Lily's Pesky Plant

• All About Fairies
  
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I
F YOU HEAD
toward the second star on your right and fly straight on till morning, you’ll come to Never Land, a magical island where mermaids play and children never grow up.

When you arrive, you might hear something like the tinkling of little bells. Follow that sound and you’ll find Pixie Hollow, the secret heart of Never Land.

A great old maple tree grows in Pixie Hollow, and in it live hundreds of fairies and sparrow men. Some of them can do water magic, others can fly like the wind, and still others can speak to animals. You see, Pixie Hollow is the Never fairies’ kingdom, and each fairy who lives there has a special, extraordinary talent.

Not far from the Home Tree, nestled in the branches of a hawthorn, is Mother Dove, the most magical creature of all. She sits on her egg, watching over the fairies, who in turn watch over her. For as long as Mother Dove’s egg stays well and whole, no one in Never Land will ever grow old.

Once, Mother Dove’s egg
was
broken. But we are not telling the story of the egg here. Now it is time for Lily’s tale.…

E
ARLY ONE MORNING
, Lily woke to the sound of birds chirping in the topmost branches of the Home Tree, the ancient maple where Never Land’s fairies live. Opening her eyes, she saw the walls of her room stretch ever so slightly as the great tree reached its branches toward the early-morning sun. Lily pushed back her fern-frond quilt and yawned, stretching her arms up into the air.

Lily climbed out of bed and opened the doors of her wardrobe, which was made from a dried gourd. She chose a thistledown shirt and knickers woven from dandelion fluff. Unlike some fairies, Lily didn’t like spider-silk gowns and shoes with heels as thin as pine needles. She liked simple, sturdy clothes.

In the tearoom, Lily had her usual breakfast, a cup of lemongrass tea and a slice of poppy seed cake. Some of the other garden-talent fairies at Lily’s table sat for a while at breakfast. They refilled their pots of tea and spread heaps of black cherry jam on their bread. But not Lily. The moment her plate and cup were empty, she pushed them aside and flew off to her garden.

Lily’s garden was just two frog’s leaps beyond the Home Tree, right in the heart of Pixie Hollow. All the fairies agreed that it was one of the nicest places in the entire fairy kingdom. On one side of her garden was a hedge of raspberry bushes. On the other side, a wild rosebush sweetly scented the air. Everywhere bright red and orange poppies sprang from the ground. Clusters of Queen Anne’s lace and lilac made pleasant groves where a fairy could sit and think. And throughout the garden, sweet clover sprouted in fairy-sized beds. They were perfect for taking naps in.

The garden was a favorite spot of many fairies, who were always dropping by. Harvest-talent fairies picked raspberries from the bushes. Healing-talent fairies collected herbs for their potions. Other fairies simply liked to walk among the beautiful flowers.

Lily welcomed them all. Next to working in her garden, Lily’s favorite thing was watching fairies enjoy the beautiful plants she grew. The fairies also enjoyed Lily’s company. With her friendly, direct smile and her sparkling dark eyes, she was as fresh and lovely as the flowers she grew.

As soon as Lily got to her garden, she called out, “Bumble!” At once, a large bee zipped out of the flowers and flew up to her. Bumble was yellow, round, and fuzzy all over. He wasn’t Lily’s pet, exactly. He had just showed up one day and never left. The two had become good friends.

Bumble always followed Lily as she took care of her plants. She watered them. She checked their leaves for spots. That morning Lily saw that some of the daffodils had been toppled by a breeze. She tied the stems to stakes to help them stand sturdy and strong again.

When she was done making the rounds in her garden, Lily lay down on a patch of soft moss to watch the grass grow. To you this might sound boring, but for her it was every bit as exciting as watching butterfly races (a favorite fairy pastime). Lily was certain that the blades of grass grew faster when they knew she was watching.

Unluckily for Lily, she was the only fairy in all of Pixie Hollow to have this hobby. When others saw her lying in the grass, they usually thought she was doing nothing at all. Often, they would start talking to her. This frustrated Lily, for it broke her concentration.

And that was exactly what happened that morning. Bumble was buzzing around the buttercups in the corner of her garden, and Lily was lying nearby, watching a (very slow) race between two blades of grass. One blade was winning, and Lily was urging the other one to catch up, when a voice broke through her thoughts.

“I say, what a funny thing!” The voice was loud and a bit shrill.

Lily didn’t move, except to lower her eyelids. She hoped whoever it was would think she was sleeping and go away.

“I said, what a funny thing!” the voice cried, even more shrilly.

Lily sighed and opened her eyes. A tall fairy was 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 garden, Lily landed near the roots of an old oak tree.

“I’ll just go for a short walk,” she told herself as she set out along a narrow path through the bushes. “Then I’ll go back.” She figured Iris would have moved to someone else’s garden by then.

Most fairies never went to the forest alone because of snakes, owls, and hawks. And fairies almost never walked unless their wings were too wet to fly. But Lily was brave, and what was more, she liked walking. She felt closer to the plants when her feet were on the ground.

Lily walked along the forest floor. She kept an eye out for snakes. High above, the wind rustled the leaves of the trees. Lily took off her shoes. She liked the feeling of the damp soil between her toes.

Just then, she spotted something curled against the base of a rock. It was a silvery green plant with tightly coiled, velvety leaves. Lily smiled.

“A possum fern!” she whispered. She had spotted one after all! Holding her breath, Lily silently crept toward the rare plant to get a closer look.

Suddenly, something crashed through the leaves over her head. Lily gasped and flew for cover between the roots of a nearby tree. Had a hawk just swooped at her? Trembling, she peered out from behind the root and scanned the forest.

But there was no sign of a hawk. The forest was still and quiet. Lily looked over at the possum fern and saw that its leaves had uncoiled and turned brown. It had heard the noise and was playing dead.

Then Lily saw something that made her gasp again. In the spot where she had just been standing lay a strange seed.