Slamming the back door behind her, Cinders ran down the garden and cut into the forest as fast as her legs would carry her, until her father, her stepsisters, her stepmother and her dashed dreams of attending the king’s ball were left far, far behind. Sparks, her big, red fluffy dog, leaped to his feet and hurtled after his best friend. Once she was far enough away from the cottage, she plopped down on to the soft ground and examined her hands. Not a trace of sparkles, not even the slightest suggestion of fizziness.
‘What was all that about?’ she muttered to no one in particular.
‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ replied a snooty voice. ‘Could it possibly have had anything to do with sausages?’
Cinders jumped up and looked all around. ‘Who said that?’ But there was no one to be seen.
‘I don’t mean to harp on, but I’m terribly peckish. I haven’t had any breakfast yet, you see. I don’t suppose you’ve got anything in your pockets? A frankfurter? A hot dog? Even a chipolata would do the trick.’
Cinders blinked and rubbed her eyes. If she didn’t know better, she might have thought Sparks was the one talking.
‘Brilliant,’ she said with a big sigh. ‘I’ve gone mad. First I’m imagining flying dishes, and now a talking dog.’
Sparks wagged his large, shaggy tail.
‘What’s so mad about that?’ he asked. ‘A talking dog is a lot more sensible than leaving the house without so much as a single sausage, if you ask me.’
‘You’re talking!’ Cinders yelled.
‘Clearly,’ Sparks replied.
‘But dogs can’t talk!’ she shouted.
‘Well, I can,’ he said.
‘Everything all right over there?’
Cinders looked up to see her neighbours, Jack and Jill, walking towards her. Sparks stuck out his tongue and panted happily.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said, keeping one eye on her dog. ‘Although I’m starting to think I might have bumped my head in the night.’
‘Nasty business that,’ Jack said, pointing to his own bandaged noggin. ‘You want to be careful.’
‘Try wrapping it up with some vinegar and brown paper,’ Jill suggested. ‘That always works for us.’
‘Thanks,’ Cinders said, waving them off as they disappeared down the path. ‘I’ll do that.’
‘Vinegar also happens to go very nicely with chips, which go even better with sausages,’ Sparks commented, making his friend jump. ‘Just a suggestion I’m putting out there.’
Cinders stared at the big red dog in front of her. ‘You can talk,’ she whispered.
‘Apparently so,’ he replied in a woofy yet dignified voice.
‘But you’ve been mine since I was a baby,’ Cinders said. ‘How come you’ve only just started talking today?’
‘Never really felt like it before,’ he said, scratching his ear with a hind leg. ‘To be honest, most of the things you lot talk about are very dull. Ooh, the prince has got a new cape. Ooh, they’ve painted the castle blue. Ooh, it’s raining – no it’s not, yes it is. Blah-blah-blah.’
‘Well, there’s no need to be rude,’ Cinders replied, looking at her hands again. If Sparks really was talking, perhaps those dishes really did fly into the sink earlier. Or maybe she really had hit her head. ‘I wish there was someone who could explain what’s going on.’
‘Maybe there is,’ Sparks said with a wink. ‘Though I wish we had some sausages.’
‘Me too.’ Cinders rubbed her hand against her rumbling tummy. ‘I wish we had a whole plateful of sausages.’ Before she could even blink, her hands began to tingle and a giant platter, piled high with plump pork sausages, appeared in front of them.
‘Whatever you just did,’ Sparks said as he dived towards the pile of porkies, ‘please do it again.’
‘What is going on?’ Cinders demanded, waving her glittery hands in the air. ‘I wish everything would just stop for a moment!’
And everything did.
Everything and everyone was silent and still. Sparks was frozen in mid-air, a family of bluebirds hovered overhead and a pair of butterflies hung happily in the sky as though time had stopped completely.
‘Oh, dear me,’ Cinders said. ‘This can’t be good.’
‘Hello?’ Cinders waved a glittering hand in front of Sparks’s face. He didn’t move. She clicked her fingers up at the bluebirds, but they just stayed exactly where they were, floating right above her head.
‘Oh, dear me indeed,’ she said again. ‘This isn’t good at all.’
‘I don’t know … It’s nice to have a bit of peace and quiet sometimes, isn’t it?’
A tiny red-haired woman appeared as if from nowhere. She gave Cinders a little wave and snagged some sausages from the plate in front of Sparks’s nose, munching away happily while Cinders stared. Like most people with at least one half-decent parent, she had been brought up not to stare, but it was hard not to gawp at this woman. Her hair was almost the exact same shade of red as Sparks’s fur, and her skin was so pale that it almost glittered. She was a very stare-at-able person.
And that was before you even considered the fact that she had a pair of wings sprouting out of her back.
And was floating.
In the air.
‘Okay, someone’s going to have to tell me what’s going on,’ Cinders said, looking her new friend up and down, from her big black boots and bright blue tutu to the floppy purple bow in her hair.
‘Brilliant.’ She finished off a sausage and licked her fingers before starting on another. ‘Having a difficult day?’
‘You could say that,’ Cinders said. She wrapped her arms round Sparks, trying to pull him back down to the ground, but he wouldn’t budge. ‘Don’t suppose you’ve got any idea what’s going on?’
‘I could hazard a guess.’ The woman looked up at the floating dog. ‘Magic isn’t always terribly reliable, especially when you’re just starting out.’
‘Magic?’
Cinders let go of Sparks and looked down at her fingers.
‘What else did you think was