How I Found the Perfect Dress

moments later i Was back in strohman’s, standing in front of the angled mirrors and the kaleidoscope of reflections within them. Looming over the right shoulder of each of an endless number of Morgans were an equal number of Sarahs, wearing facial expressions that were infinitely more impatient than a single Sarah could ever manage on her own.

“Take what?” I was still thinking about the cool way the elevator had morphed into the dressing room mirrors in Strohman’s the instant the doors slid open.

“The dress, Morgan! You’re standing there like you’re mesmerized or something. Did you even check the price?”

I hadn’t, of course. I twisted around to see the tag, but it kept jumping out of reach as I moved. Sarah rolled her eyes and grabbed it.

“Hold still for a minute—oh my God! It’s on sale!” To Sarah, this was the ultimate sign from above. “That settles it. I’m putting this dress on layaway for you.”

“Sarah, I know you’re trying to help,” I said, turning around so she could unzip me. “And I appreciate it. But there’s some really important stuff I need to figure out first—”

“Morgan.” Sarah spun me around again and grabbed me by both shoulders. “Six words! Junior prom. Gorgeous dress. Mike Fitch. Whatever else you need to figure out can’t be that big a deal.”

That’s because you never had to play matchmaker for a leprechaun, I thought, as I went to change.

bЧ the time i got home from the mall, the front yard and rear garden of my house were overrun with garden gnomes. Near the mailbox: two gnomes in sun hats having a tea party. Clustered around the birdbath: four gnomes smoking cigars and playing cards. Gnomes peeked out mischievously from behind the trash cans, sunbathed on the lawn and played hide-and-seek in the shrubs. Dad had truly outdone himself this year.

I stood on the driveway with my keys in my hand, taking it all in. Mom must be gearing up for a major tantrum, I thought. This is gonna be interesting.

But then I heard her voice, coming from the side of the house. She wasn’t having a tantrum. In fact, she sounded pleased.

“Good afternoon, Mor,” Colin said cheerfully. “Did ye manage all yer shopping? Yer ma told me there’s a big dance comin’ up at school. Ye never mentioned.”

“Colin has the most prize-winning idea for his robot.” Mom sounded giddy. “Instead of some boring, mechanical-looking thing, he wants to conceal the robotics inside a, um—what did you call it, Colin?”

“An anthropomorphic casing. One of these garden gnomes, basically,” he explained. “Morgan, ye saved me arse—pardon, ma’am—by bringing the binder over this morning. Once I showed Alice me notes and sketches she was convinced. I skedaddled over to take some measurements, but yer ma has kindly offered to sacrifice one in the name of science.”

“They’re just the right size, and you have to admit, the aesthetics are bound to attract attention,” Colin went on. “Could be the competitive edge we need to win this bloody contest.”

“And they’re not valuable at all, so there’s no harm in destroying one!” Mom said happily. “Or more than one! Are you sure you don’t need several, Colin? We have so many.”

This was, without question, the most evil and devious thing I’d ever seen my mom do. It was both terrifying and totally impressive.

“Your father took Tammy to her soccer game,” Mom said quickly. “They won’t be back for an hour, at least. And Colin’s on a tight schedule. Very tight! He has a competition to prepare for!”

“Of course, maybe I should ask yer husband before I take one.” Colin looked alarmed. “I didn’t realize—”

“A few gnomes more or less, your father won’t even notice.” Mom hoisted up one of the tea party gnomes and pushed it into Colin’s arms. “There’s no need to hang around waiting for Daniel; you must have so much work to do back at school!”

She stalked the lawn like the Grim Reaper of Gnomes. “Hmm! That one would be perfect!” She pounced on a card-playing gnome and lifted it by the arm. Its cigar slipped out of its mouth and landed on the grass. “It has a lot of personality, don’t you think?”

Colin looked at me helplessly, but Mom sounded more energized by the minute. “Why not take a bunch of them, chop them all up and see which one works best?” she suggested ruthlessly. Then she checked her watch. “If we go soon I can drive you back to the dorm instead of you waiting for the bus; this way you can take as many as you want—”

If my dad hadn’t pulled up that minute, I’m sure my mom would have found a reason to pack every single one of the gnomes into her Mini Cooper, even if it meant lashing them to the roof. As soon as the Subaru was parked Tammy jumped out, dressed in her soccer uniform and shin guards, with twelve sparkly barrettes in her hair. Dad followed, suspicion evident on his face as soon as he saw us standing in the yard.

“Over so soon?” Mom exclaimed, in her most innocent, no, I’m not in the middle of slaughtering your precious gnome collection voice.

“Half the kids on the other team had stomach flu,” Dad said flatly. “We rescheduled. What—what are you doing?” The card-playing gnome still dangled from Mom’s hand. Its painted-on smile looked increasingly like a grimace of pain.

“Why is Colin stealing the gnome?” Tammy asked, gazing up at him with big wounded eyes. Colin dropped the tea-party gnome onto the grass like a hot potato.

“He’s going to make a robot out of it, dear!” Mom shoved another gnome into Colin’s now-empty arms. “Won’t that be interesting?”

The ice-cream-melting-in-the-sun way Tammy’s face went slack with horror was a thing to behold. “Noooooooo!” she screeched. “You’ll kill it!”

“Oh, dear,” Colin said, taking a giant step back. “I’d never hurt yer gnomies, luv. Sorry for causing all the ruckus, dear people. I’d best head over to the garden shop at Lucky Lou’s and see if they have any left.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Colin; you shouldn’t waste your money when we have so many extra,” Mom declared. “Daniel, surely you can spare one of these things for Colin’s robot project? After all he’s done for Tammy?”

Dad was looking fairly robotic himself at this point. His face was completely expressionless in a way that spelled nothing but trouble. The way I saw it, he had two options—he could read Mom the riot act in front of everyone or he could try to reason with a hysterical kid who was starting to hyper-ventilate. Neither task would be pleasant; which would he choose?

Staying heroically in control of his temper, Dad picked up the partner of the card-playing gnome that Colin was now holding and rapped it on the head. “Look, Tammy. It’s made of plaster.” He knocked on the others. “This one’s—ouch!—concrete. This one’s fiberglass. This one’s, I don’t know”—he turned it over—“ ‘Made in China.’ It’s molded plastic, or whatever they make things out of in China.” He knelt down to Tammy’s level. “See? They’re not real.”

“But maybe they are!” Tammy countered, completely unimpressed by Dad’s logic. “Maybe gnomes are missological! Maybe they’re controversial! Ask Morgan, she knows about stuff like that.”

I was doing my absolute best to keep out of this, and when all eyes turned to me I was off to one side of the yard, gazing deeply into an azalea bush. It was just coming into bright pink bud, and nestled below its low branches were two gnomes I didn’t recall ever seeing before—not in the garage, or on the lawn, or anywhere.

One was wearing a fancy party dress, the same vivid pink as the azalea buds. The other was wearing—could it be? I blinked hard. Twice. But there it was.

Who ever heard of a garden gnome dressed in a tuxedo? “Tell them, Morgan!” Tammy demanded. “Are gnomes real or not?”

They’d better be real, I thought, fighting my urge to jump up and down and yell, “Yessss!” with my fists pumping in the air. Because the plastic chick in the pink dress would make one heck of a prom date for a leprechaun.

a Complex negotiation followed, With tammЧ acting as the Holy Protector of the Gnome People, and my mom acting sickly sweet so as to diffuse the impending Wrath of Dad, and Dad acting like his wrath was being held back only by his desire not to have a stroke in front of poor Colin, who was now trapped in an episode of When Rawlinsons Attack: A Nice Connecticut Family Goes Bad, with no commercial break in sight.

Finally Colin was permitted to leave, with a single gnome wrapped in newspaper (“So it won’t get chilly,” Tammy insisted), which he swore to use only to make a papier-mâché cast for his robot project, and which he would return unharmed.

“It can’t breathe because it’s not alive—oh, never mind.” Dad looked like he needed to lie down. Mom had already made a quick escape to the kitchen, where she was no doubt busy whipping up Dad’s favorite dessert, in case charm, denial and general diversionary tactics weren’t enough to save her marriage.

Tammy’s voice receded into a singsong background whine as I walked Colin to the bus stop (he’d firmly refused a ride from each of my parents—who’d want to spend another minute with any of us, if he could help it?). “Papier mâché,” he grumbled. “I’m not much of a hand with the arts and crafts. D’ye think Lucky Lou’s has any more of the wee gnome buggers? I think I’d do better to buy one.”

“You know, Colin,” I said, trying to sound adorably sentimental and not like an idiot, “I’d kinda prefer you didn’t chop one up either. Just, you know—in case.”

“Careful!” I said, leaping to catch it. “No, of course not. It would just be sad to see one gutted and turned into a robot. Like having the family dog stuffed.”

“Ye don’t have a dog, ye daft thing.” Colin yawned and rubbed his eyes. “Never mind, then. I don’t want to upset anyone’s delicate sensibilities. I’ll do the papier-mâché job and paint it. It’ll look like a proper freak of nature, though, that I can promise ye.”

He didn’t mention it, but I could tell the slight uphill walk to the bus stop had been a struggle for him. He was breathing hard and looked paler with each step. I said I’d wait until the bus came, and we sat together on the bench. His head fell on my shoulder at once, and though my back was twisted painfully out of shape with his dead weight leaning against me, I hoped the bus would be late so he could get an extra minute or two of rest.

As he napped, I scoped out the pair of beat-up Nikes on his feet and remembered my instructions. Soon, I thought, those stinky sneakers will be mine.