Lindsey Kelk - Cinders and Sparks - Magic at Midnight

‘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.’

‘H ello?’ 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 going on?’ The little pale lady held out her hand. ‘Hello, I’m your godmother.’

Remembering her manners, Cinders took the hand in her own and her skin began to tingle again. ‘I think you might have the wrong person,’ she said. ‘I haven’t got a godmother.’

‘Actually, you have –’ the woman fluttered her wings – ‘because I’m it. I realise I’m a bit late, but, in my defence, you were very difficult to find. You’re not on any kind of social media, are you? What’s that all about? Oh, I should have introduced myself properly – you can call me Brian.’

Cinders looked down and realised she was still shaking the woman’s hand.

‘Where I’m from, Brian is generally considered a man’s name,’ she said as politely as possible, letting go of Brian’s hand.

‘Says who?’ Brian replied. ‘It’s a perfectly good name. Why on earth would you stop half the people on the planet using it?’

‘Beats me,’ Cinders said. ‘That’s just how it is.’

Brian shook her head in disagreement. ‘You make no sense, you people. Doesn’t really matter, does it? I do love the way it rolls off the tongue.’

To be fair, Cinders couldn’t really argue with her.

‘Anyway, I’m not sure you’d be able to pronounce my real name,’ Brian went on. ‘So let’s stick with Brian for now. I’m guessing you’ve got some questions.’

‘One or two.’ Cinders nodded. ‘Mostly about the whole magic thing. And the godmother thing. And the talking dog. And the wings.’

‘The last one is easy. I need the wings to fly,’ Brian replied, speaking very clearly, as if Cinders might not understand. ‘And I’m your godmother because your mother chose me to be your godmother. That’s usually how that works. As for the magic, I don’t know why it’s decided to show itself today, but, if you want to tell me what you’ve been up to, that might give me a clue.’