“How did you get so boring?” she asked. “Did you have to practice?”

“I was just born that way.”

“Boring.”

I laughed. “Yes, sad isn’t it?”

Once Hazel was buckled in, I started the car and pulled out of my parking spot. With the lot empty, I ignored the designated lanes and drove straight for the exit. There was already traffic as we pulled out onto the highway—commuters driving in from rural communities. They came in early to beat the rush, and subsequently were able to leave early as well, but all it really did was spread the traffic congestion over a longer space of time. Rush hour in the city was now three to four hours long, depending on the weather.

“How come you didn’t stay with herself?” Hazel asked.

I shrugged. “I’m just tired. I’ve been up all night. I had a gig before tonight’s revel, remember, and I don’t exactly have a fairy’s stamina. I don’t think you people ever need to sleep.”

“Of course we do. If we didn’t sleep, how could we dream?”

I didn’t see the logic of that—there were many other, and I’d say far more pressing, reasons to get one’s sleep, starting with how exhausted and stupid you end up feeling when you don’t get enough—but there was no point in arguing logic with fairies.

“She really does like you, you know,” Hazel said.

“I know.”

“It’s just she—”

“I know,” I repeated.

“Grouch.”

“Moxie.”

“I don’t even know what that means,” she said.

“It means you’re annoyingly full of verve and pep.”

She smiled. “Oh, well, that’s true.”

We had to slow down for a light that had turned green ahead of us, but the line of cars was just getting back up to speed.

“Oh, look,” Hazel said. “Damn pluikers. Don’t they just make you sick?”

I had time to note a line of three or four fairies sitting on a fence watching the traffic go by. They looked and dressed like Native Americans—jeans and buckskin, checkered shirts—but I could see hare ears and antlers, which is how I knew they were fairies. And naturally, they were invisible to everyone except for me and Hazel.

She raised her middle finger and waved it at them, sticking out her tongue.

“Why did you do that?” I asked.

She gave me a look that asked how did you ever get to be so dim.

“Because they’re green-brees,” she said. “Duh.”

“But what does that mean?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s just what we call them. I think it means stagnant water—or the slime you find in stagnant water.”

“So why don’t you like them?”

I could still see the line of little figures in my rearview mirror. They seemed perfectly normal—in fairy terms, I mean.