Prina
had been sent to her room with four minutes to change for dinner. Her teeth
were brushed, her face was washed and her fingernails shone with a bright new
layer of bright pink polish, but her shorts and t-shirt combination was not the
nice-company outfit her mother had in mind.
Guests
were on their way from out of town, and everyone in Prina’s family was supposed
to get dressed in their very best clothing and hurry back to the kitchen to
help set up.
Prina walked over to her closet and slid open the door. One lone
garment, pale blue and without pattern hung on a hanger in the middle of the
rack. Careful not to let the dress slip off its hook, she carried it over to
the bed and spread it out smooth. She frowned a little as she noticed the soft
spots near her knees where the fabric was wearing thin. A patch of green
covered up a rip on one sleeve where a pair of scissors had once snipped a hole
instead of a loose thread, and the lace around the collar was so old that it
looked grey and dull, instead of sharp and clean and pretty.
“Well,
you have seen better days,” said Prina in the way her mother often did, “and I
have worn you many times before. Maybe tonight something else might be better…
like… my astronaut’s suit!”
Prina turned around and faced her closet again.
Hanging right in the middle was a puffy white NASA uniform, complete with space
boots, an oxygen tank and a large round helmet with a shiny golden face shield.
She had to reach way up on her tiptoes to get everything off the shelves but
eventually it was all spread out on the bed, ready for her examination. “You
are indeed a wonderful outfit to wear,” she observed, thoughtfully tapping one
finger against her chin. “But I think the helmet might make conversation a
little tricky. And what if gravity suddenly switched off like it does in outer
space?! Then the food would go everywhere! We’d have to eat on the ceiling! No,
no. That won’t work. Maybe the mermaid costume.”
Turning
back to the closet, Prina retrieved the lovely long green tail and the silver
sequined tank top. She found two seashell earrings that clip on and added them
to the pile beside the astronaut’s suit and her old dress. “Well,” she smiled, “It
sure would be a fun to show up for dinner as a mermaid! But it would be difficult
to greet our guests at the door without legs to walk there. And I don’t think
Daddy would let me flood the floor so I could swim. It might be easier if I
keep my legs. Perhaps a circus performer.”
The
closet was growing, in the same way that a balloon expands as you blow it up:
the doors were wider and taller than they had once been, and the drawers were
stuffed with hats and scarves and shoes, all overflowing. A hundred hangers
were stuffed in a row, displaying vibrantly colourful outfits three layers
deep. A look of satisfaction spread across her face as she smoothed out the
leotard and feathery bandana of a flying trapeze artist. Attached at the waist
was a tiny pocket of crushed-up chalk. The powder would make holding on to the
swinging bar safer, but it also sent a cloud of dust into the air every time
she reapplied. Because the dust made it hard to breathe, she set aside the
entire attire and dove back into her closet for more.
One
choice after the next was turned down by the little girl: the firefighter
uniform and the parka-mukluk combination were both abandoned due to their
encouragement of extreme heat; she cast off the superhero disguise for fear of
catching her cape under the leg of a chair; she repackaged the jungle-cat fur
to save the sinuses of those with sensitive allergies, the mechanic’s overalls
because of grease stains and the suit of armor for the risk of rust. She
weighed the idea of wearing Christmas pajamas for a moment, but quickly decided
to pass just incase it snowed and the plows couldn’t get out in time for their
guests to arrive safely.
“Dressing
for dinner is harder than I thought,” said Prina glumly as she stared at the
magnificent mountain of clothing options now spilling over the edges of her bed
and pooling on her floor. She tossed her fashion model garments to one side
along with the stilt-like high heels, the pirate patch and coat and wooden leg
and real live parrot, the karate-man’s black belt, the medieval princesses’
long sleeves, the lifeguard’s red shirt and the sheriff’s gold badge. Her
closet had become the size of a gigantic warehouse full of so many props and
wardrobe options that it would make your head spin! And yet, absolutely nothing
she tried on seemed to work.
Sitting
on her bed atop the towering heap of costumes, Prina scrunched up her face to
have a think. “I have nothing to wear!” she lamented. “Everything I own is too
sparkly or too leathery, too pointy, too furry, too slippery, too
glow-in-the-darky, too tight or too baggy, too stripey, too dotty, too matchy
or not matchy enough! But there is one thing.”
So
Prina clambered down off her pile and started to dig; past the sheriff’s cowboy
hat and the fashionista’s stilettos, past the superhero mask and the mermaid’s
long tail. She shoved and pulled and dug her way down right to that very first
dress… a gentle blue frock without the distraction of pattern, comfortable and
soft with a personal touch of history. It was, after all, her very favourite
one that she wore it for almost every important dinner, and tonight was
certainly a special occasion. Carefully slipping the shoulders off of the
hanger and up over her own head, Prina wriggled into her loveliest nice-company
outfit, just as her mother called from the other room. “Coming!” she answered,
closing her empty closet doors and twirling into the kitchen. “What do you
think of this one, Mummy?”
Her
mother smiled and kissed the top of her head. “A perfect choice.”
