Read Green for Free Online Page B

like a low blow, but she wasn't wrong. My blue satin shorts were a mess--dirty, wrinkled, and as covered with grass stains as my bare legs. My striped vest was in even worse shape. And then there was my hair, which had to be the sorriest sight of all. I took a step toward the tub and stopped. "I don't have anything clean to put on."
    "Right here, Lil." Lexie ran to the cupboard and pulled on a tassel attached to its door. The door swung open to reveal human-sized clothes on hangers, some of which I recognized.
    "That's Gigi's sweater!" I cried, crossing the room in
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    three bounds. "And those sneakers! I remember those! Why do you have her things?"
    "Balthazar didn't explain?" Bronwyn sounded annoyed again. "This is the keeper's hut, Lil. Maureen left them here."
    Grabbing a pole with a hook on its end, Lexie snagged the hanger holding a green velvet dress. Its silver-embroidered hem swayed above her head. "This one's for tonight, for the banquet!" she told me.
    "Maureen wore that frock herself, her first night here as a girl," Kate said nostalgically. "A grand banquet that was--so grand she saved the dress all these years."
    I gave Kate a closer look. She looked to be my mom's age, but she was talking as if she'd attended Gigi's party.
    "I was just a child then," Lexie told me, "too young to be allowed to go. But I'll be there tonight, Lil."
    Lexie looked sixteen, at the oldest. "When, exactly, was this banquet?" I asked.
    Bronwyn calculated. "That would be nearly fifty years ago now." She sighed. "You humans age so quickly. But let's chat after your bath."
    I glanced at the tub again. Then I snatched the dress from Lexie and crushed its velvet to my face. The fabric smelled of Gigi. She suddenly seemed so close I almost expected her to walk into the room. When I reopened my eyes, though, I was still alone with three leprechauns.
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    Rehanging the dress, I walked over to the tub and stepped in, fully clothed. Slumping dejectedly against its curved bottom, I slid down till the water closed over my head.
    "You'll want to give that hair some attention," Bronwyn bossed, rapping on the tub's iron side. "There's shampoo on the ledge."
    Exhaling a long sigh of bubbles, I surfaced again.
    A shelf next to the tub held an assortment of bath products. Their familiar labels seemed out of place there, beamed in from any normal bathroom in America. Filling my hands with shampoo, I forced my fingers through my tangled hair, too worn out to argue.
    Surprisingly, my head felt fine, already completely recovered except for its patches of scorched stubble. I scrubbed away, then slid underwater to rinse. When I came back up, I saw that Kate had dragged one of the stools to the tub's end and was standing on its seat gazing down at me.
    "I thought that screen was for privacy!" I protested.
    "You're dressed, aren't you? Besides, if I give you your privacy, who'll be taking care o' that rat's nest on your head?" She brandished a pair of tiny gold scissors, snipping the air in a way that made me shrink toward the other end of the tub.
    "I don't want short hair." Tears welled into my eyes. "I'll look like even more of a freak with short hair!"
    "I'll do what I can, but some of those places are down to your scalp. You have to compromise, Lil."
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    Kate pointed at the edge of the tub, an expectant look on her face. I hesitated, then laid my head there. Short of shaving me bald, there wasn't a lot more damage she could do.
    "Lexie! Bring us a comb," Kate called. "Now then, Lil. Are you ready?"
    The next twenty minutes were a flurry of snipping scissors. Lexie climbed onto the stool with Kate and used a human-sized comb to lift my long snarls, sweeping it along my scalp whichever way Kate said. At first the comb got stuck every inch, but soon it moved so easily I could tell I had no hair left.
    Bronwyn climbed up to check progress. "You've got a spot here needs filling in," she told Kate.
    Moving near my left ear, Kate snipped repeatedly a few inches