“Lucky Lou’s has its own juice bar, you know,” I said. “If it’s plankton and zucchini you want, then plankton and zucchini you shall have.”
“Brilliant. With whipped cream.” He bent over to scoop up the ball and almost lost his balance. I offered an arm for support, but he pulled himself together.
“Off we go,” he said, as we started walking back to my house. I stayed right next to him, just in case.
three hot showers and three plates of buttermilk pancakes with sliced honeydew melon and hazelnut-maple syrup later, Colin, Tammy, my parents and I arrived at Lucky Lou’s. As we marched across the parking lot toward the entrance, my dad rubbed his hands together like a greedy land-lord from a silent movie. “This year,” he announced, “I’m going to get a jump on the yard.”
Dad loved to garden, or claimed to, but he was always a month or two behind what the season called for. He was known for raking the fall leaves in April and starting tomatoes from seed in June. It wasn’t his fault, really. You couldn’t work an eighty-hour week at First Bank of Connecticut and keep the yard in top form by sending it frequent text messages.
But Dad was still out of a job, spring was nearly here, and you could see the agricultural ambitions forming in his poor, deluded mind: fifty-pound watermelons! The prize tomato at the county fair! First place ribbon goes to Vice President Farmer Daniel Rawlinson, résumé in one hand, pitchfork in the other.
The vast Lucky Lou’s grocery warehouse loomed in front of us. The equally vast lawn and garden department had a separate entrance, over to the right. Dad was already veering in that direction.
“Look at that!” he said, reading the signs. “‘Preseason sale on all garden items!’ ”
“No gnomes, Daniel,” my mother warned. “We don’t have room for any more garden gnomes.”
“But—they’re on sale.” His face went slack as he read the sign, and his voice sounded like he was hypnotized. “I’ll meet you guys back at the car. . . .”
Unlike dad, Who would stand there for twentЧ minutes calculating which brand of tomato sauce was cheaper per ounce and then come home with bulk packages of sale items that none of us liked or used, Mom shopped with her eye on the clock. She blazed through the aisles and ticked things off her list like a game-show contestant in a race to the checkout. With Dad safely occupied in the garden department, Mom grabbed a cart, told me to keep an eye on Tammy and took off at a sprint down the aisles.
Perfect. Now Colin, Tammy and I could busy ourselves by tasting the free samples, enjoying Lucky Lou’s infamous animatronic entertainments and, most importantly (to me, at least), figuring out how to redeem this magical latte coupon. I wasn’t sure what would happen when I did, but I had a strong suspicion I’d be getting more than a free cup of coffee out of it.
Which is why, I thought to myself, I’d better do it without Colin or Tammy around. Luckily this place was full of distractions. To Tammy’s delight, there was a person walking up and down the aisles in a chicken suit.
“There’s a sorry state of affairs,” Colin observed. “Poor chap went to drama school with the best of intentions, and now look at him.” Then Colin, being Colin, had to go speak to the bird.
“Not exactly like doing the classics, eh, friend? Are you having a grand time in there, or is it murder?”
“‘Murder most fowl,’ ” the bird intoned, “‘as in the best it is.’ ”
“Foul, fowl, I get it,” said Colin, delighted. “You’re a clever chick, aren’t ye? Not every day ye hear the poultry quoting Hamlet. Poultry, ham—get it, boss? Me hat’s off to ye, bravo!”
The person in the chicken suit couldn’t bow because the chicken suit had no waist, but he swayed back and forth, which seemed kind of like a bow.
“Listen to this!” As if we had a choice. Tammy had found the button on a life-sized robotic cow. The button made the cow emit a deafening moo each time Tammy pressed it. After a few moos she got distracted by something above her head. “See!” she cried, pointing up. “They’re going to do the song!”
Suspended about eight feet in the air was the animatronic Lucky Lou’s Farmhouse Band. Each of the figures was brightly painted, with articulated limbs and the ability to spin and dance in place. A pig played the banjo, a horse played the drums, there was a rooster that smacked a tambourine and crowed on cue and a rosy-cheeked milkmaid swung her bucket and sang:
“Lucky who? Lucky you!
“Shopping here at Lucky Lou’s!”
The figurines lurched and danced, their fake jaws chomping up and down to make it look like they were singing, and the tinny song blasted from speakers that were hidden someplace nearby. Tammy clapped with joy.
“Huh,” said Colin. “That’s givin’ me an idea. Mor, can I borrow yer mobile to call Alice? I left mine in the car.” I handed him my phone, and watched with displeasure as he typed in Alice’s number from memory.
What made me even more unhappy was having to admit to myself that I was jealous. Me! A half-goddess! Jealous of some obnoxious girl who Colin was assigned to do a project with! It wasn’t even like they’d picked each other. If she’d been nice to me maybe I wouldn’t be feeling this way—but if she were nice, then I might really have something to worry about. . . .
What I need is some coffee, I thought. “I’ll be back,” I mouthed, as Colin talked robotics with Alice. “Watch Tammy, okay?” He nodded and kept talking.
“. . . I don’t think we should underestimate the appeal of doing something anthropomorphic. . . . I agree, functionality is the primary criteria, but user satisfaction is a crucial component as well. . . . The judges are only human after all. . . .”
now that i Was holding the latte coupon in mЧ hand, I couldn’t find a Lucky Lou’s employee anywhere. This struck me as odd, since one of the more annoying things about Lucky Lou’s was the army of red-aproned, perpetually happy “Luckies” who followed you everywhere, offering assistance. Didn’t they know that sometimes you just wanted to stare at the Pepperidge Farm cookies in peace and privacy until you decided which kind to get?
I walked to the end of the dairy section and crossed over to the snack aisle, where the potato chips were stacked sky-high. No Luckies. No customers either, which was also odd, because Saturday afternoon was always a zoo at Lucky Lou’s, and the aisle where I’d left Colin and Tammy was pretty crowded. Part of me was tempted to go back, just to make sure they were still there, but I had to be brave. Things were getting strange and, based on my experience with the faery realm, that was probably a good sign.
My footsteps echoed on the linoleum as I walked past the beverages and turned into the canned goods aisle. No customers, no staff—no one except the chicken. It was alone now and unobserved, but still in character, diligently scratching for worms on the linoleum floor.
I walked up to it. “Excuse me,” I said. “Do you have a latte bar?”
“Whatte?” the chicken said, its voice muffled by the costume.
“Latte,” I repeated. “You know, overpriced coffee. Look.” I showed it the coupon. “Where can I redeem this?”
It waved one of its stubby yellow wings and started to walk away.
“Do you want me to follow you?” I asked.
The chicken nodded and kept walking. It led me to a set of wide double doors at the back of the store, the kind that looked like they would lead to the stockroom. There was a sign posted on the doors:Lucky Lou’s “Lucky Lattes”
Walk this way
I’d been in this store a million times, but I knew I’d never seen that sign before.
The doors swung open in front of us, and there was a blast of cold air, like we were walking into the freezer section. I tried to go inside, but I couldn’t. Despite the cold breeze flowing out, it felt like there was a wall of glass preventing me from going in.
“Walk this way,” the chicken said. As it moved, it bobbed its head in a convincingly chickenlike way, and passed through the doors to the other side.
I bobbed my head too,
and took a step.
Buk buk buk buk.
This time, I walked right through.
As soon as I did, the temperature dropped about twenty degrees. There were cartons of eggs stacked to eye level on either side of us, and something sharp and crunchy was underfoot.
“What are we walking on?” I asked the chicken. My breath formed little puffs of smoke in the cold.
“Eggshells,” it said. It paused, then added, “It’s a chicken joke.”
Not a very funny one, in my opinion, but I wasn’t going to argue.
The chilly, egg-lined passageway abruptly opened up into someplace warm and sunny. We were standing in the far end of an emerald green meadow, and down a gentle slope in the distance was a sprawling, thatched-roof farmhouse and red-painted barn. I heard the honking chatter of ducks coming from near the house. There were sheep dotting the hillsides and a cow grazing nearby. I resisted the urge to go see if the cow had a button that made it moo.
“Are we in Ireland?” I asked. The chicken didn’t answer. Then the farmer himself emerged from the barn, cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed: “Colin! Colin, me boy! Time for lunch!”
“It’s a shame the mortals have chopped all this forest down,” the chicken commented. “But if you wiggle back in time a bit to when the farm was still here, it’s the perfect place to throw a party.”
From the tall woods behind me, a little boy, maybe four or five, came scrambling through the brush. He was covered with leaves and mud. For a moment we made eye contact; his were an unmistakably bright and familiar cornflower blue.
“Time for lunch,” I said, smiling. He stared at me, openmouthed.
“You’re pretty, ma’am!” he blurted. “I’m goin’ to draw a picture of ye! But I must eat first.”
Then he took off at full speed toward the house.
He’s always been a charmer, I thought. With a good appetite too.
“Come,” said the chicken, turning its back to the farmhouse. “The party’s this way.”
I followed the chicken into the woods.
seven
mЧ feathered guide and i Walked down a narrow path through the forest. The chicken was clumsy in that big yellow suit, and a few times I had to help it get untangled from branches that had overgrown the trail. After we were well into the dense woods, and the meadow and farm had been left far behind us, I started to hear music, faint but unmistakable, coming from further down the path.
Now, once a person has buk-buk-bukked her way through a faery portal in a grocery store, and then finds herself walking through an enchanted Irish forest with a mysterious guide in a chicken suit, you’d expect that any music she’d hear would be in the magical and tinkly vein, right? Flutes, harps—maybe some ethereal, Björk-like vocals?
Apparently not. What I heard was your basic mediocre dance club mix: eighties rock, classic disco, some mild hip-hop and a dash of Meatloaf. The music grew louder as we walked.
Finally we reached a large clearing. Within it were the Faery Folk, hundreds of them, all dressed like the animatronic barnyard creatures at Lucky Lou’s. There were farmer outfits, cow outfits, sheep outfits and many different fruit and vegetable outfits. One tall and willowy girl was dressed like a stalk of corn, with her own yellow hair providing the silk that spilled out at the top.
“This costume is amusing, but it does get rather warm inside,” the chicken remarked. “I don’t know how the real chickens can stand it.” Then it lifted off its head.
The chicken was a guy, about my age, fair-haired, with chiseled features and chocolate-brown puppy-dog eyes. He looked a lot like Mike Fitch, actually, but the way he talked reminded me of someone else . . . someone I’d met in Ireland—but who?
“Morganne,” he scolded. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten me again!”
“Oh, fek!” I exclaimed. “Finnbar? Is that you?” All too well I remembered the mischievous, spoiled faery boy who’d brought chaos to a kingdom. Finnbar and his clever, maddening enchantments was single-handedly responsible for my adventures in long-ago Ireland last summer. But last summer Finnbar was just a kid, maybe ten years old. Now—assuming this was really him—he was my age, and a hunk to boot.
“Is it me, she asks!” He sighed. “Am I so very unmemorable? Morganne, you do tend to hurt my feelings.”
Maybe he wasn’t a boy soprano anymore, but that petulant, teasing voice was pure Finnbar. “Sorry,” I said quickly. “Of course I haven’t forgotten you. It’s just that the last time I saw you, you were a little boy.”
“Even little mortal boys don’t stay that way for long, you know.” He smiled. “Children are not allowed at faery balls, and I desperately wanted to come to this one! So I came as myself, but grown.”
I didn’t get it.
He humphed with impatience. “Think, Morganne! You’re practically grown. Don’t you remember yourself as a child?”
“Of course I do.”
“So,” he said, as if he were explaining something that was ridiculously obvious, “when I’m a child, why shouldn’t I remember myself grown? Honestly, you make everything so complicated!” Finnbar looked at me disapprovingly. “Someone should have told you it’s a costume ball, though. You’re not really dressed appropriately.”
For a guy in a chicken suit, I thought, you’ve got a lot to say about other people’s outfits. I looked down, half-expecting to see myself decked out in a floor-length, flowy goddess-gown, suitable for personal appearances in the faery realm, but I was still in the jeans and Converse high-tops I’d worn to Lucky Lou’s. My hands flew up to my hair: It was short, not long and wavy and princesslike, the way it had been the last time someone called me Morganne.
“Wait,” I said. “In Ireland, I was either Morgan or Morganne. Right now I seem to be both. What gives?”
“Morgan, Morganne, hair, no hair. You place so much importance on externals! And spelling! Never my best subject.” He giggled, which made his feathers shake. “That little boy from the farmhouse saw you as you really are, though, never fear.” Then he frowned. “But your outfit does need—something. Would you like to wear the chicken head?”
“No, thanks.” He seemed disappointed. “Listen, Finnbar.” I tried to sound friendly. “I would love to hang out with you and catch up. First, though, I need you to tell me what’s been happening to my friend Colin.”
“But you did want a beverage, didn’t you?” said a tall, very thin woman, gliding up to us. She was dressed exactly like the milkmaid in the animatronic band at Lucky Lou’s, except with too much makeup and a serious case of scary Botox face. Kind of like Mrs. Blainsvoort. “I thought that’s why you came!”
Before I could reply, the woman handed me a tall, steaming Lucky Lou’s to-go cup. “Your latte, my dear. Two shots, extra foam. Just the way you like it.”
“Oh no,” Finnbar muttered. “It’s Mum.”
“We’ve never had a ball With a produce theme before,” the woman remarked, as she led us over to the buffet. The food was laid out on the far side of the clearing, on tables made of enormous tree stumps. “It’s so rustic! Don’t you love it?”
A pair of faeries dressed as cantaloupes attempted to waltz past us, but with their round melon bellies they could barely reach each other’s hands. “Granted, some of the outfits are not perfectly suitable for dancing. But don’t they look delicious? I hope you don’t mind the recorded music,” she added slyly. “This DJ leaves something to be desired, but our usual musicians were already engaged for the evening.”
“I don’t care about the music,” I said. “But who are you?”
Finnbar started to giggle again, as if I’d just said the funniest thing in the world. His mother shushed him with a glance.
“Silly Morganne,” she said. “I’m—”
“Queen Titania!” A pint of strawberries wearing a dangling tag marked “organic” ran over to us. “May I borrow your delightful guest for a dance?” The strawberries held out a hand to me. “Unless you’re prone to rashes
? Some people find me an allergen, but it’s completely unintentional, I assure you.”
“Maybe after I finish my coffee,” I said, gesturing with my cup. I had no interest in dancing; I just wanted to get the Faery Folk to lay off Colin. But I knew it was best to be diplomatic with these magical types.
“Yes, come back shortly, dear Berrywinkle,” said the queen. “The poor girl hasn’t even eaten yet. Finnbar, fix Morganne a plate.”
Finnbar moved to obey, but his hands were still trapped inside his costume’s floppy chicken wings. “Next time, can we please have a sit-down dinner?” he grumbled. “Buffets can be so difficult.”
“I can help myself,” I said, but when I looked at the food I completely lost my appetite. The trays were filled with tiny people, dressed in tuxedos and ball gowns and all creepily realistic. The more I looked, the more I was afraid I would recognize some of them.
“They’re made of marzipan,” Finnbar explained. “Since the guests are dressed as food, Mother thought the food ought to be dressed as guests.”
“It was my idea!” said the queen, proudly.
“That’s fascinating,” I said, turning away from the buffet before I got sick. “It’s a lovely party. But I came here to find out how to help my friend.”
“You must mean Colin,” Queen Titania said, picking up one of the marzipan people and nibbling at its feet. “He’s quite a good dancer, you know. I do hope we see him later, at the evening ball.” The queen pouted. “Last Saturday he didn’t show up. We were horribly disappointed. It was the first ball he’s missed in months.”
“He slept at my house last Saturday.” I watched for her reaction.
“Well, that explains it,” she said, looking at me with glittering eyes. Our ‘limo driver’ would have had a hard time finding him if he were under your protection. What a pity. Everyone adores Colin. He was sorely”—she took another nibble—“sorely missed.”
How I Found the Perfect Dress Page 6
