.. Brenda was quite a loner... her head always in a book."Not much," Brenda responded, surprised, Amy only calling her when she needed some help with ...ath and never on a weekend."Good, you're coming shopping with me," Amy said, more as an order than an offer."I don't know," Brenda prevaricated, worried this was a trick. Amy had always been nice to her, but many of Amy's popular friends often weren't."I'm not asking, I'm saying," Amy clarified before adding, "after all you've done to help me. As I approached, the slim figure turned toward me.“You came.” The voice was high and sweet, like the songbirds that inhabited the forest. She seemed glad to see me, and that lifted my hopes.I stopped in front of her and looked down from my imposing height. “Melodrin, we can’t do this.” She was slim and tall for an elf, though her head barely reached my chest. Her skin was pale and pink, and the thin dress she wore showed a lot of it. Violet hair spilled down her back to her waist, thick and. Do come in. This is a surprise."The dapper man removed his hat and bowed slightly as he crossed the threshold. His empty sleeve was pinned to his shoulder, and he held a riding crop under the stump of his missing arm."You have a message for me," Seth's mother stated, keeping her voice as flat as she could. To her knowledge, other than the Peter family and the wild-eyed editor of the Sentinel, then resting in the old Capitol prison for his pro-Southern rantings, Mr. Bouve was probably the. Izzy just held my arm and I felt her tears falling on my shoulder. I gave her a one armed hug and ran my hand over her arm and shoulder."Hey, it was a long time ago, and I was just a kid. I'm feeling much better now. So cheer up, sleep tight and dream of shopping and beauty parlors. You three lovely ladies are going to make every man between puberty and a hundred hate my guts and wish he was me. And that will make me even happier than I am right now, which is saying something."We all shifted.