’t so different from Samantha’s.
Once Mason and Teja were covered with sparkles, Nora’s family took a whole bunch of pictures of the three of them saying, “We are going to make those kids suffer.” Apparently, that was their favorite line from the play, not what they were going to actually do. They even asked Samantha to pose for a few photos, but she wouldn’t. She was too busy pacing. And worrying. And talking to herself.
This was as bad as a snowstorm. Or a boat capsizing in the sea.
“Meet me in the last stall of the girls’ room,” Samantha said. Isabelle hoped that meant she was ready to wish.
When Isabelle got there, Samantha was frantic. “I know what I want,” she said, pulling Isabelle into the stall and shutting the door. All over the walls were hearts and arrows and drawings and names. In one corner, someone had drawn squares to look like an empty crossword. It looked a little like Isabelle’s notebook.
Samantha told Isabelle to focus. “I want Nora to mess up. And I want her to mess up big-time. Can you do that?”
“Are you sure?” Isabelle felt sick to her stomach.
This was not the kind of wish she ever wanted to grant. This wasn’t a good wish. This wasn’t a nice wish. This couldn’t be what Luciana had in mind.
Isabelle also wasn’t sure she could do it. All those sparkles on Nora’s head—they were not going to wear off quickly. “I could just wish for you to be the best. That would probably work better.”
Keep Calm and Sparkle On! Page 7
