Off to Seek a Wizard... -15- The Plain, The Plain! by Erin Halfelven

Knowing that the world is just a drug-induced hallucination is not actually much practical use. For instance, it didn't keep my damp skin from feeling cold in the slight breeze. It didn't help me straighten out the pads in my bra so I could hold my head up high and not worry about a lumpy bosom. And it didn't help me deal with Maggie Pyewacket.

"If you're a fairy princess, where are your wings, where are they?" asked Maggie, cocking her head one way then the other.

"I left them back on the plane," I said.

"The plain? The plain what? You don't mean the Plain of Nails, do you?" she asked. "That where you come from, is it?"

"Uh, " I stalled. "The Plain of Nails?"

"No, the Plain of Nells, I said." She rustled her wings and ruffled her feathers, making a sound like sheet metal banging together in a soft wind.

I still didn't have it right but I didn't know that yet. "Where everyone is named Nell?" I guessed.

"No! How can you be one of the Wise and Fair? You don't know anything, do you?" And with that, she hopped completely over me, opened her wings for a moment and glided to a landing in a bush the size of an apartment building on the opposite side of the pond.

I glared at her and tried to put my bra back on. I was still standing in nearly chest deep water at this time but things felt a little tender and vulnerable there and I don't think I ever wanted some clothes quite so much just then. The cold cloth had a peculiar effect on my nipples too, making me more aware of them than I think I ever had been. Reaching behind me, I finally got the bra fastened the way Mom had taught me. "There's a word, " she'd said, "for girls who fasten their bra in front then turn it around to put their arms through. The word is fat."

I giggled remembering Mom's eight week crash course in how to be a young lady even if you're really a boy. We'd actually had a lot of fun at it, laughing at all the silly differences between what society expects of boys and girls.

I'd left my panties floating in the pond and now I picked them up and tried wringing them out, too. These had two round pads in back and an oval pad on each side to give me a girlier shape. It was embarrassing to wear them but it was also embarrassing to think of not wearing them, especially now. The pads didn't need wringing out though since unlike the padded bra, these were made of silicone. I kept forgetting about them when I sat down and thinking I had sat on something squishy.

I found I just couldn't wring the panties out with the pads in place. Besides, I was still standing in the water, how would I put them back on? And they would get wet again when I did put them on because I didn't have a towel to dry off with. I sighed. I should have sent Ken and Chuck for a towel first thing.

Sighing again, I climbed up on the stony bank and sat with my back to the opening of the burrow. I removed the pads carefully and put them on the stone beside me so I could wring the panties out. I reminded myself to drink only from the creek flowing into the pond and resolved to sit there in the sun and let my body dry off a bit before putting my panties back on.

Suddenly, Maggie Pyewacket flipped her wings and swooped the length of the pond. She passed so close to me I felt her feathers on my skin. "Watch out, you crazy bird brain!" I yelled.

"Mine, mine, mine," called Maggie as she flew away.

I gasped. Checking the stone beside me I realized it was true. That blasted bird had stolen my butt cheeks!