Lily in Full Bloom (6 page)

“O
OOH
!” A
CRY WENT UP
from the fairies around the courtyard.

“Look at that bright purple,” Beck whispered to the other art talents.

Many fairies were delighted to see flowers growing on a blanket. A few clapped. But some of them—especially the garden fairies—looked confused.

Lily was the most confused garden talent of all. She knew what those flowers were. They were her panglories!

Lily flew to the front of the crowd. “Lympia, where did you get panglory seeds?” she asked.

Lympia shook her head. “No, Lily. It wasn’t your seeds,” she said. She held up a sea-glass bottle. “They grew from my laundry cleaner! I just opened this new bottle this morning.”

She turned to look at the queen. “I don’t know how it happened. But it seems my cleaner can get out stains
and
it can grow flowers on laundry!”

Lily took a corner of the blanket in her hands and carefully looked at the flowers. The bright purple, yellow, and pink blooms sprouted from the cloth. They looked as beautiful as they had that first day in Lily’s garden.

“These look just like panglories,” Lily said. “Are you sure you didn’t sprinkle panglory seeds on the wash instead of cleaner? We did hand out a lot of seeds. Maybe one of the other garden talents left some in a pocket or something.” Lily looked around hopefully at her friends. That had to be it! How else would her special panglory seeds have ended up in the laundry?

But the other garden talents just shrugged. They all seemed as puzzled as Lily did. No one had seen such brilliant flowers in days.

“I didn’t wash any clothes with this blanket,” Lympia told her. “And I took this bottle from my shelf of detergent bottles.”

Doubt flickered in Lily’s mind for a moment. She was sure the flowers were her panglories. But Lympia had a point. How would panglory seeds have gotten mixed in with the wash?

While the other fairies pressed in closer to Lympia and Breeze, Lily backed away. She tried to remember every detail from when she’d invented the panglories. She knew she hadn’t even seen Lympia since the day she’d planted that first batch of panglory seeds.

Lily sighed, remembering the excitement of that morning. It seemed like such a long time ago now. She had just tried out the seeds. She’d been eager to learn what would happen. She’d flown around Pixie Hollow as she waited to see how her flowers would bloom.

Wait!
thought Lily.
I had the seed bottle in my pocket at the time.…

A sea-glass seed bottle! Lily’s memories rushed back to her. She
had
shown Lympia the seeds! She had put them on the folding table. Then Lympia had shown her the laundry cleaner.

Why, that would explain everything!

Lily flew to the queen’s side. “Queen Clarion! I know what’s going on!” she cried. The loudness of her voice shocked even her. “I can explain it all!”

A look of surprise passed over the queen’s face. It matched the look on the faces all around the courtyard. The rest of the fairies fell silent.

Lily felt everyone’s eyes on her again. But this time she didn’t mind at all.

“I was excited after I planted my flowers. I couldn’t wait to tell someone. I found Lympia doing the wash in the Home Tree. Do you remember, Lympia?” Lily looked at her hopefully. “I had my bottle of seeds with me. It looked a lot like the one your cleaner is in.”

Lympia nodded slowly. Then she gasped. “Lily…do you think? Could the bottles—”

“Yes!” Lily agreed. Lympia remembered her visit, and now Lympia was thinking the same thing she was!

Lympia handed her corner of the blanket to Breeze. Then she held her sea-glass bottle up to her eyes. She wrinkled her brow. Lily knew what she was thinking. The brown stones inside the bottle looked like cleaning pebbles. But they could be seeds, too.

Lympia held the bottle out to Lily. Lily’s wings fluttered as she took the sea-glass bottle. She was nervous and excited and hopeful.

She tipped the bottle over her hand. Some of the pebbles fell into her palm. If she had to guess, she would say that the pebbles were actually her seeds. But there was only one way to know for sure.

Lily kneeled beside the washtub. She looked up at the crowd of fairies around her. “Here goes,” she said. She spread the handful of pebbles out on the ground.

Panglories were unique in many ways. But they didn’t bloom any more quickly than normal flowers. Lily knew they would need extra-special help. She usually didn’t demand so much of her flowers. But this was important. Maybe they would sprout quickly for her, if she asked.

Lily leaned in close and whispered, “If you’re my seeds, grow strong. I believe in you.”

She could feel the crowd waiting. Queen Clarion hovered right beside her as everyone looked to see if the brown stones were cleaning pebbles or panglory seeds.

Nothing happened. Could Lily have been wrong? Had it just been a bottle of Lympia’s cleaner after all? She shut her eyes tightly. She thought about her colorless garden. She remembered the art and baking talents’ problems. She recalled the Home Tree’s graying leaves.

“I know you can do it,” she whispered to the seeds. “You can do so much already. Sprout. Flower. Show your beautiful blossoms to Pixie Hollow.”

Lily heard the queen gasp. She opened her eyes and looked at the ground. There, blooming in the middle of the courtyard, were lovely purple, yellow, and pink panglories. The other fairies began to cheer.

Lily, sighed, happily.

Queen Clarion cleared her throat. “We now know what happened to your seeds, Lily. But we still don’t know why the other flowers in Pixie Hollow, and the Home Tree, are gray.”

“Oh, right,” said Lily. There was more to explain. She told everyone how she’d left the laundry room that morning. She had flown back to her garden. She had found her panglory seeds already blooming. And then she had flown to the well with Bumble to see the Lonely Heart flower double-bloom.

“I still had the bottle of seeds,” Lily said. “At least, I
thought
it was a bottle of seeds. I was going to show the other garden fairies how well the seeds bloomed—on anything!”

“That’s right!” Rosetta said from across the courtyard. “And Bumble knocked the bottle into the well.”

Next to Rosetta, Iris scratched her head. “But if it wasn’t a bottle of seeds—”

Lily finished her thought. “—then it was a bottle of Lympia’s cleaner that went down the well. Splash! Right into our well water.” She paused to see if anyone understood. “It’s the well water that we use to water our gardens.”

One by one, the faces of the garden fairies brightened. Most of the other talents still looked confused. But garden fairies knew how plants worked.

“And when we watered our plants—” Bluebell started.

“—we whitened all the flowers!” Aster finished.

The garden-talent fairies looked at each other and burst out laughing. Even Queen Clarion smiled about the mix-up.

“Lily, your panglories were just the first flowers to start fading. They weren’t the cause of any of it!” Rosetta cried.

Lily beamed.

“But why would the Home Tree fade?” Queen Clarion asked.

“Because of me,” Iris and Fern said at the exact same time. “What? You?” the two fairies cried, looking at each other.

“Yes, me,” Iris went on. “I watered the Home Tree roots a few days ago—with water from the well.” She explained that it was something the garden fairies took turns doing.

“I did, too,” said Fern. “Iris, you haven’t watered the Home Tree in ages! I’ve taken your spot in the watering schedule.”

So the Home Tree had gotten a double dose of Lympias laundry cleaner.

That explained its graying leaves.

“Mystery solved,” Queen Clarion said. “We’ll have our colorful gardens back in no time!”

The crowd cheered once more. As they started to fly off, Lily trailed behind the rest. She couldn’t wait to get back to tending her garden! Once the water-talent fairies cleaned the well, Lily would have orange flowers for the art talents again. She’d have pink and yellow and blue flowers so the baking talents could make colorful icing. And she’d have a fresh batch of panglories sprouting from the patch in her garden where other flowers refused to grow.

A couple of days later, Lily was lying on a mound of soft moss in her garden. At her side, a patch of colorful panglories sprouted on a frog-shaped garden statue.

Lily closed her eyes and smiled. All was good in Pixie Hollow. The garden and water fairies had rinsed out the well. And just as she had hoped, the color had come back to the gardens. The Home Tree no longer showed any sign of fading. And Lily’s panglories were blooming in every spare inch of her garden, everywhere her regular plants couldn’t.

Lily’s garden looked better—and happier—than ever. All she wanted now was to sit back and enjoy it.

“Lily!” a voice cried from the garden gate. Lily looked over. It was Rosetta.

Tink hovered at her side. Lily flew over to meet them.

“Do you like my new dress?” Rosetta asked. “It’s the latest in fairy fashion.” She twirled around. Her dress was covered in pink panglories. “The dressmaking fairies are having a lot of fun with your invention.”

“I guess I was wrong, Lily,” Tink said. “We all think up great ideas for our talents.”

She pulled a flowery hat from behind her back and put it on Rosetta’s head. It was the firefly-headlamp hat, covered in panglories!

Lily laughed out loud. Tink’s great invention looked pretty silly covered in flowers! “That’s one fairy fashion I hope doesn’t catch on,” Lily said. “Me, I’ll stick to my regular sun hat…and to my regular talent.”

Lily had loved the thrill of making something no one had ever seen before. And maybe someday Lily would want to try creating something new again. But for now, she was content to feel the sun on her face, the grass between her toes, and the breeze on her wings.