by Anna Alter
Each neighbor at 24 Sprout Street had a try, until at last it was Emma’s turn. Fernando tied her blindfold and spun her round and round. Emma imagined all the candy that would rain down from the piñata—the perfect appetizer for her beautiful, incredible, absolutely perfect cake. She took a big, strong swing. THWACK.
It was a strange noise for a piñata to make. When she tried to move her paddle, it appeared to be stuck. She took the blindfold off her eyes.
Emma gasped. Her paddle was wedged deep inside the cake, which was now leaning toward the front door. Creeeeeeeeeak went the table as the cake began to sway. It leaned left, it leaned right, and then it toppled, layer by layer, into a heap on the floor.
Emma’s heart sank first into her stomach, then into her shoes, then right down onto the floor and into a heap with the remains of her cake.
Wilbur looked at Emma. He scooped up a handful of icing and tasted it. “This is delicious,” he said.
Violet grabbed a handful of cake and took a bite, too. “Best birthday cake I’ve ever had!” she declared.
Henry reached into the pile and picked up the shiny, perfect acorn. He pressed a candle into the top and lit it. “Make a wish,” he told Emma, holding it in front of her.
Emma smiled. She made a wish and blew out the candle.
Before long, everyone was sitting on the floor, laughing and eating squashed birthday cake. Wilbur put some icing on his chin in the shape of a beard and shouted, “Ho, ho, ho!” Fernando made a snowball out of whipped cream and threw it at Henry’s mouth. He missed and hit Violet on the wing.
“Now that’s what I call a confection collision!” giggled Violet.
“A real frosting fiasco!” Fernando chimed in, laughing so hard, tears rolled down his cheeks.
Emma picked up a handful of chestnut cream and put it in her mouth. It tasted nutty and sweet. This wasn’t exactly how she had imagined her best birthday ever, but it most certainly was.
One spring afternoon, Fernando sat in his living room, eating cherry pie and thinking about his secret wish. He could spend hours letting his wish swirl around inside him, like a moth looking for light. It thrilled him from head to toe. He crossed his legs at the knee and bounced his top foot.
Before long, a strange noise drifted in from across the hall and broke the silence.
Floo flooooo, sweeeeeeee!
Fernando knew exactly what that sound was. Someone was practicing the flute for the Sprout Street Daffodil Parade, only a week away. And that someone was Violet.
She had convinced everyone in the building to play a part in the parade. Wilbur would make a float filled with flowers. Emma would do cartwheels with the marching band, and Henry had been writing a poem about springtime to read at the head of the parade.
Fernando hadn’t decided what he would do. To be honest, the idea of marching in the parade made him nervous. What if he made a fool of himself? What if he tripped and his shoe went flying into the air? What if everyone then called him Mr. One-Shoe? The idea made him want to climb into bed and think about his wish all day.
Instead, Fernando walked out to the backyard, where Wilbur was working on his float. Little tufts of bright green grass had begun to poke out of the ground around him.
“I just don’t know if I’m parade material,” Fernando said, pacing back and forth.
“Of course you are,” said Wilbur. He stood up to press a yellow-and-orange daffodil into a large chicken-wire frame. “Besides, you have to come. Everyone on Sprout Street is marching in the parade together.”
“That’s what I was afraid you’d say,” sighed Fernando.
“Isn’t there anything you want to do?” asked Wilbur.
Fernando blushed and thought briefly of his wish, but decided to leave it inside, where it was.
Wilbur looked at his float. Then he looked at Fernando. “Why don’t you march as a daffodil?” he suggested. “It is, after all, the Daffodil Parade. You would be a great daffodil.”
“I suppose I could do that,” said Fernando.
Wilbur walked over to a basket and pulled out some extra chicken wire. He held it up to Fernando. The wire reached from his chin to his waist.
“Perfect!” he said. “Now all we need is some paper on the outside to turn it into a daffodil. Maybe Violet will help you?”
Feeee fee hoooooonk!
Fernando went to Violet’s apartment and knocked on the door. He heard a swaa sweeee and then some shuffling.
Violet opened the door wide and smiled. “Hi, Fernando!”
“Hi,” he said, shifting from one foot to the other, then back again. He held the chicken wire behind him.
“You really are getting better at the flute,” he offered. Violet beamed, and some of the feathers on top of her head seemed to puff up slightly.
“I have a favor to ask. Do you have some paper I could use to cover this wire? Wilbur thought I should be a daffodil in the parade, and I need a costume.”
“What a clever idea,” she said, waving him inside. She walked over to her craft corner and held up her wing. “Use whatever you like!” she chirped. “I’m happy to help.”
Fernando marveled at her collection of art supplies. There was a carton full of glitter pens, an old pickle jar filled with crayon bits, and a cereal box with dozens of different kinds of ribbon curled inside.
Fernando stepped forward and pulled open a drawer. Inside was a stack of tissue paper in every color he could imagine. It was so thin and soft. He picked up a sheet of lemon yellow and let it float in the air for a moment, like a ballerina sailing across the stage.
Violet took some newspaper and put it on the floor. From the kitchen, she brought out a bowl filled with flour and a pitcher of water.
“Are we baking a cake first?” asked Fernando hopefully.
“This is for the papier-mâché,” said Violet. She poured the water into the flour and mixed it until it looked like pancake batter. “We’ll dip the newspaper in here and then use it to cover the chicken wire. When it hardens, we can decorate your costume so that it looks like a daffodil.”
She picked up the chicken wire and tied it into a tube with some string. Then she tore up strips of newspaper, dipped them into the bowl, and smoothed them over the chicken wire.
“Give it a try,” she said.
Fernando bent over the bowl and dipped in a piece of newspaper. He smoothed it onto the chicken wire, next to Violet’s piece.
They worked and worked. Finally, the wire tube was covered in papier-mâché.
“We have to let this dry before we can put on the tissue paper,” said Violet. “Let’s go for a walk and we can do it when we get back.”
By now, Fernando was feeling more relaxed. Maybe the parade wouldn’t be so bad after all. He was also hungry, so he suggested they go to Sweetcakes for a snack. They washed up and headed outside. He skipped a little as they got closer.
They sat in the front of the bakery, on either side of a large plate of chocolate chip cookies. Violet talked about how much she loved to play the flute. “I have wanted to play as long as I can remember,” she said. “When I pick up my flute, it’s like climbing into a hot-air balloon and sailing into the sky!”
Fernando thought about what that would feel like. Then, all at once, it felt as though the ground was shifting beneath him. He reached for his glass of milk and froze. The desire to let out his secret wish took hold. He didn’t know how or why, but suddenly he had to say it, right this minute. He looked at Violet, who looked back at him.
“You seem a little pale,” she noticed.
“Violet,” he began, “there is something I have never told anyone, and I think I would like to tell you.”
Violet took a bite of her cookie and gave a nod. Fernando took a breath.
“I WANT TO DANCE!” he cried. It bubbled out so quickly and from so deep down inside that he almost wasn’t sure he’d said it at all.
Violet perked up and put her cookie down.
Fernando tried to get ahol
d of himself. “I mean…I really think I could dance, if I tried.”
He began to wonder if he had made a mistake. Violet was going to think he was ridiculous. She would probably tell everyone that he was crazy and to stop being friends with him. He looked down at his feet.
Violet’s eyes got wide. “Fantastic! Stupendous! You should dance, Fernando!”
Fernando lifted his head. He felt as big as a mountain and as light as a feather.
“Why don’t you dance in the PARADE?” Violet went on, slapping her wings on her lap.
Fernando felt a little smaller. “Thank you, Violet, but I can’t dance in the parade. I’ve never done anything like it before. Everyone will be watching.”
“I don’t know if you realize this,” Violet said, “but I had never played the flute before last week. I don’t really know how. I’m just making it up as I go along.”
Fernando and everyone at 24 Sprout Street knew that Violet did not know how to play the flute. But they would never tell her that.
“Aren’t you afraid of playing in front of everyone?” he asked.
Violet shrugged. “Not anymore. I just think about how much I love to play, and then I don’t care who’s watching.”
It was getting late in the afternoon, so they headed back home to finish the daffodil costume. Fernando was quiet as they added layers of green and yellow tissue paper, then sculpted a hat that looked like petals. At last, it was complete.
He carried his giant daffodil across the hall to his apartment. He placed it on the floor, giving it a hard look.
Violet began practicing her flute in her apartment again.
Feeee fee swooo!
Fernando stood up and closed his eyes. He could feel the music inside him, floating around like his wish. Before he could give it a second thought, his foot started tapping beneath him. He looked down. Slowly, his knees began to bend.
Swa swa fleeeee, the flute went on.
The rhythm took over his hips, then moved into his arms. They reached down to the ground, then high up into the air, shifting back and forth gracefully like a tree branch in the wind.
“I am dancing,” he said out loud. “I am really dancing!”
Fernando danced and danced. He did pliés and high kicks and lightning-fast spins. His paws fluttered through the air like butterflies. His feet moved so fast, they were a blur beneath him.
Violet stopped playing her flute, but he kept right on dancing, faster and faster. He felt like a sea of daffodils, bobbing and swaying in the wind.
One morning the following week, before the sun came in through anyone’s window, Fernando, Wilbur, Emma, and Henry were woken up by a loud fwee fwee squeeee coming from the hallway. Violet was running up and down the stairs of the building, giving everyone a preview of her Daffodil Parade performance.
Wilbur rolled out of bed and made a cup of orange blossom tea. Emma cartwheeled out of bed and into her Daffodil Parade dress. Henry cleared his throat and began to practice his poem. And Fernando slid into his slippers with a double pirouette, pretending he was a brand-new daffodil, waiting to greet the sun.
As the rest of the neighborhood began to gather on the lawn, the parade got ready behind the azalea bushes. Henry stood proudly at the front, holding his poem like a flag for all to see. Emma was getting in a few last practice cartwheels while the tuba player rehearsed. Violet was squealing away on the flute, and Wilbur stood at the helm of his float: a fire-breathing dragon built completely out of flowers.
Fernando climbed into his daffodil costume and looked around. He watched everyone in the parade ahead of him getting ready to march. In the distance, he could see the waiting crowd. Just then, his knees felt weak.
Fwee feeeeee whooooo!
The sound of Violet’s flute brought him back. He closed his eyes and imagined what a daffodil might feel on a day like today. A daffodil would be proud and happy to feel the sun on its face. Fernando stood up a little taller.
The band got into formation and began to play. Before he knew it, Fernando’s feet were marching in time, and he was dancing down Sprout Street, stepping and swaying like a daffodil welcoming the spring.
The crowd cheered and shouted.
But all Fernando could hear was the slow, steady beat of a most beautiful melody unfolding deep within him.
Violet walked into her bathroom and opened the window next to the sink. A warm early-summer breeze drifted in, carrying the sound of a family of sparrows singing outside. She loved living on the top floor of 24 Sprout Street, close to her feathered cousins.
Violet looked in her bathroom mirror and grinned. She picked up her toothbrush, covered it in toothpaste, and lifted it to her mouth.
Plink!
She froze. “Sparrows do not say plink!” she thought. Just then, a single drop of water rolled down her forehead and onto her beak. She squinted at the ceiling. Above her head, there was a small yellow circle, the size of a lemon.
Plink!
Another drop rained down, this time hitting her right between the eyes. Violet blinked. She walked into the kitchen, took out a teacup, and placed it beneath the leak.
Violet finished brushing her teeth, left the bathroom, and settled into her reading chair. She picked up her copy of A Guide to Backyard Birds and opened to chapter three, “The Way of the Woodpecker.”
Plunk!
This time, a drop of water landed on page twenty-six, then slid down onto her lap. She looked up. Above her was another yellow stain, this one the size of a grapefruit.
Violet got up, pushed her chair forward a few feet, and placed a salad bowl under the leak. “That should do it,” she said to herself.
She picked up her book again and the room fell away. All around her were a flock of woodpeckers, fluttering here and there, looking for a place to nest. Just then, she heard a knock, like a woodpecker tapping on a tree. Violet went to her front door and opened it.
“Hello, Henry,” she said.
“Hi, Violet,” said Henry. “May I come in?”
She stepped back and opened the door wider. Henry came in and looked around. His eyes lingered at the kitchen door.
“I’m just out of jam,” he began. “I wonder if I might borrow—”
Plink!
Something smacked him on the shoulder. He looked at the soggy spot on his sweater, then up at the ceiling.
“You have a leak!” he said, stepping aside.
“Yes, sorry, just a moment,” said Violet.
She went into the kitchen, picked up a saucer, and brought it back to the living room. She placed it where Henry had been standing, and the water fell, plink! plink! plunk!, into the dish.
“Perhaps you should call for some help?” suggested Henry, sitting down on the sofa.
“Thanks,” said Violet, “but I can take care of this by myself.” Taking care of things was something Violet was very good at.
Water dripped from the ceiling and fell, plink! plunk!, into the dishes spread around the apartment, like a summer rainstorm.
“I see,” he said.
“Make yourself comfortable,” said Violet. “I’ll fix us some jam and toast.”
She went into the kitchen and took out the strawberry jam. As she reached for a loaf of bread from the cupboard, something went plink! behind her. She spun around to see water dripping into the flour bin.
“Oh no!” she cried, racing to move it out of the way. Now the drops were falling on the counter. She moved an empty sugar bowl to catch them.
“Is everything okay in there?” called Henry from the living room.
“Oh yes, fine!” shouted Violet. “I’ll just be a minute!”
Violet stepped away from the counter and felt something wet on her foot. She looked up and spied another grapefruit on the ceiling. This time, she put a soup bowl on the floor.
“Let me help you!” said Henry in the other room, getting up.
Violet could hear him walking toward the kitchen. She took a step to reach for the jam, but the flo
or began to move beneath her. The soup bowl spun out from under her foot, and Violet fell, WHUMP, flat on her back.
Tiny drops of water were now falling onto her chin. She closed her eyes. “Maybe if I keep them shut long enough, everything will go back to normal,” she thought.
A few moments later, she opened one eye to see if it was working. There was Henry, leaning over her with a frown.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Of course!” she said a little too loudly. “Why do you ask?” Violet stood up and limped into a kitchen chair.
Henry looked around. “There’s water leaking everywhere,” he said. “You should call Ms. Thornbush. Her fix-it shop is just down the street.”
“It’s okay,” said Violet, clearing her throat. “I can manage.” She reached for a dish towel and dried her face.
“Let’s eat outside,” Henry sighed. “The weather might be a bit better than it is in here.”
“All right,” agreed Violet.
She put the jam and bread in a bag. They walked downstairs to the front porch of 24 Sprout Street and sat on the swing.
Just then, Wilbur climbed the front steps. He was carrying a basket full of blueberries from the bushes in the yard. He nodded to his neighbors and held out the basket.