"Be careful," Mom said, and meant it. "Those are my best dinner
plates."

"I will," I said, and I was for a jiffy, but my mind wasn't anywhere
near those fancy plates Mom was washing and I was wiping.... In fact,
there wasn't any sense in washing them anyway, 'cause they weren't the
ones we had used that day at all. Why they weren't even dirty! They'd
been standing on the shelf in Mom's cupboard for several months
without being used.

"I don't see why we have to wash them," I said, "when they aren't even
dirty."

"We're going to have company for dinner tomorrow," Mom explained, "and
we _have_ to wash them."

"Wash them _before_ we use them?" I said. It didn't make sense.... Why
that very minute the gang would be hollering and screaming and
coasting down the hill and having a wonderful time.

"Certainly," Mom said. "We want them to sparkle so that when the table
is set and the guests come in they'll see how beautiful they really
are. See? Notice how dull this one is?" Mom held up one that hadn't
been washed yet in her hot sudsy water nor rinsed in my hot clear
water nor wiped and polished with my dry clean towel, which Mom's tea
towels always were anyway, Mom being an extra clean housekeeper and
couldn't help it, on account of her mother had been that way too,--and
being that kind of a housekeeper is contagious, like catching the
measles or smallpox or the mumps or something boys don't like.

For some reason I remembered a part of a book I'd read, called _Alice
in Wonderland_, and it was about a crazy queen who started to cry and
say, "Oh ooooh! My finger's bleeding!"... And when Alice who was _in_
Wonderland told her to wrap her finger up or something, the queen
said, "Oh no, I haven't pricked it yet"--meaning it was bleeding
_before_ she had stuck a needle into it--which was a fairy story, and
was crazy, so I said to Mom, "Seems funny to wash dishes _before_
they're dirty--seems like a fairy story, like having your finger start
bleeding before you stick a needle in it." I knew Mom had read _Alice
in Wonderland_ 'cause she'd read it to me herself when I was little.

But Mom was very smart. She said, with a mischievous grin in her
voice, "That's a splendid idea.... Let's _pretend_ this is _Bill
Collins in Wonderland_, and get the dishes done right away. Fairy
stories are always interesting, don't you think?" which I didn't,
right then, but there wasn't any use arguing. In fact, Mom said it
wasn't ever polite