Free How I Found the Perfect Dress by Maryrose Wood Page A

chicken, turning its back to the farmhouse. “The party’s this way.”
    I followed the chicken into the woods.

seven
    m Ч feathered guide and i Walked down a narrow path through the forest. The chicken was clumsy in that big yellow suit, and a few times I had to help it get untangled from branches that had overgrown the trail. After we were well into the dense woods, and the meadow and farm had been left far behind us, I started to hear music, faint but unmistakable, coming from further down the path.
    Now, once a person has buk-buk-bukked her way through a faery portal in a grocery store, and then finds herself walking through an enchanted Irish forest with a mysterious guide in a chicken suit, you’d expect that any music she’d hear would be in the magical and tinkly vein, right? Flutes, harps—maybe some ethereal, Björk-like vocals?
    Apparently not. What I heard was your basic mediocre dance club mix: eighties rock, classic disco, some mild hip-hop and a dash of Meatloaf. The music grew louder as we walked.
    Finally we reached a large clearing. Within it were the Faery Folk, hundreds of them, all dressed like the animatronic barnyard creatures at Lucky Lou’s. There were farmer outfits, cow outfits, sheep outfits and many different fruit and vegetable outfits. One tall and willowy girl was dressed like a stalk of corn, with her own yellow hair providing the silk that spilled out at the top.
    â€œThis costume is amusing, but it does get rather warm inside,” the chicken remarked. “I don’t know how the real chickens can stand it.” Then it lifted off its head.
    The chicken was a guy, about my age, fair-haired, with chiseled features and chocolate-brown puppy-dog eyes. He looked a lot like Mike Fitch, actually, but the way he talked reminded me of someone else . . . someone I’d met in Ireland—but who?
    â€œMorganne,” he scolded. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten me again !”
    â€œOh, fek !” I exclaimed. “Finnbar? Is that you?” All too well I remembered the mischievous, spoiled faery boy who’d brought chaos to a kingdom. Finnbar and his clever, maddening enchantments was single-handedly responsible for my adventures in long-ago Ireland last summer. But last summer Finnbar was just a kid, maybe ten years old. Now—assuming this was really him—he was my age, and a hunk to boot.
    â€œIs it me, she asks!” He sighed. “Am I so very unmemorable? Morganne, you do tend to hurt my feelings.”
    Maybe he wasn’t a boy soprano anymore, but that petulant, teasing voice was pure Finnbar. “Sorry,” I said quickly. “Of course I haven’t forgotten you. It’s just that the last time I saw you, you were a little boy.”
    â€œEven little mortal boys don’t stay that way for long, you know.” He smiled. “Children are not allowed at faery balls, and I desperately wanted to come to this one! So I came as myself, but grown.”
    I didn’t get it.
    He humphed with impatience. “Think, Morganne! You’re practically grown. Don’t you remember yourself as a child?”
    â€œOf course I do.”
    â€œSo,” he said, as if he were explaining something that was ridiculously obvious, “when I’m a child, why shouldn’t I remember myself grown? Honestly, you make everything so complicated!” Finnbar looked at me disapprovingly. “Someone should have told you it’s a costume ball, though. You’re not really dressed appropriately.”
    For a guy in a chicken suit, I thought, you’ve got a lot to say about other people’s outfits. I looked down, half-expecting to see myself decked out in a floor-length, flowy goddess-gown, suitable for personal appearances in the faery realm, but I was still in the jeans and Converse high-tops I’d worn to Lucky Lou’s. My hands flew up to my hair: It was short, not long and wavy