Wood Sprites

“Shush you, monkey girl.” Jillian paused at the playground door. On the other side of the asphalt, Elle and the other Girl Scouts were playing jump rope. Elle’s loose blond hair waved like a banner in the weak spring sunlight as she skipped through the doubled ropes. They stood a moment, watching enviously, as Double Dutch was one of those things the two of them couldn’t do alone. “I just wish sometimes Elle could be our friend without one of us having to be the loser. It’s not like with you — I don’t ever have to worry about which one of us is the winner.”

Said the twin that everyone said was the cutest and the most creative. Louise blinked quickly to keep tears from showing in her eyes and lifted up her tablet to distract Jillian. “So, Wilbur, now that we found April Geiselman, what do we do?”

“We go and see her!” Jillian glanced back at Elle and smirked. “And I think I know how we’re going to do it.”

* * *

Jillian decided that they’d go disguised as Girl Scouts selling cookies.

Louise wasn’t sure they needed disguises. And she was fairly positive that they hadn’t needed to actually join the Girl Scouts in order to obtain the uniforms. She suspected that Jillian secretly just wanted to join but wouldn’t admit it. Elle had been so stunned when they showed up at the after-school meeting that she just stood there, mouth open, with a confused look on her face. Mrs. Pondwater was much better at covering her emotions. She ran on autopilot, welcoming them to the troop with only flashes of horror going through her eyes when she happened to look at Louise’s blast-shortened hair. Jillian had told everyone in class that Louise’s new hairstyle was because of an accident with bubblegum so there were no embarrassing questions about explosions, leveled playhouses, or emergency-room visits. Mrs. Pondwater apparently knew the truth, which indicated that the woman obsessively tracked everyone who touched upon her daughter’s life. She obviously didn’t want to take responsibility for anyone who had already managed to blow themselves up once. The spirit of Girl Scouts — as Jillian pointed out — was to accept any girl no matter her ethnic and social group.

So they would have the uniforms, cookie order forms, and a creditable alibi for all of Saturday.

Neither one of them remembered that Saturday was their birthday.

* * *

“The Girl Scouts?” their mother said for the third time after they told her. She was in her power business suit, her briefcase on the counter, and dinner from the supermarket’s hot deli still in its insulated bag on the kitchen table. The evening news was on but muted.

“Is there something wrong with the Girl Scouts?” Louise got out four plates and four forks.

“You said we should try to play with the other girls more.” Jillian investigated the bag. “Oh, good, rotisserie chicken!” She pulled out a small full chicken and then other containers that held steamed brown rice, salad makings, and fresh fruit.

“There’s nothing wrong with Girl Scouts.” Their mother took off her heels with a sigh of relief. “I thought — oh, what’s her name. .?”

“Elle Pondwater.” Louise supplied the name and four glasses.

“Yes, that Elle’s mother ran the Girl Scouts here and you thought she was materialistic and extremely controlling. What’s changed?”

Since it was true, Louise let Jillian field the question.

“By ignoring the Girl Scouts, we were allowing Elle to control that power base. By infiltrating that clique, we could disrupt her monopoly on it.”

Their mother pursed her lips, studying Jillian with eyes narrowed. “I am never sure whether to be dismayed or proud when you talk that way.”

Louise tried to soften the statement. “The other girls don’t seem to be aware of what Elle is doing, but she is using the group to exclude us. Today in Art she did a ‘Let’s all sit together’ and then picked the other side of the classroom.”

Their mother hummed something that sounded like “Oh, that sneaky bitch.” She tried not to say negative things aloud, wanting them to make up their own minds about people. She couldn’t, however, keep completely silent when she was angry for their sake.

“She’s never mean to our faces.” Louise supplied serving forks and spoons for the chicken and the side dishes.

“God forbid people realize what a backstabber she is.” Jillian poured milk for herself and Louise. “All the other girls probably think she’s always nice.”

“Pause!” their mother suddenly cried to the TV, which had frozen the picture at her command. “Go back a story. Unmute.”

The screen switched to the Waldorf Astoria’s famous façade in Manhattan. The reporter was standing across Park Avenue while people with signs marched in front of the hotel’s entrance. “Demonstrators gathered today in front of the Waldorf Astoria to protest the UN’s plan to enlarge the quarantine zone controlled by the Earth Interdimensional Agency in southwestern Pennsylvania.”