How I Found the Perfect Dress

by Maryrose Wood

  “So,” I said slowly, trying to keep the challenge out of my voice, “you’ve been bringing Colin to your faery balls every night, while he sleeps?”

  The queen smiled. “Of course.” She made a sweeping gesture that took in the revels around us. “There are so very many faery princesses, you see. And with so many balls to attend, it can be difficult to find a suitable date! We need all the attractive male guests we can find. Colin is quite a catch,” she added. “I really must thank you for bringing him to our attention.”

  “What do you mean?” I knew it was a bad idea to get snotty with her but I couldn’t help it. “I never ‘brought him to your attention.’”

  She looked at me with pity, as if I should already know. “You left your mark on him, Morganne. And surely any man to strike your fancy must be a worthy partner for a princess!”

  “My ‘mark’?” I said, my heart sinking.

  “You anointed him with your affection,” Queen Titania said solemnly. “You halo’d him with the glimmer of a half-goddess’s desire. To the eye of a faery, he shines like a thousand fireflies in the night. All because of you.” The queen gobbled up the rest of the marzipan person and delicately licked her fingertips. “He’s impossible to ignore, frankly. But I don’t have to tell you that.”

  Fek. Could this be any worse? Colin was under an enchantment, and it was all my fault. “I would like to take my mark off him, then,” I said firmly. “What do I have to do to make you leave him alone?”

  Finnbar sidled next to me. “Morganne,” he cautioned. “Perhaps it’s time for a dance.” But the queen just laughed.

  “Silly girl, what a question! Why should we leave him alone? He really has a very good time here.”

  “He doesn’t even remember it,” I said. “And it’s making him sick. He’s human; he needs to sleep.”

  “No, he wouldn’t remember, of course,” she murmured. “But we would miss him dreadfully.” She picked up another marzipan person off the silver tray. “How charming! This one looks very much like Colin, don’t you think, Finnbar?” Before he could answer, the queen bit off the figure’s head. “I’d really much prefer you left things as they are,” she said to me, her mouth full.

  “But if I caused the enchantment,” I pressed, ignoring the headless Colin in her hand, “then I must have the power to undo it. Don’t I?”

  The queen shrugged and viciously shoved the rest of the marzipan man into her mouth. “Mmm, listen! One of my favorite songs!” She started to dance and sing along with the music. “‘It’s raining men! Hallelujah!’”

  That was enough for me. I was out of patience and more than a little pissed off. Plus, I really hated that song. “Finnbar,” I said. “Take me home.”

  Looking glum, Finnbar put the chicken head back on and slowly waddled back toward the forest. I followed, still carrying my now-cold latte.

  Behind us, the Queen laughed and danced. “Your question,” she called over her shoulder, “has a very short answer.”

  She boogied to the music and threw her hands in the air. “Amen!” she hollered, to no one in particular. “Hallelulah!”

  finnbar led me through the Woods again, back to the edge of the field. In the distance I saw the farmhouse, now lit from within, a plume of smoke rising cozily from the chimney.

  He removed his chicken head once more. “They’re nice old humans, that farmer and his wife,” he remarked. “I chat with them sometimes. The wife makes me tea. It’s pleasant. So few mortals their age can see me. Usually I only have children to play with.” Finnbar looked at me quite seriously. “Sometimes I wonder if it’s kept me immature. What do you think, Morganne?”

  Despite my fury at Queen Titania, the thought of Finnbar sipping cups of tea with Colin’s granny made me smile. “Immature people don’t usually worry about whether or not they’re immature,” I said. “So I’d say you’re doing fine.”

  He beamed. “What a brilliant observation! You must visit me again soon, Morganne. It’s so refreshing to be spoken to kindly. Mother can be—well, I don’t have to tell you.” He looked at me curiously. “You don’t remember her, do you?”

  “Should I?” I asked.

  He paused, then shrugged. “It’s all so long ago—ah, here we are!” The eggshell-strewn path was in front of me; I could see the fluorescent glow of Lucky Lou’s like a beacon at the far end. “Just follow the crunchy path.” Finnbar waved goodbye with one of his stubby yellow wings.

  “Thanks,” I said, meaning it. “It was nice to see you again.”

  “Make sure you finish your coffee,” Finnbar urged. “Mother hates it when food goes to waste.”

  i made mЧ WaЧ back, Crunching mЧ WaЧ CarefullЧ along the eggshells. The double doors swung open slowly at my approach. Once I’d passed through they closed behind me, and when I wheeled around and peered back through the glass, all I saw was the stockroom of Lucky Lou’s. The store itself was in normal Saturday afternoon mode: noisy and swarming with shoppers and the ever-helpful, red-aproned Luckies.

  I was sick of carrying my coffee around, but Finnbar’s warning was not to be ignored. A little caffeine buzz wouldn’t hurt right now, I thought, as I chugged the latte. It wasn’t until I’d drained the last sweet slurp that I realized why Finnbar had told me to finish it.

  At the bottom of the empty cup were some words:Shoo = clew

  your helpful dredful speling frend, Finnbar

  p.s.—o why don’t I jest tell u yule need to find a

  leprechaun

  eight

  Colin and tammЧ Were in line at a Cash register with my mom by the time I caught up with them, and Colin was on me like green on a shamrock when he smelled the coffee on my breath.

  “The coupon was for real, then?” he asked, amazed. “So how in the bloody hell did it get into me trousers?”

  “I—I don’t know,” I answered, which was technically the truth if you ignored the stuff I left out, like the fact that I’d just seen a ticked-off faery queen literally bite Colin’s head off and then been instructed to find a leprechaun by a magical guy in a chicken suit. “You know how stores are. Always doing weird things to get the customers’ attention.”

  “Hmmm. Some kind of marketing scheme, maybe,” he mused. My mom was arguing with the cashier about whether or not the paper towels were on sale, and Tammy was rocking the shopping cart back and forth to make the wheels squeak. “P’raps they’re paying the Laundromats to stuff people’s pockets with adverts,” Colin mused. “But how does that explain the other notes I’ve found? Why the same stunt in Dublin and Connecticut? Seem a bit random, if you ask me.”

  “Must be globalization,” I said, distracted. Mom was getting into something with the cashier.

  “It says ‘two for a dollar,’” Mom insisted, in her you-don’t-know-who-you’re-dealing-with voice.

  “Only if you buy four,” the bored cashier explained.

  “I suppose,” Colin agreed, but now he was watching my mom too. Her attempt to pay for the groceries was turning into a scene. Tammy cowered behind the grocery cart, her hands pressed against her ears.

  “What you’re describing is four for two dollars,” Mom declared loudly. “Two for a dollar means two for a dollar. Four for two dollars is four for two dollars.”

  “Isn’t it the same thing?” the cashier asked.

  “Not if you have to buy four,” my mom cried, smelling victory. “It’s not the same thing at all!”

  She seemed not remotely embarrassed by the incident, and held her head high as she wheeled the grocery cart to the exit. “We have to be cost conscious,” she said, to no one in particular. “Until your father finds a job.”

  on our WaЧ out of luckЧ lou’s, Colin took the plunge and ordered a frothy green veggie juice smoothie from the juice bar, with added kelp and protein powder. After one sip he almost gagged.

  “Bejaysus!” he cried. “If this potion is all that can cure me of me ills, I’d rather take to me bed with a rosary and pray for the bitter end
to come.”

  Dad showed up at the car just as we finished loading in the groceries. He had two new purchases, one tucked under each arm.

  “Two!” my mom cried out. “Two garden gnomes?”

  “Two was the least amount I could get,” Dad explained. “They were having a two-for-one sale.”

  “No, Daddy, zero was the least amount you could get,” Tammy chirped with confidence. “Zero is less than two. It’s even less than one!” She turned to me. “Marcus told me there are numbers that are less than zero, but I didn’t believe him.”

  “Negative numbers,” I said, buckling her seat belt for her.

  “That’s what Marcus called them too,” Tammy said proudly. “I told him he was crazy.”

  “Marcus isn’t the one who’s crazy,” my mom muttered dangerously, but Dad just smirked and went around the back of the car to stow his new friends. Unfortunately the cargo space of the Subaru was already crammed full of grocery bags.

  “Mind holding the gnomes, girls?” Dad said, passing them through the window.

  that’s how We drove home: tammЧ and i each holding a garden gnome in our laps, and Colin nodding off with his head against the window, his tall frame folded up to fit in the backseat while Mom sat up front.

  As I sat there hugging my new plastic friend, I thought about Finnbar’s secret message. I knew he was trying to be helpful. But where the fek was I supposed to find a leprechaun in Connecticut?

  It was an urgent question, but I couldn’t concentrate with my parents slugging it out like a pair of Rock’em Sock’em Robot buggers up front. The argument kept up all the way home, continued while we carried the grocery bags into the kitchen and then escalated alarmingly with the combatants finally retreating upstairs to the master bedroom.

  Colin seemed to find the squabbling soothing. He kicked off his ratty sneakers and stretched out on the sofa. “I’m glad we’ve all put aside our company manners,” he said with a yawn. “Makes me feel right at home.” Then he fell asleep.

  I knew he was supposed to be back at school, but I let him nap. A quick afternoon snooze was not going to provoke Queen Titania by messing up the evening’s faery ball plans, and after months of nightly dance duty in the faery realm, I knew how desperately he needed the rest.

  dad’s gnome Collection had started innocentlЧ enough. He’d bought one at a yard sale a few years back, “as a joke,” he’d said at the time. But, like so many things that begin as harmless fun and end with somebody losing an eye, the gnomes quickly got out of hand. A golf buddy gave one to Dad as a birthday gift. His former officemates started leaving gnome figurines on his desk. It was eBay that sealed his fate by putting temptation within reach twenty-four seven. The man was hooked.

  By now there were thirty—make that thirty-two—gnomes in the garage. They spent the winter there, but as soon as the weather got warm, Dad would wake up some weekend morning and declare it The Day of the Gnomes. Armed with dusting cloths, touch-up paint and a bunch of corny props, he’d prepare the gnomes to assume their seasonal positions throughout the yard.

  Mom made no secret of hating the gnomes. She said they were a waste of money and, even worse, “the epitome of clutter.” Maybe it was the stress of Dad’s ongoing unemployment, but today’s two-for-one purchase seemed to be setting off the Great Gnome War my parents had been building up to—the one that left shards of fiberglass and threats of divorce in its wake.

  Red-faced, white-lipped, my dad clomped down the stairs.

  “They’re tacky, Daniel!” Mom cried, in close pursuit. “Can’t you see that?”

  “Two gnomes are tacky,” he countered, heading to the fridge. He took out a soda. “Thirty-two is a whimsical collection that screams kitschy charm.”

  “No, that’s me screaming,” Mom hurled back. “We do belong to a block association, you know.”

  “Yes we do,” said Dad. “And they have a sense of humor.”

  “Not anymore. All your old-timer buddies got voted off the board, remember? This new group is very serious when it comes to property values. We could get fined.”

  “What does ‘kitschy’ mean?” Tammy asked. “It’s not one of those bad words like Colin says, is it?”

  “Mmmmph.” Colin groaned sleepily from the couch.

  “It means tacky,” Mom and I said at the same time.

  “What about free speech?” Dad pulled back the tab on his soda can until it spit out a wet hiss. “I indulge in a little creative self-expression on my own private property, and I have to worry about getting fined?”

  “Mark my words,” Mom warned. “If you put that ‘whimsical collection’ in front of the house this year, the Lawn Police will be paying us a visit.”

  after Colin’s nap—“i swear, the onlЧ restful sleep I’ve had in months has been in this house!” he declared—he was eager to see what the fuss was about, and asked to sneak a look at the gnome collection before heading back to UConn. Mom was burning off stress on her elliptical in the basement, and Dad was burning off stress by driving around town for an hour pretending to look for a newspaper, so I let Colin into the garage and posted myself as lookout in the kitchen. He was still in there when the phone rang. It was Sarah.

  “Is he there?” she asked.

  “Kind of,” I said. “He’s in the garage.”

  “It’s teen night at Club Toxins and Ass Your Kiss Goodbye is playing the opening set. They gave Dylan three passes. One for me, one for you, one for Colin. Can you come?”

  “I can,” I said, “but Colin’s about to head back to school.”

  “You promised we’d meet him this week!” Sarah wheedled. “I really, really want you both to come.”

  “I’ll ask him, but I doubt it. He’s in a competition, you know.”

  “Yer man’s not just in it—he’s going to win it!” Colin crowed, walking into the kitchen. Even a short rest had restored some of his old spark. “Those wee friends of yer da’s have given me a prize-winning idea. Who’re ye jawin’ with?”

  “Sarah,” I said, covering the phone with my hand. “She wants us to come see her boyfriend’s band tonight, but I told her you had to work on your project.”

  Colin looked disappointed. “I do indeed, more’s the pity. A band, eh?” He drummed his fingers on the countertop. “What sorta band?”

  “They’re a Kiss tribute band,” I said reluctantly, knowing how much this would tempt him. “Ass Your Kiss Goodbye.”

  “Dead on!” he cried, delighted. “With the makeup and the dry ice and the long waggly tongues and everything?” Then he frowned. “That’s hard to pass up. Damn. Ah, well.”

  “So?” Sarah asked. “Is he coming or not?”

  “He can’t,” I said into the phone. “Sorry.”

  “Well, I’ll see you later at least. If you get lonely you can hang out with Mike Fitch, I guess.”

  “Mike Fitch?” I blurted. “Will he be there?”

  “Well, duh. He’s in the band; of course he’ll be there. Don’t worry, I’m not trying to fix you up or anything. Though I am starting to wonder if this guy Colin really exists.” Sarah was joking, but she sounded a tiny bit peeved.

  Colin checked his watch. “Bollocks, I’d better run for the bus. Who’s Mike Fitch?”

  “Nobody. Some guy from school. Sarah thinks I made you up,” I babbled, while thinking, Why does Colin care who Mike is? Is he jealous? Do I want him to be jealous? Is that the level of pathetic I’ve sunk to?

  Colin snatched the phone out of my hands. “Attention, friend Sarah!” he said. “This is the imaginary Colin speaking. If you can hear the sound of me voice, that means you’re imaginary too. Cheers!”

  He tossed the phone back to me. “Have fun with yer mates,” he said. Then he waggled his tongue like Gene Simmons, and left.

  duh. Of course mike fitch will be at the Club. dad had dropped me off at Club Toxins, but I was having a hard time working up the courage to go inside, and Mike Fitch was the reason why.

  But he’ll be on
stage, at least some of the time, I thought. And I would be with Sarah. Except I knew Sarah would be completely focused on her adoring drummer boy, the same way Dylan focused on her during her basketball games. And eventually the guys would come offstage and the four of us would be standing there, and there would be witty and possibly flirty banter, and the more I thought about it the more I worried that the evening would really end up feeling like a date.

  This was a problem for two totally contradictory reasons, both of which started with the word Colin:1. Colin was the guy I was crazy about. I didn’t want to be on a date with anyone else.

  2. Colin might be the love of my life but he was not exactly my boyfriend—yet—and anyway he was going back to Ireland in another week and I had no idea when I’d see him again, and admitting that made me feel kind of horrible. Was I dumb for not wanting to be on a date with a nice, cute guy my own age who lived in the same country as me? A guy who, it must be said, might actually be prom-date material, once he washed the Gene Simmons makeup off his face? The junior prom was less than two weeks away.

  Then I thought of a third, far more serious reason that the date-with-Mike concept was a problem. Reason three also started with the word Colin:

  3. Colin was under a serious and potentially dangerous faery enchantment, all because I liked him.

  What was it Queen Titania had said? You halo’d him with the glimmer of a half-goddess’s desire. . . .

  The implications of reason number three hit me like a dodgeball to the chest. Would faery mischief happen every time I liked someone? If Mike and I hit it off, would he soon come down with a mysterious case of what everyone would assume was the flu, but only I would know was really a symptom of him getting his groove on with some dance-addicted faery princesses all night, every night?