On the way back to the Home Tree, Prilla hugged her dandelion-fluff arrival garment close to keep it from being blown off by the wind. Her disappointment over the fairy 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 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 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 7th 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 art fairies. The theme of every other fairy's room was the occupant's talent.
In Tink's room, the bedframe was a pirate's loaf pan. Her three lamps had colander lampshades. And the painting over her bed was a still-life of a tinker's hammer, a woven grass basket, and an acorn pot.
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 leaf bags of fairy dust, and the room was always dusty with ordinary dust.
But the art 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. The lacy bedspread was boring, triple-ply spiderweb. The night table was a toadstool with a 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 was the dresses and ensembles that were laid out on the bed and the footwear spread out below. The clothing, too, had posed a problem for the art fairies. Usually, they made clothing in the color of the fairy's talent for the room. But because Prilla hadn't a talent, the clothing items were all different colors.
Prilla 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-petal 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 made out of cloth, 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, unless it is a warm fairy's wings in the Winter Woods, or a winter fairy's wings in the warm places.
Prilla didn't move a muscle. The girl couldn't push the wings through!
"The wing slit's 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 sunflower petal 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. A 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 petals 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 human 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 a long blue tail.
Prilla had been barefoot before, and so she wondered what shoes felt like. She put a pair on and drew in a breath. So soft! The shoes fit as perfectly as everything else. Prilla wondered how they'd done it, and then guessed it was talent again. Probably an art-talent fairy who loved measuring 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 leaf 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 was there to say she was right. For shoes, she chose the white lily open-toes, with the rolled 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.