Cora slowly got to her feet. As she stood up and turned toward the door, she could feel Stella’s eyes burning into her, silently begging her to look back—but Cora never wanted to look upon the face of her betrayer again. Being expelled meant not only that she would have to give up her leading role in the school’s performance and leave her life there behind, but also that she wouldn’t graduate and become a Wish-Granter! She couldn’t believe it was happening.
As Cora headed out into the hallway and made her way past her classmates on the Cosmic Transporter, all of them oblivious to what had happened, she clutched the rock in her pocket and once again felt a jolt of power, like the one she had felt inside the NEF—but this time, it was all-consuming, unlike anything she’d felt before. A sense of supreme anger and righteousness was coursing through her veins and completely blackening her heart. It served to reinforce a growing certainty deep within her that she would find a way to make Stella and Lady Astrid pay. Oh, yes, they were most definitely going to regret this!
It had been three weeks since Cora was expelled from Starling Academy, and the dorm room Stella once shared with her best friend felt emptier than ever. She tried to focus on her studies, to carry on after everything that had happened, but it was a struggle—especially because Cora had refused to speak with her before her parents took her away, and she wouldn’t accept any of Stella’s repeated holo-calls, let alone respond to her holo-texts. Of course, Stella couldn’t exactly blame her. Stella was the one who had gone to Lady Astrid to tell her about the accident at the Negative Energy Facility, after all. Even though it would have been discovered eventually, thanks to the starveillance glameras, Stella still couldn’t help feeling that she was to blame for Cora’s getting expelled.
She had genuinely intended to let the whole thing go, as she and Cora had discussed. But Cora had been asleep for so long after they’d returned from the Negative Energy Facility—she hadn’t even gone to any of her classes that day!—and Stella couldn’t stop thinking about that cloud of negative energy. She had desperately tried one last time to rouse Cora from sleep, hoping to convince her that reporting the leak would be the right thing to do, but Cora was in such a deep slumber that waking her had proved impossible. Fearing that it would soon be too late to contain the negative energy, and that it might endanger Starland, Stella felt she had no choice but to report it to Lady Astrid without Cora. Once the headmistress confirmed the details of the negative energy leak by accessing the starveillance footage, Stella felt that she had to confess to all the events leading up to that moment, as well, including her unauthorized trip down to Wishworld with Cora.
Stella knew that she and Cora would both get in trouble, but she never expected that Cora would be expelled! If only Cora had confessed when Lady Astrid had given her the chance, perhaps she would still be there at Starling Academy. But now she was gone. Cora had been right: their lives, or at least Cora’s life, appeared to be ruined.
Stella shook her head and collapsed in tears on Cora’s bed as all the plans they’d made began to flood her mind. They were supposed to graduate together. They were going to get their dream jobs—hers as a wish scientist and Cora’s as an actor—and live next door to each other. And they would go on wish-granting missions together. But now the perfect future they’d envisioned seemed completely out of reach and Stella had never felt more alone. She buried her face in Cora’s pillow, which still had a lingering hint of her best friend’s sparkle-scent, and continued to sob. What if she never got to see her best friend again? No! There had to be a way to make things right—but it would require Lady Astrid’s help. So Stella slowly got up from the bed and wiped away her tears—and within a few minutes, she was knocking at the door to the headmistress’s office.
“Come in!” said Lady Astrid as the silver door slid open. “Stella—how nice to see you. I’ve been meaning to check on you, but things have been quite busy around here.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” Stella replied with a pained smile.
“Please have a seat,” Lady Astrid commanded, extending her arm in a grand gesture toward the same purple chair where Stella had sat a few weeks earlier. “What can I do for you?”
“Well,” Stella began, “I was wondering if you’d heard anything about Cora—if you knew how she was doing.”
“Ah.” The headmistress nodded and drew in her breath. “I haven’t been able to get ahold of her parents, but I’m sure they would have contacted me if there was a problem.”
“Oh, that’s good.” Stella was relieved to hear that and felt her friend must be okay. When Cora hadn’t taken any of her holo-calls or responded to her holo-texts, a small part of Stella worried that something awful had happened to her—although she of course realized it probably had more to do with Cora’s being angry with her. “And the negative energy that escaped from the facility? Do you know what happened to it?”
“Yes,” Lady Astrid replied with a comforting smile. “The Counter-Negative Unit was called in and they did indeed manage to capture and contain it.”
“Really? That’s wonderful!” Stella felt the weight of everything that had happened began to lift. Now she was more certain than ever that she could enlist Lady Astrid’s help in making things right with Cora. “So are you going to let Cora come back to school?”
The headmistress widened her eyes in shock. “Oh, dear—no. I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”
“But why not?” Stella frowned. “Please, Lady Astrid! Cora is one of the kindest and most generous Starlings I’ve ever known—and she was truly trying to help! Everything she did came from the most positive place.”
Lady Astrid’s face softened with sympathy. “I know it may seem that way to you, and accidents certainly do happen—but it is how we respond to those accidents that shows our true nature,” the headmistress explained. “Unfortunately, one might argue that all of Cora’s actions were in fact quite selfish, as noble as she may have believed her intentions to be—and at the very least, much of what she did following each mistake was motivated by a selfish desire to protect herself rather than others. That was clearly demonstrated when I offered her the chance to confess and she didn’t take it.”
It seemed like there was no way Lady Astrid was going to change her mind. Stella stared down at the purple star in the center of the sparkly gold rug and blinked back her tears. She wished Cora had just been honest about what had happened, and didn’t understand why her friend had been so cold and distant when Lady Astrid called her into the office.
“However,” the headmistress continued, “I must say that I am more impressed with you than ever before. Not only did you take a risk by coming to tell me what happened at the Negative Energy Facility and during your trip to Wishworld, but you continue to put others before yourself, as demonstrated by your efforts to help Cora yet again. You are a truly special girl, Stella. I hope you know that.”
Stella inhaled deeply and struggled to smile through her tears. The kind words from Lady Astrid should have made her feel at least a bit better, but instead they made her head throb with the same intense, painful guilt that had plagued her ever since Cora had been expelled. But then it occurred to her that if Lady Astrid held Stella in such high regard, there had to be some way for her to get through to the headmistress, to make her see how desperately Stella needed her best friend back.
“Thank you, Lady Astrid,” she replied before attempting one final plea. “But I still can’t help feeling like I was at least partly to blame for some of what happened, and I’m not sure how I’m ever going to live with myself if I can’t find a way to reach Cora and get her to forgive me. Please—isn’t there anything you can do?”
The headmistress shook her head sadly and pressed her hands together as she brought her fingertips to her lips, briefly closing her eyes before staring directly into Stella’s. “I wish that I could,” she said. “But it’s quite simply out of my hands—and I suppose the time has come for me to tell you why. However, what I’m about to reveal
must be held in the strictest of confidence and not shared with anyone. Especially Cora.”
Stella felt like she’d been punched in the stomach, the breath knocked out of her completely. What could Lady Astrid possibly want to tell her, and why couldn’t Cora know about it?
“Okay…” she barely managed to whisper.
“You see, Stella, I recently happened upon an oracle—an ancient text that spoke of the first time negative energy would be released into the Starland atmosphere,” the headmistress said.
“Oh, my goodness—you did?” Stella gasped.
“Yes,” Lady Astrid replied with a contemplative smile. “In fact, the prophecy specifically said that two Starlings would take a forbidden trip to Wishworld, and that the negative energy would be released as a result of that journey.”
Stella’s head continued to throb as she tried to process what the headmistress was telling her. It was almost impossible to believe. How could it be that everything she and Cora had done had been foretold—that their journey to Wishworld had already been written in the stars and they had simply been fulfilling their destinies?
“However,” Lady Astrid continued, “the oracle also stated that only one of the Starlings would be responsible for the release of the negative energy, while the other would be responsible for stopping its spread—in effect, for saving Starland.”
“Really?” Stella replied, her eyes widening with a mix of fear and reluctant pride as the magnitude of her part in the prophecy sunk in. “It said that?”
“It did.” The headmistress nodded.
“I see.” Stella swallowed hard and pressed her lips together to stop them from trembling.
“Now that Cora has been stopped and the negative energy has been contained, I cannot possibly allow her to return to Starling Academy,” Lady Astrid said. “To do so would directly undermine the prophecy—and truly, given all of her offenses, I believe that she is in fact getting off quite easy. Do you understand?”
“I think so,” Stella replied.
“Good,” Lady Astrid concluded.
But Stella didn’t see anything good about it. All she knew was that she needed to take some time to think about everything she’d just learned. It still didn’t seem fair that she got to stay at Starling Academy while Cora had to be expelled, and although she realized that she had to do as Lady Astrid said and keep what she’d just learned in confidence, she remained convinced that she needed to find a way to reach Cora—to somehow make things right between the two of them. Because no matter what the ancient oracle had predicted and no matter how different their destinies might appear to be in that moment, Stella refused to accept that she had lost her best friend forever. If there was any way for her to somehow realign their stars, she would find it.
Feeling a bit dazed after her conversation with Lady Astrid, Stella slowly made her way out of Halo Hall and headed down the path that led to the serene banks of Luminous Lake. Once there, she sat at the picnic table where she and Cora had been together just a few short weeks earlier—when Cora had proven to be the best friend ever by throwing a surprise Bright Day party for her. It was the perfect spot for Stella to try to reach out to Cora, to tell her once again how much she appreciated her—and how much she missed and needed to be back in touch with her.
Stella took a few deep breaths and then, with trembling hands, made the holo-call. One ring…two rings…three rings…four. As usual, it went to Cora’s message center; but this time, instead of ending the call, and instead of briefly asking Cora to call her back, Stella left a much longer holo-message.
“Hi, Cora, it’s me—Stella,” she began, her voice shaking. Then the words began tumbling out of her mouth at top speed: “I know you’ve probably seen that I’ve been calling you, and I’m sure you’ve received all my holo-messages and holo-texts, too, and I also know how angry you must be with me for reporting what happened to Lady Astrid—and you have every reason to blame me and hate me for it.
“But, Cora, please, you have to believe me—I tried to wake you up so we could report the incident together! I was just so worried about that negative energy leak. I never meant for you to get expelled and I miss you so much it hurts! You’re the best friend I’ve ever had and I can’t lose you. Please just call me back. I’m begging you! If you can somehow find it in your heart to forgive me, I know that we can get past this. I just know it!”
Stella paused for a moment and cleared her throat, unsure of what else she could possibly say. “Okay, then…um…bye.”
The moment Stella pressed the End button and lowered the antenna, she burst into tears again. At least she’d gotten it all out this time, and she could only hope it would be enough to get Cora to respond. But Stella also knew that it might not be enough—that she might never hear her friend’s voice, or see her face, again. What more could she do, though? She stared down at the screen of her Star-Zap, mustering every bit of positive energy she could, silently begging Cora to call back, willing the Star-Zap to ring.
But no amount of energy manipulation would be enough. Stella knew that. So she wiped the tears from her eyes, stood up, and walked down to the edge of the lake. Looking out at the smooth azure surface, she suddenly had the urge to throw her Star-Zap into the water so she wouldn’t have to stand there waiting, wondering if Cora would ever reply. Instead, she put the Star-Zap back in the pocket of her pink skirt and sat down on the soft grass.
Staring across the lake, she could see Star Prep off in the distance, and it made her wonder what Ozzie and Theo were up to. Had Theo heard from Cora since she’d been expelled? Perhaps Stella could call him or at least find out from Ozzie—and then maybe Theo could get Cora to call her back. Yes! Why hadn’t she thought of that before? It was definitely worth a try!
Stella pulled the Star-Zap out of her pocket and was about to press Ozzie’s number when a holo-text came through. It was from Cora! At last! She had finally responded! Stella touched her finger to the message, barely able to contain her nervous excitement as the words floated up before her eyes and she realized how long the message was. Stella assumed that that was a good thing, but of course she didn’t need to assume anymore—she simply needed to read it.
Stella: I got your holo-text—and all your other messages. I’m amazed that you actually said more than ten words this time—not that I believed a single one of them. At least you managed to get a few things right, though: 1) Yes, I am BEYOND angry that you reported everything to Lady Astrid. 2) Yes, I do blame you and hate you for it. 3) You were definitely responsible for some of what happened—you broke rules by going down to Wishworld, too! I was the one who tried to fix everything. I was the one who got rid of the Bad Wish Orb! And what thanks did I get? None. Instead I got EXPELLED. And yet you didn’t—even though you should have been.
So now you get to stay at Starling Academy and then graduate and go on to get the future and life you want (and probably even the job you want, if you’re still planning to steal my ideas for the Wish-Science Fair!). Meanwhile, I’m supposed to be shipped off to a brighting facility, where I’ll basically be turned into a Bot-Bot who can’t think for herself, who does everything by the holo-book. My dream of an acting career couldn’t seem further away. As if that weren’t enough, Theo broke up with me and my parents and my brother are so disappointed in me that they act like they don’t even know me anymore. I have never felt so misjudged, unfairly punished, rejected, and alone.
But the truth is that I don’t need them, and I most definitely don’t need you!!! As far as I’m concerned, you have already completed your Cycle of Life. So no matter how much you might beg and plead for my forgiveness, I can’t hear you anymore. I won’t hear you. Because I’M NOT LISTENING! So please stop holo-calling me and stop holo-texting me. It won’t do you any good from this day forward, because I’m going to block you from my contacts. We are no longer friends and we never will be again. Good-bye and good riddance!!!
Stella could barely let out a breath as she sat there, staring a
t the holo-text for so long that the message became nothing but a blur. But she could hear Cora’s awful words echoing in her head, making it throb more painfully than ever before. How could she have said such things, no matter how angry she was feeling—and how could she cut Stella off completely, with no way to reach her ever again? It was more than Stella could bear. She desperately searched her mind for another solution, but it was a complete blank. She was out of options.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Stella closed her Star-Zap, got up from the grass, and trudged back to the room she once shared with Cora. As hurt as she was by everything that had been said, she couldn’t be angry or even sad anymore. All she felt was numb, and all she could do was silently wish that one day Cora might find it in her heart to forgive her. As much as Stella wanted to take action, to do something to change the situation, she knew she would have to accept that it was entirely beyond her control—for the moment, anyway. Maybe it always had been.
As her final weeks at Starling Academy drew to a close, Stella refocused all of her energy on her studies. Anytime she thought about Cora, she channeled the memory into something positive—particularly when it came to her Wish-Science Fair project. As she toiled away in the lab, working inside one practice Wish Orb after another, she succeeded in proving her theory beyond any shadow of a doubt: while granting practice wishes, she was able to encourage Wishling girls to believe in themselves!
Then, each time a girl’s hope was restored, the most magical thing happened, just as Stella had presented it in Wishworld Relations class that day: a Good Wish Orb materialized and went zooming up to Starland. Even though it was only practice, and even though a small part of her couldn’t shake Cora’s accusations about her stealing the idea, it was still the most wonderful feeling Stella had ever experienced, and she couldn’t wait for the day she would get the chance to try to make it happen for real.
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