How I Found the Perfect Dress

by Maryrose Wood

  After they’d gone, we sat and watched Nike score shot after shot, dropping its cargo in the basket every time. By then, of course, it was too late. At one point I even overheard Alice fast-talking one of the judges, explaining how Nike’s physical design hadn’t been her idea and asking to have her work evaluated separately.

  “That’s teamwork for ye. If I wasn’t so tired I’d go give her a piece of me mind,” Colin said, yawning. “But I just want the day to be over so’s I can lie down.”

  Is this what his life will be like from now on? I thought glumly. Failure and exhaustion? All because I couldn’t find a date for a leprechaun?

  later, back in his dorm room, i offered to help him pack.

  “Not much to do, really,” he said, collapsing on his bare cot. “Thanks for comin’ today, though, Mor. Sorry we made such a poor showing.”

  “Does it matter a lot that you didn’t win?” I was rolling sock balls from the laundry basket just to keep my hands busy, and he watched me in silence for minute before answering.

  “I’m on partial scholarship at DCU, ye know. And they review the funding every term. I was hoping a win here would guarantee me a free ride for next year.” He looked out the window for a minute, then back at me. “Me grades have been suffering because of all the poor sleeping and whatnot, so I’ll just have to hope for the best.”

  “Alice seemed pretty upset.” Not that I cared about Alice’s feelings—but maybe Colin did?

  “No doubt she is, but her armor’s tough enough to take the hit.” He smiled a little. “I may have done less than me best this time around, but at least I know me stuff. Alice doesn’t have a third of the technical know-how she pretends to. You can’t get through life just bossing people around and making excuses. Maybe now that she’s had a taste of humiliation she’ll crack open a book or two. And,” he added, “she doesn’t have any worries about scholarship money; her da owns some big factory in China, mass-producing plastic thingamabubs. She’s loaded.”

  Mass produced plastic thingamabubs from China . . . someone has to make them, I guess. I kept folding Colin’s clothes, trying to fill each T-shirt and pair of chinos with all the stuff I felt but couldn’t say.

  “So,” Colin said as he watched me, “tell me about this prom business. Who’s the lucky fella?”

  I folded a shirt. I thought of Mike. I didn’t say anything.

  “Don’t try and pull one over on yer ol’ pal Colin,” he prodded. “Somebody’s asked ye, right?”

  I made a sockball out of two mismatched socks and tossed it in his duffel bag. “Yes,” I said. “Somebody’s asked me.”

  With effort, Colin swung his legs over the side of the cot and sat up. “Is he a nice bloke? A good egg?”

  “He’s very nice.” I was careful to avoid eye contact.

  “Well, ye said yes, didn’t ye?”

  At that point I guess I must have started to looked tragic or something, because Colin came over and took my hand.

  “Hey, Mor,” he said softly. “You’re not waiting around for me, are ye?”

  “Don’t you want me to?” I looked up and caught his gaze, and this time I didn’t look away. There it was, the question I’d been wanting to ask him, for months and months—since the day I left Ireland, in fact.

  Why had I waited so long to ask? Because I knew what the answer would be. And yet—a person could hope, couldn’t she?

  He exhaled heavily, but didn’t let go of my hand. “It’s times like this I miss smokin’ somethin’ fierce. Now, lass. That’s an unfair question and ye know it.”

  “Why is it unfair?” I sounded as stubborn as Tammy.

  “Because if I say yes it’ll only encourage ye, and that wouldn’t be right”—he stopped me from interrupting with a look—“no, it wouldn’t, Mor, because I can’t be here for ye.” He paused. “And if I say no, that’s not the whole bloody truth, is it?”

  I looked down at the ground, my heart leaping and breaking at the same time.

  “Stop staring at yer trainers,” he said, trying to make me smile. “What are ye thinkin’, then?”

  “That I could really go for a kiss right now.” I looked up at him and his face was thisclose to mine, and he looked so gorgeous and irresistible and thoroughly Colin-like, I could hardly stand it. Neither one of us looked away, but neither one of us moved either.

  “A kiss, eh? That’d be sweet, for sure.” He squeezed my hand. “Say yes to the good egg, Mor. Yer still in high school. Have some fun.”

  “Okay,” I said, in a voice that came from someplace far, far away.

  “And, no hanky panky now. Yer only sixteen.”

  “Not for long. My birthday’s this week.”

  “Is it?” He smiled. “I’m glad to hear it. It’s about time you grew up some.”

  “Shut up,” I said, trying not to cry.

  “Hey,” he said, in a softer voice. “Send me a picture of you in the fancy dress, would ye? I’d give anything to see it.”

  That did it. It took every molecule of strength I had not to dissolve into huge, miserable sobs. Unfortunately I was one molecule short.

  “Promise?” he asked again, and held me as I cried.

  I promise was stuck in my throat, but that was way more than I was able to say at the moment, so I just gulped and nodded and blubbered. Colin handed me a sock to blow my nose in.

  “Don’t worry, it’s clean,” he deadpanned.

  “Not anymore,” I said, as I blew.

  Then we both laughed, and I knew everything was fine between us again. But it was time for both of us to go home.

  nineteen

  all i could do sundaЧ, all daЧ long, Was watch the clock and imagine Colin on his journey, each step taking him farther and farther away from me.

  I pictured him riding the bus to the airport, checking his luggage, waiting on line at the security checkpoint and dozing in the waiting area by the gate. Then, as the time for his flight approached, he’d board the plane, toss his carry-on luggage in the overhead compartment, settle into his seat and fasten his seat belt. He’d probably say something funny to the people next to him. Lucky them, whoever they were.

  When it was the exact time of his flight I imagined him leaning back in his seat as the plane took off. The Aer Lingus jet would gain altitude before swerving and banking over the edge of North America and heading out to sea. It would fly a long, high arc across the ocean, soaring above the clouds for hours until it touched down on the other side, on the impossibly green grass of Ireland.

  By the time I went to bed, Colin would be home. Just in time to spend Saint Patrick’s Day with his grandfather, as he’d promised.

  Tracking Colin’s location in my head reminded me of something Mom liked to do with Tammy at Christmas. Together they’d visit this website that allegedly showed Santa’s real-time location on Christmas Eve, tracking his flight path all night long as he delivered toys around the globe in his supersonic sleigh. “NORAD Tracks Santa,” it was called.

  The site’s high-tech language always cracked me up: Their infrared sensors could detect the heat signature of Rudolph’s nose, using a powerful military radar system and multiple satellites in geosynchronous orbit, tens of thousands of miles above the earth. “These are the same satellites NORAD uses to detect incoming missiles!” it cheerfully proclaimed. Personally I never found the idea of incoming missiles to be particularly Christmasy.

  NORAD tracks Colin. That’s what I wanted: a little radar blip showing me Colin’s location, mile by mile, on land and sea and air, as he headed far, far away from me once more. I had no idea when we’d see each other again, or if I’d ever be able to break the enchantment that threatened to ruin his life.

  And the whole time he’d been in Connecticut, we’d never even kissed.

  With me moping around and the parents back in fight mode, poor Tammy was left struggling to put together her Saint Patrick’s Day project by herself.

  At various points during the day I saw her fussing with th
e shoebox, but I was too depressed to pay much attention. Paints came out. Bits of tape and torn pieces of tissue paper were everywhere. It was after dinner before she finally approached me for help.

  “I am almost done,” she said bravely, although she was clearly on her last nerve. “All I need are some pennies. And a mug.”

  Under one arm Tammy was holding the shoebox, which was now painted green, with green tissue paper taped over the top. In the other hand she was holding a can of root beer.

  “What is that?” I asked, clueless.

  “It’s a leprechaun trap. We’re supposed to catch one and bring it in to class tomorrow, for Saint Patrick’s Day.” She looked up at me, and there was green paint smudged all over her face. “I kept telling my teacher they’re controversial and we might not get any, but she didn’t listen.”

  Great, I thought miserably. First my dad imprisons the gnomes in a tiny cell, and now my sister is setting traps for leprechauns . Forget about the Lawn Police—if there was an ASPCA for mistreatment of pint-sized magical beings, they were going to be pulling up in their squad cars any minute now to drag us all to headquarters.

  “The pennies are bait,” Tammy went on. “The root beer too, but I need to put it in a mug because this can is too big for a leprechaun to open. They’re very small, you know.” She looked at me with big wise eyes. “I have to hide the trap in the garden. Will you help me?” Her voice quavered. “It’s kind of dark outside.”

  I took some pennies from my wallet and found a miniature souvenir beer stein my parents had gotten at a wedding. “Here,” I said, showing it to her. “This is the right size for a leprechaun, don’t you think?”

  Together we hid the box under the bushes outside and laid a trail of pennies to the entrance. With great concentration, Tammy filled the tiny mug with root beer.

  “Perfect,” she said when we were done. “I will catch the best leprechaun of anyone in my class.” Then she went inside to watch TV.

  I couldn’t imagine Jolly Dan being tricked by a painted shoebox. But then I had a crazy idea, and the more I thought about it, the more I thought, Why not? Jolly Dan still didn’t have a date to the Faery Ball, and I desperately needed another chance to get that enchantment off poor Colin, and—it couldn’t hurt to try, anyway.

  So, later that night, after Tammy was asleep, I snuck out and added some bait of my own to the trap.

  I put some pink nail polish inside, and a picture of Orlando Bloom I downloaded off the Internet. Then I added my favorite pink lip gloss, just for luck.

  This was not just a leprechaun trap anymore.

  This was a girl leprechaun trap.

  feeling kind of stupid, i set mЧ alarm for five a.m. to make sure I got to the trap before Tammy woke up. I figured the odds of there being anyone in there were a zillion to one, but what if I was wrong? I sure didn’t want Tammy dragging some poor leprechaun into Miss Wallace’s class for show and tell.

  As for my own girl-bait additions to the trap—granted, they probably made the odds ten zillion to one. But there was still that one, and that was enough to explain why, Monday morning, in the predawn darkness, I was trudging along the wet grass with a flashlight, even though I was almost completely certain that, when I crouched down low next to the raspberry bush and pushed the green tissue paper aside, the leprechaun trap would be completely uninhabited.

  It wasn’t.

  And when I saw what—I mean, who—was in the trap, a lot of things suddenly started to make perfect sense.

  “Taffy Smoothcheek!” I exclaimed. “Are you—are you a leprechaun?”

  “No,” she cried, hurriedly wiping the lip gloss off her lips. “No no no! I’m a misfit gnome, that’s all!”

  I stared at her, and she stared at me. A penny dropped from her tight little fist and rolled into the grass.

  “It took more than gnome magic to get out of that ministorage, Taffy,” I said.

  “But I’m not,” she whimpered. “I’m an Occasional Exception!”

  I looked at her crab-apple, not very gnomelike face. I thought about her grouchy, not very gnomelike temper. “Perhaps,” I said. “But did you ever consider the possibility that maybe—just maybe—”

  “Of course not,” she said. She looked around like someone might be eavesdropping, and lowered her voice. “But I do have a confession to make. I like shoes.”

  “Shoes?”

  “Shhhh!” She shushed me wildly. “I don’t have the right tools to make them, but I draw the designs. I’ve done it since I was a child.”

  She pulled a tiny sketchbook out of her apron pocket and showed me the pages. Shoes, shoes and more shoes. Some of them were pretty stylish, especially if you liked buckles.

  “Doesn’t that make it even more likely that you might be a—” I saw her wince, but pressed on. “You know. A lepre—”

  “But if I’m a—what you said I might be,” she interrupted, quickly hiding the book from sight, “that means I’m a boy, because there are no female—what you said I might be.” Taffy started to tear up. “And I don’t wanna be a boy. I don’t feel like a boy. Boys are doofuses, most of the time!”

  “Sometimes they are. But, Taffy,” I said gently, “maybe everyone’s wrong. Maybe there are female leprechauns. Maybe they’re all like you—they don’t believe that they exist, because everyone says they don’t, so they think they’re just misfit gnomes.”

  “Or unpopular dwarf,” she said, weeping.

  “Right,” I agreed, “or, you know, uncool trolls, or whatever.”

  “I knew a troll like that once,” Taffy sniffed. “She had no friends! It was sad!”

  “Exactly,” I said. “I’m just saying, maybe it’s time to ignore what you’ve been told, and admit what you really are.”

  Taffy heaved a final sob, chugged the rest of the root beer and wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “Okay,” she said, pulling herself together. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I am a girl leprechaun. It would explain a lot. But to be honest, I’m not sure how to tell.”

  On the assumption that the differences between boy and girl leprechauns were more or less the same as those between boy and girl humans, I quickly explained to Taffy how to tell.

  “Saint Patrick preserve us!” she exclaimed, as she peeked beneath her apron. “I am a girl leprechaun!”

  Then she started crying all over again.

  “Don’t be sad, Taffy.” I offered her a tissue from my pocket. “Being the first official girl leprechaun in recorded history is kind of awesome, if you think about it.”

  “I know.” She dabbed her eyes with the tissue. “Now I’m crying because I’m happy. Deep inside, I’ve always known I wasn’t like all the other gnomes.” Then, through her tears, she smiled what could only be described as a crinkly leprechaun smile, and winked at me like a pro. “And finally, I know why!”

  To be honest, that made me feel kind of teary myself.

  “not another gnome!” jollЧ dan Cried.

  By the time I got home from school Monday afternoon, Taffy Smoothcheek had totally embraced her new identity. She’d spent the day hiding in the yard, making shoe-shaped mud pies (Glendryn and Drenwyn had been put back in the garage, of course). Her eagerness to meet one of her own kind was so extreme I thought she might scare Jolly Dan, so when I took her to see him I asked her to wait outside the door of his shop while I explained the situation.

  “She’s not another gnome, I promise you.”

  “Then what?” he said scornfully. “I’m not interested in a giantess like you!”

  “No, she’s just your size. She’s just your—everything. Jolly Dan,” I said, feeling incredibly nervous all of a sudden, “she’s a girl leprechaun.”

  “No!” he bellowed. “Impossible! I don’t believe you.”

  “Don’t be so close minded,” I scolded. “You keep telling me how leprechauns are solitary. If that’s the case, you’d never get the chance to compare your, uh, differences with each other. How would you even know if some were female
and some were male?”

  At this he started to stammer and blush. “It’s an understandable mistake,” I went on, though I hardly thought that it was. “Haven’t you ever met a leprechaun who seemed the slightest bit different from you?”

  “Wait a minute,” said Jolly Dan, the light dawning. “You don’t mean—the beardless leprechauns?”

  “They’re girls, you dumdum!” I threw up my hands and almost smacked the ceiling.

  “But I thought girls wore pink dresses and had long hair with ribbons? I thought they giggled and acted silly?”

  “Jolly Dan! That is not the difference between boys and girls, okay? There’s a lot more to it.”

  “Like what?”

  Sheesh! Was it really my job to explain the facts of life to this entire species? “Like—oh for Pete’s sake! Taffy, would you come in here, please?”

  I opened the tiny front door, and in walked Taffy. And when Jolly Dan Dabby and Taffy Smoothcheek got their first look at each other, I didn’t have to do very much more explaining. Although, to be honest, other than Jolly Dan having a beard and Taffy not, there really wasn’t much physical difference between the two of them.

  “Don’t they have health class in leprechaun schools?” I said under my breath.

  “They used to, in the old days,” said Jolly Dan, gazing at Taffy like, well, like he’d never seen a girl before, “because, as I recall, there was some grown-up ‘thing’ they didn’t want us young ones to do.”

  “I remember that too,” said Taffy, her face brightening. “But then they decided that the best way to convince us not to do this ‘thing’ was to not tell us what it was. So they stopped having the classes altogether.”

  Jolly Dan nodded. “I guess we’ve gotten a bit confused as a result.”

  I’ll say, I thought. But I had other business to finish up.

  “Now, Jolly Dan,” I said, laying Colin’s sneakers on the workbench. “Do we have a deal?”

  He looked at Taffy, and at me, and bowed his head.

  “The finest pair of hand-sewn boots I have ever made shall be yours, in time for the Spring Faery Ball.”