Wood Sprites

The rest of the party was down the hall, laughing and shrieking loudly. As Louise walked cautiously toward it, she realized she could hear Jillian’s voice slightly above the rest, quoting from their video, The Queen’s Pantaloons. Louise stopped at the doorway, surprised to find that Jillian was the center of attention. Obviously Jillian was using their fame to take over the party. Elle had a stone-hard smile locked into place even though her eyes stormed. All the other girls, though, were laughing as Jillian played the part of the clueless anthropologist, the extremely nearsighted Dr. Forthwright, the only non-ninja scientist from their videos.

“Such fancy needlework.” Jillian held up a facial tissue that was standing in for a lacy pair of oddly shaped underwear. The scene was based on odd wording used in academic papers to describe the elves’ method of dealing with no elastic or zippers to create clothing. “What do you suppose it is? A table doily? A handkerchief? It has such wonderful perfume.”

“The — the — the queen’s pantaloons!” Zahara was standing in as Hairbrush, who they often portrayed as a hapless victim of cultural misunderstandings. She always managed to say the worst possible thing and then react wildly to the resulting confusion.

“Pantaloons,” Jillian muttered as she mimed typing the word into a translator. “Pantaloons. Pan-ta-loons. Pan. Ta. Loons.” She paused, eyeing the tissue that was standing in for the lace panties. “Canadian water bird? No, I think not. Forgiveness. What are pantaloons?”

Zahara did a very good job of copying Hairbrush’s wild takes — that was half the humor of the scene. “Knickers. Drawers. Bloomers. Tanga.”

“Hmm, tanga.” Jillian consulted the nonexistent translator again. “Currency of Tajikistan. Ah, I see: it’s money. What’s the exchange rate?”

“Once per day?” Zahara sputtered out after a full minute of surprised and confused looks.

Jillian tossed up the tissue and the room burst into squeals of excitement. One girl after another snatched the white tissue out of the air and quoted a ninja anthropologist line and then tossed it up again. Not all the quips were from The Queen’s Pantaloons, displaying a slightly scary range of knowledge.

Elle’s smile started to tremble, and the anger in her eyes turned to hurt. It was her birthday party and she was about to cry.

Louise darted forward, caught the tissue, and tossed it to Elle. “The queen! The queen!”

Elle’s eyes went wide in surprise.

Jillian quirked a frown at Louise but sketched an elaborate bow. “Queen Soulful Ember.”

Elle’s eyes narrowed but she rose regal as a queen. “Hairbrush? Hairbrush? We have laws against mimes.”

Zahara did a perfect triple take. “Mimes? We do?”

“Surely we do. Frightening things: mimes. What will humans think up next? If we allow mimes, Kabuki is sure to follow.”

“Kabuki?”

Elle struck the first pose of the Noh play Tamura or Dance of the Ghost. Amazingly, she had the dance fairly well approximated. Anyone who hadn’t spent hours researching and re-creating the dance with Barbie dolls and CGI animation wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. Why did Elle know the dance so well? Was she a closet fan or had she learned it merely because she knew all the other kids liked the video? The other girls supplied “music,” acting out the parts of the ninja anthropologist/musicians, drumming on side tables and pretending to be playing flutes.

“Noh!” Zahara cried. “Your majesty, Noh!”

“Are you telling your queen no?”

“Of course not!”

“But you just did!”

“But. . But. . But. .” Zahara did Hairbrush’s whimper as she once again found herself in verbal quicksand. “That is not Kabuki, it’s Noh.”

A withering look from Elle, probably for Zahara’s part of stealing the spotlight during Elle’s party. “There is a strange female in the garden.” Elle pointed with the same circling flourish as the video, a subtle clue that the queen was on the verge of leveling everything with fire strikes. “We think she might be a mime. She’s moving her mouth but nothing is coming out. We can’t allow mimes; next thing you know we’ll be up to our armpits in all sorts of scary things. Clowns. Frenchmen.”

“Oh! Oh! Her! No! I–I—I mean to say she isn’t a mime, your majesty. She merely swallowed the gossamer call.”

Elle did a perfect comedic pause, hands cocked like a gunfighter’s, fingers twitching, as the other girls screamed with laughter. She finally broke her silence only when the laugh died to excited giggles. “What?”

“The gossamer call. It generates a sound audible only to gossamers. . and mimes.”

Elle let her hands flutter up, fingers twitching madly, and the girls all shrieked with laughter. “Blast it all!”

Mrs. Pondwater came in, clapping her hands for attention. “Jillian. Louise. You’re the last girls for photographs. The photographer is waiting for you.”