TEN

ON THE WAY back to the Home Tree, Prilla hugged her Arrival Garment close to keep it from being dragged open by the wind. Her disappointment over the dust stayed with her, a lump in her throat that had grown with each talent failure.

Terence left her in the lobby, after telling her that everyone would gather for the celebration in about an hour. He added, “Tonight is our busiest night. Once the Molt starts, we can’t stop. It’s marvelous.”

Prilla smiled weakly, and Terence flew outside.

She didn’t know what to do next. She could go to Tink, but Tink wouldn’t want her. She would have liked to find Rani, the water-talent fairy, but she didn’t know where to look. She wanted to leave the lobby before someone came along, asking her to try out another talent she wouldn’t have.

She wondered if she had a room yet. She looked herself up on the directory, and there she was!

Prilla ^{....................} Room 7P, NNW Branch

The dots in the middle were where her talent listing should have been.

She flew up the spiral staircase. After the first floor, there were no more stairs. There were just holes in the ceiling, and ladders for fairies to climb if their wings were wet. On the seventh floor she followed signs through the northwest trunk quadrant and took the right fork for the north-northwest branch.

By the time she reached her door, the corridor wasn’t much taller than she was. Her room wasn’t one of the better ones. Her tree-bark-side door was partially blocked by a cluster of leaves, and her window looked out on a twig.

Decorating the room had posed a problem for the decor-talent fairies. The theme of every other fairy bedroom was the occupant’s talent.

In Tink’s room, the bed frame was a pirate’s loaf pan. Her three lamps had colander lampshades. And the painting over the bed was a still life of a stockpot, a whisk, and a griddle. In Rani’s room, the ceiling had a permanent leak, which dripped into a thimble tub where a Never minnow swam. In Terence’s room, there were lots of knickknacks, so the room was always dusty.

But the decor fairies hadn’t known what to do for Prilla. As a result, they gave her plain, ordinary everything. Her bedposts were ho-hum reinforced daisy stems. The canopy was a fanned cabbage leaf in the same pale sea foam that everyone but the textile talents got. The lacy bedspread was boring triple-ply spiderweb. The night table was toadstool with snail-shell inlay in a geometric pattern. And so on—a profusion of commonplace fairy furnishings.

Prilla didn’t see any of it. What she did see were the dresses and ensembles laid out on the bed, and the footwear spread out below.

She started toward the bed just as the wind outside made the Home Tree sway. She stumbled back against her door.

The gust passed. She went to the bed and picked up one thing after another. She rubbed fabrics against her cheek and held dresses up against herself. At least some fairy cared enough about her to make such beautiful things.

She tried on the violet wrap dress first. It had short sleeves, three pearl buttons, and a scalloped hemline.

Prilla was on the floor of a Clumsy girl’s bedroom. The girl was attempting to dress her in a similar wrap dress, only this one was paisley, and the hem was frilly, not scalloped.

The girl couldn’t get Prilla’s wings into the dress’s wing slits. “Hold still,” she said, lifting Prilla and holding her by one wing.

It didn’t hurt. Never fairy wings don’t feel pain. Prilla didn’t move a muscle.

The girl couldn’t push the wings through.

“The wing slits are too short,” Prilla said.

“No, they’re not.”

Prilla grinned. “Are too.”

“Are not!”

“Are too!”

“Are not!” The girl let go of Prilla, and she fell to the floor, her wings tangled up in the dress.

The real wrap dress fit perfectly, the wing slits exactly the right length. And when Prilla whirled, the scalloped skirt fluttered deliciously against her bare legs.

Next, she put on a gold dress and had trouble tying the wide sash in the back. She wished she had a friend. A friend could tie your sash for you.

The friend could be her same size and could try on the dresses, too, like the blue tulip with the tight skirt that flared at the knees.

Prilla put on a pair of baggy pants and a loose-fitting scoop-necked pullover, both made of felt as soft as mist. She wondered what the other fairies would be wearing. Was the celebration a dressy affair?

A friend who knew the ropes could tell her.

Well, she didn’t have a friend, and that was that. She crouched to examine the shoes and slippers and boots.

Fairy footwear is nowhere near as sturdy as Clumsy footwear.

The heels on a pair of dressy shoes were as thin as needles. A pair of sandals had toe-weaving, and there were boots with spaghetti laces. The bedroom slippers were mouse-shaped, with long blue tails.

The shoes fit as perfectly as everything else. Prilla wondered how they’d done it, then guessed it was talent again. Probably a measuring-talent fairy had seen her for a split second and had divined the circumference of her elbows, the length of her kneecaps, and the precise distance from her ankle to her big toe.

She sighed and considered what to wear. She decided she’d better dress up, and chose the green-and-white dotted organdy with puffed sleeves and tiny pleats. Looking in the mirror, she was pretty sure the dots went well with her freckles, but she wished a friend were there to say she was right.

For shoes she chose the white open-toes with the roll-back heels.

She brushed her hair and pinned up one side with the abalone-shell barrette she found in the top dressing-table drawer. Then she looked in the full-length mirror.

I look nice, she thought, and burst into tears.

If only she had a friend.

If only she had a talent.

Then she’d have a friend.