Three Good Deeds Read Free Page A

supposed to be a human, either. "Did the old witch put a spell on you?" he asked.
    "No," said Moonlight-Gives-Her-Down-a-Silver-Glow. "It was a human boy."
    And that was when Howard realized that the red sheen wasn't from something reflecting on her. Moonlight-Gives-Her-Down-a-Silver-Glow wore exactly the same red color as his mother's newly dyed woolens.

5. Red
    "Oh," Howard said.
    Moonlight-Gives-Her-Down-a-Silver-Glow's head drooped. Her body slouched. Her tail feathers sagged. She shuffled backward into the weeds again. "Sorry," she mumbled as though her appearance was an offense. "You won't call me names after all, will you?" she asked in a honk that trembled. "I know I look ridiculous. You won't tell the others?"
    "I said I wouldn't," Howard reminded
her. Then he realized what she'd said about the others. He asked, "Have you been hiding since this happened?"
    "I was hoping it would go away"—Moonlight-Gives- Her-Down-a-Silver-Glow sighed—"before anybody saw me."
    "Of course it will go away," Howard assured her, knowing that dyes fade. Eventually. Usually.
    He saw her perk up and thought that surely, for a goose who spent so much time in the water, the dye would fade sooner rather than later.
    Except, of course, that she wasn't going into the water for fear of being seen and laughed at. She could spend the whole summer long hiding in the weeds.
    "But...," he said, and he saw the hope fade from her eyes. So he changed to: "But meanwhile you look fine. You look different in a good way. You look exotic and..."
What he wanted to say was that she looked—between gray-brown feathers and red dye—like a moth-eaten tea cozy. Instead he finished, "You look interesting."
    Moonlight-Gives-Her-Down-a-Silver-Glow poked her head back out from among the weeds. "'Interesting?'" she repeated. "Is that good?"
    It would be easy to make her feel bad, but it was just as easy to make her feel good.
    "Absolutely," Howard said.
    Someone—some goose—was paddling around in the pond and noticed Howard. "Hey!" this other goose said. "You're new. You need to come introduce yourself."
    Howard turned to this other goose. "I'm not staying long," he explained. He very much hoped he wouldn't be staying long.
    The other goose craned his neck to see
around Howard. "Who's that with you?" he asked. "Moonlight, is that you?"
    "This," said Howard, waddling out of the way to let the goose in the pond see Moonlight-Gives- Her-Down-a-Silver-Glow, "is..."
    Hmmm, what was another way to say
red
?
    "This is Sunset."
    Sunset
was obviously way too short a name to replace something like
Moonlight-Gives-Her-Down-a-Silver-Glow.
    Howard cleared his throat. Luckily, when a goose clears it's throat, there's a lot of throat to clear and this gave Howard a lot of time to think. He started again. "This is Sunset Shining ... Excuse me. Ahem ... Sunset
Dances
... um ... Like Flames..."—inspired, he finished all in a rush—"on Her Feathers. Sunset-Dances-Like-Flames-on-Her-Feathers. Isn't she beautiful?"
    "Ooh, I like that," whispered the goose formerly known as Moonlight-Gives-Her-Down-a-Silver-Glow. "Thank you."
    Perhaps it was that not many people had had occasion to say "Thank you" to Howard. He felt a bubbling sensation—not exactly good, not exactly bad, but definitely strange—that started inside, then in the space of four or five heartbeats grew and burst through his skin with such force that he looked down at himself to see if his feathers were rippling.
    From behind him came a voice, a human voice. "See? That wasn't so hard, was it?"
    The old witch was standing with a basket over her arm. She reached in and tossed a handful of bread crumbs into the pond.
Sunset-Dances-Like-Flames-on-Her-Feathers dove into the water, and she and the other goose began gobbling up the soggy bread.
    "What wasn't so hard?" Howard demanded.
    "Doing a good deed," the old witch said.
    "Complimenting a goose is a good deed?" Howard asked.
    "Making