four

Sylva flew over to the Flower sisters’ fairy house.

“Poppy!” she called. “Poppy, I’m all done! Let’s go!”

“Nearly finished,” Poppy said brightly. She had a kerchief tied over her hair and dust smudges on the tip of her nose. “I just have to sweep the floorboards in the attic and wash my face and I’ll be done, too.”

Sylva was just about to suggest that she meet Poppy up at the jumble pile when Poppy flew back up to the attic. “Don’t leave without me!” Poppy said.

Sylva didn’t really want to help with any more chores, but she knew things would go faster with two fairies working together. “I’ll do the sweeping,” she said with a sigh, “and you wash up. That way, we won’t waste any time.”

Poppy went off to wash her face and hands, and Sylva made a very quick dash around the attic with a broom. The dust was thick on the floorboards and made a cloud around Sylva as she furiously swept. “Why didn’t Poppy do this already?” she grumbled. She made her way from one end of the attic to the other, kicking up dust as she went.

“All set,” called Poppy as she came back up the attic stairs. She could hardly see for the clouds of dust. “Sylva?” she called between coughs. “Whatever are you doing?”

“I’m sweeping!” said Sylva, coughing too.

“Not like that!” Poppy said, laughing. “You have to dampen dust before you sweep it.” She went over to a small bucket of water in the corner of the attic. “I’ll do it, Sylva. It won’t take a minute.”

Sylva knew that Poppy’s laugh was not meant to be unkind, but still, it hurt a little bit. Sylva had just been trying to help! And how was she supposed to know that Poppy used water to help her sweep?

“There, all done,” said Poppy.

“Let’s go!” said Sylva.

“Hang on just one more minute while we wash the dust off our faces. We can’t show up at Queen Mab’s palace like this.”

Sylva splashed some springwater on her face as Poppy carefully used a facecloth to get all the smudges off. “Come on, Poppy. We’ll miss everything.”

“There’s tons of stuff in the jumble pile, Sylva. We won’t miss a thing.”