Free Lily's Pesky Plant by Kirsten Larsen Page A

standing over her. She had curly hair the color of a wax bean and a long, narrow nose that was red at the tip.
    “Hello, Iris,” said Lily, sitting up. “What’s so funny?”
    “Why, just look at your buttercups.”
    Lily looked. She didn’t see anything funny about them.
    “They’re the biggest I’ve ever seen!” Iris exclaimed. “You ought to call them butter- bowls instead.” She chuckled at her own joke.
    Lily smiled politely. “They do seem happy,” she replied. Lily didn’t care how big or small a plant was, as long as it was happy. That was the reason the plants in her garden grew so well—she made sure they were all content.
    “Of course, they’re nothing like the buttercups I used to grow,” Iris went on. “They were as big as soup pots and yellow as the sun. I’ll tell you a secret I learned from a Tiffen: you have to give them real butter .”

    Lily raised her eyebrows in surprise. The Tiffens were big-eared creatures who grew bananas. Their farms weren’t far from Pixie Hollow. Lily had never heard of a Tiffen who grew buttercups.
    Then again, she thought, what do I know about Tiffens? Lily didn’t spend very much time outside her garden.
    Iris gave her a smug little nod. Like Lily, Iris was a garden-talent fairy. She had once had her own garden, but it was so long ago no one could remember what it had been like.
    Then Iris had begun writing her plant book. Now, she claimed, she was much too busy to do any real gardening. Instead, she went around poking her nose into other fairies’ gardens. She said she was collecting information for her book. But she usually did more talking than listening.
    Lily couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be a garden fairy without a garden. She thought it must be awful.
    Iris plopped down on a spotted red toadstool and flipped open the birch bark cover of her book. She turned its pages, which were made from leaves. Iris carried the book with her everywhere she went.
    “Anyway, Lily,” Iris said, “I’ve come because I’m worried about your snapdragons. Now, don’t get me wrong. They seem perfectly healthy and strong. But when I went to take a peek at their petals the other day, one snapped at me!”
    “They’re snap dragons, Iris,” Lily pointed out patiently. “It’s their nature to be cranky.”
    “Well, I know a thing or two about snapdragons, Lily,” Iris said. “And you can’t just let them act wild. You’ve got to train them.” Iris continued to flip through the pages of her book. “I found a perfectly brilliant way to keep them from snapping.” She tapped the page she’d opened to. “Here, I’ll read it to you. ‘A Cure for Snappish Snapdragons, by Iris. If your snapdragons have bad manners, you must pinch their leaves whenever they snap at you.…’”
    As Iris read on, Lily’s toes began to wiggle impatiently. Suddenly, she blurted out, “Actually, Iris, I was just about to leave.”
    It wasn’t true, and Lily wasn’t quite sure why she’d said it. She knew Iris only meant to be helpful. But maybe she was annoyed with Iris for interrupting her peaceful morning. Or maybe it was just that Lily liked her snapdragons to be snappish. Whatever the reason, on this particular day, Lily just didn’t feel like listening to Iris.
    “Where are you going? I could come with you and tell you more on the way,” Iris offered.
    “Oh, but…I’m going fern spotting. Possum ferns, that is,” Lily said quickly. Any fairy knew it was impossible to look for possum ferns and talk at the same time. The ferns were shy and would wilt completely if they heard a noise.
    “Oh. Okay, then. Another time.” Iris blew her nose into a leafkerchief. She looked disappointed, and Lily felt a little pang. She wished she hadn’t lied about going to the forest. But it was too late to take it back now.
    “Yes, another time. See you, Iris,” Lily said. She rose into the air and flew off into the forest.

    When she was just out of sight from the