“What have you been doing with your hair?”
“Oh, just experimenting. Mother, may I have it crimped for the party?”
“I don't know—we'll see. Now hurry and jump into bed.”
After mother had kissed her good night and gone, and after the light had been turned out, Missy lay awake for a long time.
Through the lace window curtains shone the moonlight, a gleaming path along which Missy had often flown out to be a fairy. It is quite easy to be a fairy. You lie perfectly still, your arms stretched out like wings. Then you fix your eyes on the moonlight and imagine you feel your wings stir. And the first thing you know you feel yourself being wafted through the window, up through the silver-tinged air. You touch the clouds with your magic wand, and from them fall shimmering jewels.
Missy was fourteen, going on fifteen, but she could still play being a fairy.
But to-night, though the fairy path stretched invitingly to her very bed, she did not ride out upon it. She shut her eyes, though she felt wide-awake. She shut her eyes so as to see better the pictures that came before them.
With her eyes shut she could see herself quite plainly at the party. She looked like herself, only much prettier. Yes, and a little older, perhaps. Her pink dotted mull was easily recognizable, though it had taken on a certain ethereally chic quality—as if a rosy cloud had been manipulated by French fingers. Her hair was a soft, bright, curling triumph. And when she moved she was graceful as a swaying flower stem.
As Missy watched this radiant being which was herself she could see that she was as gracious and sweet-mannered as she was beautiful; perhaps a bit dignified and reserved, but that is always fitting.
No wonder the other girls and the boys gathered round her, captivated. All the boys were eager to dance with her, and when she danced she reminded you of a swaying lily. Most often her partner was Raymond himself. Raymond danced well too. And he was the handsomest boy at his party. He had blonde hair and deep, soft black eyes like his father, who was the handsomest as well as the richest man in Cherryvale. And he liked her, for last year, their first year in high school, he used to study the Latin lesson with her and wait for her after school and carry her books home for her. He had done that although Kitty Allen was much prettier than she and though Beulah Crosswhite was much, much smarter. The other girls had teased her about him, and the boys must have teased Raymond, for after a while he had stopped walking home with her. She didn't know whether she was gladder or sorrier for that. But she knew that she was glad he did not ignore that radiant, pink-swathed guest who, in her beautiful vision, was having such a glorious time at his party.