Percy's Perfect Suit
Percy had the only perfectly smooth suit in the whole forest. Not a single seam. Spotless apple green. Perfect and neatly pressed.
The other Magikitos looked like they'd been dressed by a blender full of rags, and they couldn't have been happier. Patches stuck onto patches, mends on top of mends, shapes that made no sense in the strangest color combinations. Not Percy. Percy was always neat as a new pin, and he babied that suit like it was made of gold.
When the gang went flying down the mudslide—splat, splat, splat—he watched from the top. When a blackberry war broke out, he hid behind a mushroom. When the pine started dripping resin, he wouldn't so much as stick his hat out. "Percy, come down!" "Coming!" And he never came down.
One morning, he went to look at himself in the usual puddle, and something was off. Clean, sure. Not one stain, not one tiny hole, but the green wasn't apple green anymore. It was a dull green with no life in it. He washed it with elder bark soap. He hung it in the sun for two whole days. He rubbed it with fresh mint. Nothing. Every morning a little grayer. So he marched straight to the home of Wilfred, the oldest Magikito in the forest, who lived under the fat root of the chestnut tree.
Wilfred was basically a walking jumble of rags. He wore so many patches that nobody remembered what color his suit had been. And that was the mystery, because even so, he was the Magikito with the brightest colors in the whole forest. Percy found him at his door, sunbathing with his eyes closed, humming a cheerful tune.
"You're the one with the perfect suit," he said without looking up. "I was," said Percy, and he showed him the gray. Wilfred opened his eyes and looked him up and down, nice and slow. "How many patches are you wearing?" "None. It's all one piece." "Well, now you know why." Except he didn't. Percy didn't understand a thing.
Wilfred made room for him on the little bench and started showing him a suit, patch by patch, the way you show someone around your house. "See this yellow one? It's a piece that came off Daisy's pants. She laughs so hard she scares the owls away. And this polka dot bit? It's from Jordan's underpants. He pulled me out of the river by my hair because swimming isn't exactly my strong suit. And this little orange triangle here—" He touched it with two of his chubby fingers. "This one's from a sock I found under the wardrobe. It's the oldest of them all, but it keeps you warm as hell."
Percy looked closely. Between one patch and the next, there was almost nothing left of the original cloth, just a little maroon scrap on the shoulder, small as a fingernail. "And your cloth? Yours, yours?" "There's still a little bit right here. And the rest? Well, whenever a piece tore off, I'd give it to whoever was with me at the time." And he told him the secret. "For your suit to come alive, you have to fill it with life. It's that simple. When you're too busy having fun to think, you'll see. The pieces fall off on their own. When that happens, you hand a little piece of cloth to the first friend you can grab. Snip, snap. They give you one of theirs. Your patch covers their hole. Theirs covers yours."
"I got a hole for every friend," said Wilfred, "and a friend on top of every hole. That's why the cold never gets in." Percy looked at his own smooth perfect suit and suddenly he saw it for what it was: a lonely, lifeless suit.
He burst into tears. Wilfred watched him tenderly. The little guy had gotten the message. He reached up to his shoulder, ripped off the last maroon piece he had left, and handed it to the boy. "But that's the last one you've got," said Percy between sobs. "Then it's a good thing you came before it was all gone," said Wilfred with a smile. And he stitched it onto Percy's chest with one good whack.
The next morning, all around the maroon patch, the green was back. Greener than ever. Percy shot off toward the mudslide. "Make room for me!" he shouted. And he dove in headfirst. Splat. Even the frogs applauded.
That night, he came home a total mess. Mud up to his ears, one little square missing from his sleeve, another one from his knee, and on top of every hole, a brand new patch. He went to bed dying to get up again and go wear that suit to shreds on new adventures.
