Lily in Full Bloom Read Online Free Page A

with anticipation. They couldn’t wait to see everyone’s reaction!
    Slowly, the tearoom filled up with hungry fairies and sparrow men.
    “What in Never Land is it?” Lily heard Fira say at the light-talent table.
    “How does it work?” Silvermist asked at the water-talent table. “Are those flowers really—”
    “—growing out of that rock?” Rani finished for her.
    At the animal-talent table, Fawn was holding up the decoration. She studied the bottom. She looked very confused.
    Tink was the first one to come over to the garden fairies. She was carrying the centerpiece from the pots-and-pans talents’ table. It was a stone about the size of a fairy’s hand, with purple, yellow, and pink panglories growing on the top.
    “I don’t suppose,” Tink began, “any of you know anything about these?”
    Aster covered up a giggle. Bluebell tried not to smile. Lily looked at Rosetta, who was biting her lip to keep from laughing. They couldn’t hold it in any longer. Everyone at the table burst into laughter.
    Finally, Lily recovered enough to answer. “Yes,” she said. “We made them!” She felt proud from her wingtips to her toes.

    “They’re Lily’s amazing new invention!” Rosetta added.
    “They’re called panglories,” Aster put in. “And they’ll grow anywhere !”
    Tink looked skeptical. “Really?” she asked. “Anywhere?”
    Lily opened her mouth to reply. But Fern beat her to it. “Uh-huh,” Fern said. “They grew on my wheelbarrow.”
    “And my gardening book!” said Iris.
    “And my pond!” cried Rosetta.
    The garden fairies went on and on. Meanwhile, something on Tink’s bunch of flowers caught Lily’s eye. She leaned in for a closer look.
    Huh, that’s funny, Lily thought. Two or three of the flowers had faded leaves on their stems. So far, all the panglories from the fourth batch of seeds had been perfect in every way. Their color was perfect. Their shape was perfect. They were perfectly healthy.
    She shrugged it off. Maybe these just need a bit more water, she decided. Then she turned her attention back to Tink and the garden fairies.
    “You know, Tink,” Rosetta teased, “I think the garden-talent fairies have something special here. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!” She knew Tink hadn’t meant to extend the challenge the way she had—putting down the other talents’ important jobs. But if any fairy could put a challenge to good use, Tinker Bell was the one to do it.
    Tink smiled and turned to go. “It’ll knock your sun hats off!” she said as she flew away.
    It could have just been Lily’s imagination…but didn’t Tink look a tiny bit worried?

W HEN L ILY OPENED HER EYES the next morning, the panglories were the first thing she saw. She had carried home a bunch of decorations the night before. The other fairies had been so impressed! Even Queen Clarion had given the flowers a second look. Lily’s glow had flared with pride.
    She bent low over a centerpiece. “Well done!” she said to the flowers.
    Then she caught a glimpse of something among the leaves. She wondered if this was the same bunch that had had faded leaves the night before.
    Lily studied them more closely. Several leaves were looking worse than faded—they looked downright gray. She checked the other centerpieces. Nearly all of them had at least a couple of faded leaves. On the worst ones, entire stems were spotted gray.
    Lily sat in her desk chair and looked out the window toward her garden. She felt an urge to check the panglories there. It probably wasn’t a big deal. Maybe it was how these seeds had been planted.
    Or maybe the flowers didn’t like being indoors or planted in rocks. All the same, she wanted to look them over, just to make sure.
    In her garden, Lily zipped from one patch of panglories to another. She started with the first ones she’d planted in the sandy soil. She ended up at the fourth batch growing on the shed. Each time she stopped, her heart sank a little