How I Found the Perfect Dress

by Maryrose Wood

What’s Colin doing here? I thought. And why the fek is my mother telling him about my prom?

  “Why do you want to whack the limbs off a gnome?” I asked.

  “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.”

  My mom just smiled.

  “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.

  “Did you guys ask Dad about this?” I said.

  “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—”

  “That my mom is trying to pull a fast one?” I cracked.

  “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?”

  “He’s going to kill it!” Tammy screamed.

  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?

  “You can’t kill a garden gnome, Tammy,” he said finally. “They’re not alive.”

  “Maybe they are,” Tammy said stubbornly.

  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.

  “Make sure it can breathe!” Tammy begged.

  “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.”

  “What? In case they’re alive?” Colin almost dropped the newspaper bundle.

  “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.

  fourteen

  mЧ mission Was Clear: short stuff in a dress Was what Jolly Dan wanted, and short stuff in a dress was what he was going to get. All I had to do was convince the gnome.

  This would be so much easier if you guys were still in the garage, I thought, late that night, as I snuck across the yard with a flashlight from the kitchen junk drawer. Professional closet declutterers like my mom shouldn’t even have junk drawers, it occurred to me, but they probably shouldn’t have lawns full of tacky garden ornaments either.

  It was almost midnight. Tammy had been asleep for hours. Normally my parents would be in bed too by this time, but from inside the house floated the melodic rise and fall of their argument.

  They sounded thoroughly distracted, but even so, I tried my best to not make a sound or let the beam of my flashlight hit any windows. I didn’t think any of our neighbors kept guns at home, but if they did, the tragic and embarrassing headline pretty much wrote itself: “Teen Girl Mistaken for Intruder, Shot in Own Yard While Attempting to Converse with Garden Gnomes.” Not the legacy I was planning to leave.

  In daylight the gnomes looked fake and foolish, but in the dark they seemed different, more natural, like they were actually part of the landscape. Every time my flashlight beam found one nestled in the grass or under a shrub it startled me. But they didn’t move, even when I let the light linger, searching for some sign of life.

  How am I going to get them to talk to me? I wondered.

  Try saying hello, a little voice inside me suggested.

  But they’re gnomes, I argued with myself.

  And you’re a half-goddess, so start acting like one! my inner voice argued back. You think you need a guy in a chicken suit to do your magic for you? Grow up, already!

  Okay, fine. Maybe I just needed some confidence. I’d already decided that my first attempt at matchmaking would be with the gnome girl in the pink dress. If she said no—this was assuming I could communicate with her at all—I’d work my way through every girl gnome in the yard. Potentially it could be a long night. I skulked along the grass to the azalea bush, and peeked inside.

  There she was, with her tuxedoed pal, frozen in a festive, party pose. Mid-dance, mid-flirt, mid-“can I get you a drink?”—who knew what these two were in the middle of? It suddenly seemed kind of awkward to try to set her up with someone else while her date was standing right there.

  “Excuse me,” I said, picking up the tuxedoed gnome and moving him to another shrub. He seemed a bit out of place next to the two pointy-hatted, red-cheeked gnomes with their long gray beards and frothy mugs of ale, but I figured it was only temporary. “Hang out with the guys for a minute, would you?” I said, in case he was listening. “Pretend your date and I are going to the ladies’ room together.”

  I returned to the azalea. Was it my imagination, or was there a look of relief on the gnome girl’s face? Did the pink painted-on folds of her dress ripple ever so slightly in the night breeze? I shivered and crossed my arms for warmth.

  “Stylish friend you’ve got there,” I said. “Do you mind me asking if it’s serious?”

  No answer.

  “That’s a pretty dress,” I tried. “How did you ever find shoes to match?”

  No answer.

  “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in being fixed up with a leprechaun?” I asked in desperation. No answer. I turned and surveyed the dark lawn with my flashlight. Maybe I’ll have better luck with a gnome chick who’s not already hooked up, I thought. Then I heard a rustling noise behind me.

  “A leprechaun?” The voice was high and grainy, like an adult’s voice that had been sped up to munchkin pitch. “You’re kidding! I always thought they were mythological.”

  Slowly I turned around. Miss Party Pink Gnome Thing was applying a fresh coat of lip gloss. “Thanks for getting rid of that guy who was hitting on me, by the way,” she added, as she smacked her lips together. “His Frodo impersonation was getting really old.”

  “No problem,” I said, trying to stay calm while thinking, I’m talking with one of my dad’s garden gnomes; how cool is that?

  “He said his name is Tux. Can you stand it?” she said. “Guys and their pickup lines. I’m Glendryn,” she added, checking her teeth in a tiny compact mirror.

  “Nice to meet you, Glendryn. I’m Mor—”

  “The half-goddess Morganne, I know! Everyone knows who you are!” She laughed and tucked the mirror back into her sparkly pink purse, which was no bigger than an iPod pouch. “Though not everyone believes you’re real either! I can’t wait to tell my sister I met you.”

  “Wow, that’s awesome,” I said. Who knew I was a celebrity in gnome world? “Which one is your sister? Is she here in the yard?”

  Glendryn’s expression changed to one of pure misery. “Drenwyn is gathering berries from a bush that’s like, twenty feet away.” Her lip started to quiver. “We’ve never been separated before. It’s really upsetting.”

  “You must be, uh, very close.” I wasn’t sure what else to say. Twenty feet was still pretty close, in my opinion, but then again I wasn’t two feet tall.

  “Of course we’re close. We’re twins! All gnomes are twins, didn’t you know that? Except for”—she paused for a moment—“the Occasional Exceptions, I guess. But practically all of us are twins. I certainly am! And my sister and I always, always do everything together.”

  Uh-oh, that inner voice of mine cautioned. Leprechauns do everything alone, and gnomes do everything together. But surely they could get through one date, right?

  “Listen, Glendryn,” I said. “If you want, I can bring your sister Drenwyn over here to be with you, and put Tux and his Frodo act over by the raspberry bush. I’m sure no one will notice.”

  Glendryn’s gnomishly crinkled face crinkled up even more. “Could you? Oh, Morganne! Everything they say about you is true!”

  As amusing as it would be to know what all the gnomes were saying about me, I thought it best to press on. “Okay, but I need you to do me a favor too,” I said. “I have this friend who needs a date for a very special event. It’s the Spring Faery Ball.”

  “I always wanted to go to that!” Glendryn clapped her hands together. They made a little clunk, like the sound of plastic hitting plastic.

  “Excellent! He’s a really nice guy and I’m sure you’d have a great time.” I gestured at her bubblegum-pink princess outfit. “And you already have the dress.”

  “This old thing? No, I will definitely need something new. What to wear, what to wear! And he’s a leprechaun, you say? How exotic! We’ll have to meet first, of course. A proper introduction is required, absolutely required.” She peered up at me. “Sometimes people assume that just because a girl is a gnome, you don’t have to treat her like a lady. That is so wrong!”

  “I can take you to meet him this week.” I pictured myself with Glendryn tucked under my arm like a football as I sprinted through the mirror in Strohman’s dressing room.

  “First, I have a few questions.” Glendryn fluffed her pink skirt flirtatiously. “What’s his name?”

  “Jolly Dan Dabby.”

  “Profession?”

  “Shoemaker.”
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br />   “Height?”

  I held my hand at knee level. “About this tall. Just right for you.”

  “Perfect!” she squealed. “Good dresser?”

  I thought of Jolly Dan’s buckled boots and funky green leprechaun hat. “He’s traditional in style, I would say. He definitely has his own look.”

  “Fine, fine.” She nodded approvingly. “Now, of course it’s not the most important thing; the most important thing is character! And personality! And what lives inside a person’s heart! But tell me the truth: Is he good with money?”

  “The best,” I said confidently. “Very hardworking and fiscally sound, from what I hear.”

  Glendryn twirled in delight and then curtsied. “It would be my pleasure to make his acquaintance, then. And he has to take my sister too, of course!”

  Some noisy night insect buzzed right past my ear as Glendryn was talking; I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right. “Sorry, Glendryn, what was the last thing you said?”

  “I said, he has to take my sister too.” She beamed. “We do everything together.”

  talk about feast Or famine, i thought, sneaking across the lawn once more with the gnome named Tux under my arm. Jolly Dan’s first date ever, and it’s gonna be with twins.

  It took me a minute to find Drenwyn in the dark, half-concealed among the raspberry bushes. Not surprisingly, she was a dead ringer for Glendryn, but dressed in a checked gingham frock and lace-up boots. She wore a bonnet on her head and carried a small wicker basket for the berries.

  Stamped from the same mold, I couldn’t help thinking, but then I wondered if that was rude.

  There was another girl gnome in the berry patch with Drenwyn. She was similarly dressed, but with a cranky expression on her face. Most of the gnomes had bright-eyed, round-cheeked faces that exuded perpetual enthusiasm. This one had more of a shrunken apple look.

  When I explained to Drenwyn why I was there, she wept with joy at the prospect of being reunited with her sister. The cranky gnome girl’s face puckered even more, but she said nothing and kept picking berries. Raspberries wouldn’t be in season until late in summer, but each time she reached for one a berry seemed to appear just in time to get plucked and tossed in the basket. She never looked at the basket, I noticed, but she never missed. Like a mini-Sarah. Definitely UConn material, if they started drafting two-foot-high forwards.