Hunting the Fairy Tale

Chapter 27 - Dinner Adventure

Willow

Paisley dances into the living room and executes a light-footed twirl. The boys meet her appearance in their midst with silent surprise.

"What do you think?" she prompts a little nervously when their silence stretches on and on. "Don't I look like Mary Had A Little Lamb?"

Jake finally breaks the spell by reacting to something he is obviously more familiar with than seeing his sister looking beautiful.

"How can you look like Mary-had-a-little-lamb? That's a fact, not a person. You know her name is just Mary, right? So, you can only look like Mary, especially since you don't actually have a lamb with you..." he clearly has more to say on the matter, but Paisley rolls her eyes and tosses her hands in the air.

"Well, Master Davenport, Sir, if I'd said: Don't I look like Mary, how would you have known which Mary I meant? There are soooo many. Mary, the girl you made cry in 10th grade because you were more interested in her father's telescope collection than in her. Mary, the mother of the Lord, Jesus. Mary, the Queen of Scots. Bloody Mary-"

"Isn't Bloody Mary a drink? If so, that might fit." Tanner chimes in.

"No, it's the scary chick in the mirror," Hunter explains.

"That fits too," Tanner nods, laughing with him. They are very brave to do that, with Paisley glaring daggers at them.

"It's the daughter of Henry the 8th, the queen of England, the one who killed all those protestants..."

"Thank you, Sir Jake!" Paisley forestalls his next lecture.

"You're welcome."

"If Paisley is a Mary, it will be Mary, Mary, quite contrary," Hunter informs the group, impressing everybody with his vast knowledge of nursery rhymes. A clear indication that he has to babysit his brother way too often. He laughs when Paisley sticks her tongue out at him.

"Yeah, she's definitely no Mary Poppins, that's for sure," Jake agrees.

"Nope, that would be Prissy."

Now I'm being dragged into it too! Fine!

"Though we adore men individually, we agree that as a group, they're rather stupid," I reply to Tanner, giving Paisley a turn to giggle.

"What?!" the boys chorus, clearly surprised to be insulted by me.

"I'm being Mary Poppins," I explain sweetly, innocently batting my eyelashes at them.

Don't they know the quote?

Paisley shakes her head, waving her hands at the group to get the boys to stop laughing. "Wait, you are all missing the point here."

Really, there was a point? Other than to slightly offend me?

"Look at me, don't I just look like I've lost all my sheep and caaaaan't tell wheeeeere to fiiiiiind them?" She dramatizes the last part of her sentence, standing on her sneakered toes, her hand above her eyes, searching for her friggin' sheep.

Having had enough of her teasing, I grab a biscuit from the tin, still hanging around in the living area from earlier in the afternoon, and stuff it into her mouth.

She bites into the biscuit, blinking at me, giggling in surprise. I've found that specific technique to be very effective with Hunter earlier in the week. He is grinning, clearly sharing my respect for the helpful biscuits. Perhaps he, too, is thinking of a happier moment we'd shared.

"You looked hungry," I snub her, turning Paisley's giggle into a full-out laugh. "Besides," I point out reasonably. "Mary didn't lose her lamb, it followed her everywhere, and Little Bo Peep's sheep all came back to her."