How I Found the Perfect Dress Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  one

  two

  three

  four

  five

  six

  seven

  eight

  nine

  ten

  eleven

  twelve

  thirteen

  fourteen

  fifteen

  sixteen

  seventeen

  eighteen

  nineteen

  twentЧ

  twentЧ-one

  twentЧ-two

  twentЧ-three

  about the author

  praise for why i let my hair grow Out

  “[This] is a rockin’ book! It includes a dude who is madly in love with a toad . . . a talking horse; several extremely hot guys; magical mysteries . . . and much more that makes me recommend it . . . extremely highly.”

  —E. Lockhart, author of The Boyfriend List and Dramarama

  “This romantic and magical adventure had me cheering and laughing out loud. I can’t wait for the sequel!”

  —Sarah Mlynowski, author of Spells & Sleeping Bags

  “Great storytelling . . . makes a strong case that to enjoy and live life, ‘to thine own self be true’ . . . Teen readers will jam with the heroine.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “The perfect mix of real life, romance, and magic.”

  —Wendy Mass, author of Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life

  “For readers who like just a bit of fantasy with their reality . . . Even if you have no hair issues, you are sure to find this book well worth your reading time. I highly recommend it.”

  —Flamingnet.com, Top Choice Award

  “This is a funny, smart book that readers are sure to love!”

  —TeensReadToo.com, Gold Star Award

  praise for the novels of marЧrose Wood

  “Irresistible . . . hers is a voice that is way plugged in.”

  —The Cleveland Plain Dealer

  “proariously funny . . . strong, pitch-perfect narration will easily win readers.”

  —Booklist

  “Will provide hours of laughter and empathetic nods from readers.”

  —School Library Journal

  “Pure entertainment.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  Berkley JAM titles by Maryrose Wood

  WHY I LET MY HAIR GROW OUT

  HOW I FOUND THE PERFECT DRESS

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2008 by Maryrose Wood.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  BERKLEY® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  BERKLEY® JAM and the JAM design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley JAM trade paperback edition / May 2008

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Wood, Maryrose.

  How I found the perfect dress / Maryrose Wood.—Berkley JAM trade paperback ed. p. cm

  Summary: Sixteen-year-old half-goddess Morgan is wrapped up in normal concerns, such as junior prom and parental problems, when she learns that Colin, her Irish love, is the victim of a fairy curse and she must make a deal with a leprechaun to save him.

  eISBN : 978-0-425-21939-3

  [1. Proms—Fiction. 2. Leprechauns—Fiction. 3. Gnomes—Fiction. 4. Fairies—Fiction. 5. Space and time—Fiction. 6. Family problems—Fiction. 7. Connecticut—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.W8524How 2008 [Fic]—dc22

  2007050627

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For all my BFFs, but especially Laury and Mana, who have shopped with me the longest.

  acknowledgments

  As ever, I am supremely grateful to my editor, Jessica Wade, and to my agent, Elizabeth Kaplan, for nurturing this book from start to finish. They are both very fashionable women and can frequently be seen wearing perfect outfits, if not always dresses.

  Special thanks to illustrator Sarah Howell and designer Monica Benalcazar for another gorgeous cover. Thank you (two words, no hyphen), to copyeditor Jenny Brown for saving my butt countless times, to Heather Connor in publicity, Nicole Rodriguez in copy, and to all the wonderful staff at The Berkley Publishing Group.

  To my loved ones who read and offer helpful comments (or sometimes just puzzled looks), and to my friends and colleagues who provide encouragement in other ways large and small, thank you for your patience and goodwill—especially Beatrix and Harry, Rita Wood, E. Lockhart, Sarah Mlynowski, Wendy Mass, Andrew Gerle, Joe Gilford, Laury Berger, Mana Allen, Ann Morrison and Dave Shine.

  Big hugs and a magical thank-you to the awesome readers of Why I Let My Hair Grow Out. Your notes and e-mails are fantastic, and you are all my BFFs.

  one

  “tinker bell pajamas!” mЧ sister tammЧ Was the happiest girl in the world. “Look, Morgan! Look what Santa brung me!”

  “That’s ‘brought,’ Tammy. Look what Santa brought me.” Even on four hours’ sleep, my mom could hear bad grammar coming a mile away. It was Christmas morning, six a.m. Mom was catatonic on the sofa in her bathrobe, dark circles under her eyes, mumbling about verbs. I was in a similarly groggy condition, except I was on the floor and couldn’t care less about verbs. My dad was in the kitchen, making coffee with the desperation of a bomb-squad guy dismantling a detonator that was already ticking: five—four—three—two—

  “Snow White!” Tammy shrieked. “A Snow White backpack , look!”

  Mom and Dad and I were basically trashed, in a festive, ho-ho-ho kind of way. But Tammy was happy and hyper and the living room was a blizzard of torn wrapping paper and ribbon and presents from the mall, and isn’t that what Christmas is all about?

  I admit, I wasn’t feeling much holiday spirit this year. I’d still been stubbornly awake at one a.m., reading in the living room, when Mom tippy-toed down to th
e basement and hauled all the hidden presents upstairs, gently sliding each one under the tree without making the slightest crinkly paper sound. When I went to the kitchen to get some juice and made an accidental clink with the glass, she shushed me like a maniac.

  “Don’t wake Tammy!” she mouthed. Trust me, waking Tammy was the last thing I wanted to do. For weeks the kid had been threatening to sleep under the tree on Christmas Eve so she could catch Santa in the act. It took me—me, magical big sister Morgan—an hour and a half to persuade her to go to bed in her room, and that’s only because I promised I’d wait up in her place and take a photo of jolly old Saint Nick himself, delivering his sack of loot.

  I knew this was kind of a sucky lie to tell your sister on Christmas Eve, but it was the only way to shut her up. I figured the Christmas morning present-mania would make her forget all about the dumb Santa picture anyway, and so far I was right.

  “Look! It’s Belle! It’s Belle from Beauty and the Beast!” Tammy clawed the wrapping paper off one of the smaller packages. “Maybe it’s a movie or a computer game! Oh, a book. Well, Belle likes books, I guess. . . .”

  “Books are a wonderful present, honey.” Mom clutched her head in agony. “Not so loud, ’kay?” Mom’s always been a freak about Christmas, especially the Santa aspect. The old gal has it all figured out: Presents from Mom and Dad come in one kind of wrapping paper, presents from Santa come in another. She switches pens and even her handwriting, so the tags that read “from Santa” are written in this big curly script in red marker. It makes you wonder if the woman has ever considered a life of crime.

  “Morgan, look!” Tammy twirled around the room, as my dad stumbled out of the kitchen holding two mugs of coffee. Black for him, a splash of milk for me. Mom switched to green tea a while back on the advice of some health magazine, but you could bet she was regretting that now.

  “Cinderella’s Fashion Board Game! Daddy, will you play it with me? Willyouwillyouwillyou?”

  “After breakfast,” Dad said, leaning heavily against the wall. “After Daddy takes his”—yawn—“nap.” Mom executed the sneaky middle-of-the-night present drop, but it was Dad’s job to take a man-sized bite out of the Santa cookie. He wouldn’t drink the milk, though. He just poured half of it down the sink. Dad’s commitment to putting on the annual Santa-is-real show stopped where his lactose intolerance began.

  “Oooooh, tickets! Disney Princesses on Ice! We’re going to see the shoooooooooow!” Tammy started skating around the living room in her socks. “How does Ariel know how to ice skate? She’s a mermaid.”

  Good question, I thought, feeling a fresh wave of cranky wash over me. No doubt there were some presents for me under the tree too, but not the one I wanted: about six feet tall, with heart-stopping cornflower blue eyes and a tendency to use off-color Irish slang when excited. His name was Colin. I’d fallen for him like a ton of shamrocks last summer when I was in Ireland, but he was twenty and I was sixteen and no fekkin’ way was his attitude about that. Plus he lived on the other side of the ocean, and not even Kris Kringle could swing that kind of Christmas surprise.

  i had to give mom and dad Credit: an exhausting amount of planning and effort, lying and deceit went into Christmas at the Rawlinson family’s Connecticut abode, all designed to pull the wool over the eyes of a seven-year-old girl whose grip on reality was pretty woolly to begin with. What my parents didn’t seem to understand was that even Tammy was starting to get sick of it.

  “Santa’s not really real, though, is he, Daddy?” she’d asked, about a week before the holiday. The three of us were in Christmas central, a.k.a. the East Norwich Mall, shopping for presents for Mom. “He’s more magic real, right?”

  “Of course he’s real.” No way was Dad gonna be the Santa-killer; Mom would go ballistic. “Where do you think all the goodies come from?”

  “Santa’s—workshop?” Tammy answered hesitantly, looking around. The sickening quantities of merchandise heaped everywhere we turned seemed to suggest otherwise, unless Santa had a serious collection of credit cards.

  “Is he real, Morgan?” Tammy turned to me, desperate for a straight answer. In my sixteen and three-quarters years on the planet, I guess I’d acquired a reputation for being blunt. “Is Santa Claus true or not?”

  Dad gave me the evil eye, but I had no intention of being the Santa-killer either. Not if I wanted to survive junior year. “Lots of things are true that people think are not,” I’d answered, not looking her in the eye. I was kind of the wrong person to ask at that point, though, after what happened to me last summer in Ireland. No biggie, just me riding a bike across the Irish countryside, finding out I was a legendary half-goddess, undoing a bunch of magical faery enchantments and oh, yeah, finding the love of my life. Colin. He’d probably forgotten all about me by now.

  Maybe it was the snow on the ground or all the Christmas-in-Connecticut décor everywhere, but my summer adventure in Ireland was starting to feel very long ago and far away, as if I’d dreamed the whole thing. Maybe that’s why all I’d wanted to do on Christmas Eve was stay up late by the twinkling lights of our Christmas tree, reading and rereading the book Colin had given me the day I left Ireland.

  The tree was adorned from top to bottom with angels and cherubs and winged, fantastical beings of every kind. The book was called The Magical Tales of Ireland.

  Great read, if you believed in faeries. Even better if you’d actually met some.

  “Чou Couldn’t get her a basketball hoop for the driveway? A paint-by-numbers set? A board game that wasn’t about princesses?”

  “She gave me a list, Helen. She gave me her list for Santa and that’s what she wanted and that’s what I got. That princess stuff is all they have in the stores anyway.” Dad was driving, and he pulled away from the red light just extra-fast enough to show he was annoyed. “Next year, you do the Christmas shopping.”

  Always a pleasure to be trapped in the backseat, listening to the marital discussions. They’d been particularly juicy the last couple of weeks, ever since Dad had been downsized from his job. It’s not like we were out of money or anything. First Bank of Connecticut doesn’t lay a vice president off right before Christmas without giving him a fat goodbye check. But who was used to having Dad around all the time? Not me. Not Tammy. And definitely not Mom.

  “That’s not all they have.” I could hear Mom shifting into higher gear along with the Subaru. “They have blocks. They have Legos. They have—I don’t know! Decks of cards! This princess thing has become an obsession. It’s not healthy.” Mom nodded in my direction. “Morgan was never like that.”

  That my mother should hold me up as the poster child for healthy psychological development was a sign of just how much things had changed in my house since the summer.

  “Morgan was obsessed with other things.” Before I could say, Make a right, Dad flipped on the signal and turned onto Sarah’s street. I was surprised he remembered where it was. “What about Lamb Chop?”

  True. I loved Lamb Chop as a kid.

  “Exactly!” Mom would not be stopped. “Lamb Chop was age-appropriate. It wasn’t a show about a giggly princess whose goal in life is to twirl around in a flowy pink dress, waiting for some muscle-bound prince to show up.”

  No, I thought, it was a show about a middle-aged woman who kept a sock on her hand for company. “What’s wrong with flowy dresses?” I threw out, just to keep the argument stoked after I left the car. “A dress is just a dress, you know? It’s your attitude that counts.”

  Mom slammed her lips shut, but I knew what she was thinking. She was thinking that Tammy wouldn’t grow up to be president now because her plastic princess tiara was slowly turning her brain into glitter.

  Dad pulled up in front of Sarah’s house. “We’ll pick you up at six.” He sighed. “When do you take your road test again?”

  “I can’t take it until May, Dad.” We’d been over this a zillion times and I knew the rules by heart. “I have to have my permit for, like, fou
r months before I’m allowed to take the road test. And I still have to do my fifty hours of driving instruction. And even if I pass the road test, I can’t have any friends in the car with me for the first six months of my license because I’ll still only be seventeen.”

  “For Pete’s sake, why don’t they just raise the driving age to thirty?” Dad grumbled. “Soon you’ll have to be eighteen to cross the street unescorted. . . . Damn bureaucrats keep adding new rules every day. . . . Grumble grumble grumble. . . ”

  “But think of senior year!” Mom cut Dad off in midgrumble. “By then you won’t have to depend on us for rides everywhere.”

  “Does that mean I’m getting my own car?”

  Deafening silence from the front seat of the Subaru. I got out.

  “Have fun with Sarah,” Mom called after me. “Play with some power tools or something!”

  power tools? please. mЧ former best-friend-forever Sarah was in charge of the planning committee for the junior prom, and that’s what this get-together was all about.

  A bit of background, here: The East Norwich senior prom was typically held at one of the local snooty country clubs. It was thrown by the PTA in full überprom style, with stretch limos, formal wear, photographers, the whole nine yards.

  The student-thrown junior prom was originally a baby version of the senior prom, but over the years it had evolved into a kind of half-prom, half-prank spoof of the seniors’ ritzy event. The eighties fashion prom was tolerated by school officials, even with all the slutty Madonna outfits (the boys were no better; most of them came as Michael Jackson or Prince, take your pick). The bathing-suits-only prom was more controversial, with parents complaining about all the skin and students complaining that the pool was kept off-limits.