Wood Sprites

Louise nodded in agreement. “What we need most is time.”

“We need to be old enough that we can have good jobs. We have to be able to pay for a surrogate mother like April, a place we all can live comfortably, and still be able to buy them stuff like socks and boots and winter coats.”

Jillian obviously was thinking of the homeless men they saw on the street sometimes, nearly freezing in the snow.

“And they need their own college fund.” Jillian continued. “So if one of them wants to be a lawyer or a doctor, they can.”

“We need time and money,” Louise said.

“With time, we can get money. It’s just time we need.”

8: Birthday Greetings

On Thursday, Jillian made the mistake of leaving Elle’s invitation out on her desk in their bedroom where their mother saw it during one of her spot-checks on how clean they were keeping their bathroom. They were deeply engrossed in video editing at that moment, so she managed to read it before they even realized she had picked it up off Jillian’s desk.

Their mother made a little sound of impatience. “Why didn’t you tell me about this? I need to R.S.V.P. by tomorrow.”

Louise and Jillian exchanged glances. They shared the responsibility of telling her by both saying, “We’re not going.”

“It’s Elle,” Louise added. “We really aren’t friends with her.”

Their mother pursed her lips, considering. They waited, barely breathing. “She invited all the girls?” she asked finally.

“Yes, but it’s just a power maneuver to get control of the play!” Jillian cried. “She’s a Gemini, Mom, which means her birthday really is after May twenty-first. She’s having her birthday early so she can have it before the joint-class play meeting at the end of this month. She wants to do The Little Mermaid and we don’t.”

Louise winced. Jillian was an amazing liar, but when she stuck to the truth she seemed to have no idea what would be the result of her words.

“What happened to invade and conquer?” their mother asked.

“This is not Iraq,” Jillian said. “It’s a birthday party.”

“It’s diplomacy. You need to learn it.”

“But we don’t want to go,” Jillian cried, digging them in deeper.

“Honey, this is going to seem callous and awful, and I hate that I sound like my mother, but life is full of things you don’t really want to do that you should do. Everything from going to the dentist to giving blood. I really don’t like taking time out of my schedule to let someone jab me with a needle and screw up the rest of my day by sucking blood out of my arm. The only reason, though, that I’m alive today is because some stranger donated blood for my mother before I was born and again when I was a teenager and was in a car accident.”

“That’s different. That’s saving a life.”

“We’re sending you to school with kids your age so you can learn this, and it’s been five years and you haven’t learned it. You need people. Yes, it would be great and wonderful if all the people in your life were like Aunt Kitty.” They had always called Mom’s best friend “aunt” even though she wasn’t related by blood; she’d been informally “adopted” by their grandmother when the two friends were in high school. “Those are rare and wonderful treasures when you find them, but you need all the people.”

“Are you saying we should suck up to Elle?” Jillian asked because she knew the answer would be “no.”

“Obviously you haven’t learned the difference between ‘sucking up’ and ‘taking advantage of your opportunities.’ It’s time you learn. You’re going.”

“Mom!” Jillian and Louise both cried.

“Let me make myself clear.” She raised her right hand up, meaning that she would not tolerate them trying to weasel out. “You are going. You will be nice. You will do your best to have fun. You will be polite to Mrs. Pondwater and Elle. You will do nothing to submarine the party. You will use this opportunity to be friends not with Elle but with Elle’s friends, because one of them might be a girl you’ve discounted and held at arm’s length merely because Elle claimed her first. The only way you will ever find a friend like Aunt Kitty is to open yourself up to friendship. You will never find other people to love while sitting in your bedroom, talking only to each other.”

She finished giving a slow benediction with her upraised hand by pointing to each of them. “Have I made myself clear?”

“Yes,” they both whispered.

She sighed and lowered her hand. “You need to learn how to play the game of diplomacy. Right now you’re just fighting for a play. In the future, it could be for getting a job you love or a raise you deserve, or to win support for a law that will save people’s lives, or. . or I don’t know. You two have the power to change the world. You’re letting shallow, self-serving people like the Pondwaters win because they understand the game and you don’t.”

* * *