This Is How It Always Is(68)

Penn closed his eyes. He did know.

“Now, it’s so much better in so many ways. Claude was lucky. He came to you and said he wanted to wear a dress and said he wanted to be a girl, and you said okay, and you said you’d help, and you said it didn’t matter to you because you’d love him no matter what. So you grew out his hair and bought him a dress and moved across the country to a city on a sound: add water, instant girl. And that’s so wonderful for all of you. Except puberty is going to blindside Poppy. She doesn’t think of herself as a boy. You don’t think of her as a boy. Because she didn’t grow up hating it, because it’s never stood in the way of her being who she felt and you accepted she was, she’s totally normalized her penis. It doesn’t connote maleness for her. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just how she pees. But that’s about to change. And soon, long hair and a dress aren’t going to be enough to keep her a girl. You have to prepare her for that.”

“You’re saying we’ve done too good a job?” Rosie laughed, half joking.

But Mr. Tongo nodded. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Rude, I know. It’s irritating when people tell you that you’re such good parents you’re failing your kid.”

Penn and Rosie looked at themselves looking overwhelmed and guilty, but Godzilla broke into a little dance.

“Cheer up, you two! Poppy’s not going to turn into a man overnight. Just start planting the seeds. Think about how you’ll talk to her about the changes—the beautiful, miraculous, to-be-celebrated changes—that come for all boys and girls as they get just a little older than she is now. You’d have to help your little girl turn into a woman under any circumstances. These are just a little more fun!”

*

At nine, fourteen, fourteen, sixteen, and seventeen, Penn’s brood wasn’t finished growing up, but they were finished with childhood—finishing anyway. They were getting ready to go off into the world, but it wasn’t therefore true that they didn’t listen to stories before bed anymore. They did. Some nights. Especially if they were camping or on vacation. Especially in the summer, when they were all likely to be out in the backyard around the fire pit after dark. But Poppy’s bedtime was earlier than the boys’, who had their own stories to tell to which their parents and their sister were not privy. So Penn and Poppy were often on their own for storytime.

Grumwald didn’t have a lot of friends anymore. He’d had to leave the ones he grew up with behind when he went Away, and he hadn’t made new ones. Princess Stephanie, on the other hand, had lots of girlfriends, but only Grumwald knew her secrets. For instance, her girlfriends didn’t know she became a fairy every night. They didn’t know she could fly and light stars. They thought her hair was neon green only because she was just that cool. She felt bad about lying to them, but she didn’t want to risk losing them by telling the truth. And it was easy. If she wore a T-shirt when they went swimming, if she always changed in the bathroom, they never saw her without a top on so her wings were hidden. If they went out for brunch instead of dinner and had book club during the day, no one thought it was strange she could never do anything in the evenings.

“She was in a book club?” said Poppy.

“Everyone’s in a book club.”

“Like with wine?” Poppy was intrigued.

“It’s not a book club if there isn’t wine.”

But then a scary thing started happening. Princess Stephanie started transforming into a night fairy without warning. She was at the mall shopping for shorts when one of her wings popped out suddenly, right in the middle of the day. She was in the dressing room at the time, luckily, but it made her nervous. Then, just when she’d convinced herself it was a weird one-time thing, she was at the coffee shop getting breakfast one morning when she realized the barista was staring at her in amazement, and no wonder—she was levitating. Not only had her wings unfolded at not yet eight thirty in the morning, she hadn’t even noticed. She spilled her latte, found her footing, and ran home crying. She was so scared she went to see the witch.

“Which witch?” Poppy giggled. “The one who was making Grumwald capture the night fairies?”

“The very same, which is why Grumwald was wary of her, but Princess Stephanie could tell that the witch wasn’t always friendly maybe (she was a witch after all) but she was smart. Stephanie could see that the witch had a lot to be cranky about—she was very old and had trouble getting around and most of her teeth were rotten, which must have made it hard to eat—but that didn’t mean she was unkind. Stephanie knew people didn’t usually ask witches for help, but she couldn’t think who better to turn to.”

“But the witch hated the night fairies,” said Poppy. “That’s why she was making Grumwald capture them.”

“Who better then,” Penn wondered, “to help her corral the night fairy within?”

And indeed, when she went to her, the witch was unfazed. “It happens to everyone,” she assured Princess Stephanie.

“It does?” Stephanie doubted it.

“Sure. Everyone’s someone else sometimes. Everyone transforms. Maybe not in quite the same way as you, but that’s sort of the point, the curse if you will. It happens to everyone but not to any two people in the same way, and no one likes it, no matter who’s waiting inside. The good news is I have beans.”