Part 5 -- Glasses

   A day later, Keefe's, Dex's, Fitz's, and Sophie's disguises were almost fully complete -- which meant she needed glasses as soon as possible. So the Councillors were meeting the seven young elves (and Edaline and Grady) at an eye doctor's shop near Dex's dad's shop, Slurps & Burps. The shop was called Apple of My Eye.

   As soon as they walked in, Sophie noticed all the decorations. It was mostly black, and the curtains had white spots on them. She wondered if that was the design, or if they'd been discolored over the years.

   "Hello! Welcome to Apple of My Eye! My name is Dr. Kudowski, and I'll be checking your eye prescription today. Follow me!" A chipper, slender woman with long wavy blonde hair greeted them; she had striking gray-blue eyes that made Sophie think of storm clouds in the distance. Her makeup was perfect -- and plentiful. She was about as fake as a little toy doll.

   Dr. Kudowski led them into a small room not large enough for ten people and the Councillors. They left everyone (except Emery, Oralie, and Edaline to watch us, and the four kids who were going on the trip) behind. Poor Tam -- surrounded by girls, he had only Grady, and the Councillors weren't much help.

   The eye doctor closed the door behind them and sat down in a chair, turning to face Sophie with a brilliant white smile and those stormy eyes. "So, who has the issue?" she asked them, looking politely concerned, though that was probably fake too.

   Sophie spoke up. "The Council --" she motioned to Emery and Oralie, who were in deep conversation on the far side of the small white room-- "gave the four of us kids a quest to spy on human beings in the Forbidden Cities for a month." Sophie felt uneasy opening up to this makeup-covered expressionless woman, but they really had no choice if they were going to get her glasses. Besides, even if they were completely detached, the Councillors were still in this room. Dr. Kudowski couldn't try anything even if she'd wanted to. "They gave us disguises so that we wouldn't be too obvious in the human world. My disguise was for a twelve-year-old girl named Kitterie, who needs glasses. So I'm here, because the disguise has already set in. Sorry if you can't tell who I am."

   "Oh, I know exactly who you are, Sophie Foster," Dr. Kudowski replied, grinning. "My full name is Floera Kelley Kudowski, you know. You might know me as someone different, though." She winked. "Now, let's find you a prescription. Come with me!" She pranced out of the room like nothing had happened. Sophie gestured to Edaline, and the Conjurer came with her just to be as safe as possible.

   "I want you to stand right here, Sophie," the blonde eye doctor told Sophie, pointing to a taped-down line on the floor. "Look up! Here, at the other end of the hallway. Tell me, what's the first line you can read?" Kudowski positioned Sophie's head so the girl was looking straight at a poster with a giant fuzzy blob in the middle, with a gray bottom.

   "What do you mean, line?" Sophie was confused. There were no lines there. "There's just a fuzzy blob and some grayness. I can't read anything!"

   "Ah, okay. I see what's happening," Dr. Kudowski murmured, looking lost in thought. "Move a little closer to the end of the hallway, okay? To the poster. See if you can read it when you're a foot closer."

   Again, Sophie attempted to make any words or letters out of the blobs, but she couldn't. "No progress."

   Dr. Kudowski had her patient keep moving, until Sophie was about ten feet away from where she'd started and four feet away from the so-called poster. Finally, she could make out a fuzzy E. "I see an E," she told the doctor as Kudowski studied her eye and measured her position in relation to the poster wall. "It's still fuzzy, but it has the faint shape and look of a giant E in the middle of that poster. And that grayness...those're lines of letters too, right?" Dr. Kudowski nodded and kept measuring. "So Kitterie, my disguise, must have really bad vision!" The stormy-eyed woman chuckled and removed her measuring tape from the floor. As she walked back to the office to put it away, Sophie approached the poster's wall, studying all the different letters. There were Z's, A's, and S's among a variety of other letters, and the D's and O's were especially confusing. Sophie could see why Apple of My Eye used these things; they were probably very useful in finding prescriptions for everyone. She'd seen them in the human world, too, but since she'd never needed glasses, she'd never encountered one before. They were very interesting.

   Dr. Kudowski poked her head out of the office. "Why don't you come in? Someone might need that soon." Edaline and Sophie hurried back in and the eye doctor closed the door again. "So, to get your glasses' lenses the perfect strength for you, you'll need this slip." She handed me a small piece of paper that read, Sophie Foster's disguise: OD -5.50 OS -4.75. Sophie wondered what those numbers meant, but she couldn't question this fake-face eye doctor, no matter how uneasy she made Sophie feel. "After you've given the ladies at the front desk this, they'll craft your lenses for you and then you can pick out the frame. Well, actually, someone will meet you in the frame sample room, where you can try out different frames while your lenses are being formed. You will have your pick from over 500 different glasses frames!" Sophie was overwhelmed with this information. How was she going to pick just one frame for her new glasses? She had helpers, of course, but still.

   As Sophie walked down to the front desk, a young man with dark gray glasses frames, maybe in his twenties, stopped her. "Are you going to deliver your lens prescription?" When Sophie nodded, he continued. "As soon as you're done, come back here and I'll show you our different options for frames. As Dr. Kudowski probably told you, we have over 500 different frames for you to choose from!"

   "Yeah, I heard," Sophie told the man, smiling. "How am I ever going to choose?"

   Chuckling, he waved and Sophie started on her way again. After dropping off the paper, she retrieved the boys and Edaline, and they met the man again.

   "Hi! So, my name is Eric, and I can help you with whatever you need," he said, smiling. Eric's smile was warm and real, unlike Dr. Kudowski's. "I'm just going to be out here, organizing the glasses people have dislodged."

   "Okay, thanks," Sophie told him, and began the introductions. "I'm Sophie, and this is Keefe, Dex, Fitz, and my mom Edaline." As she stated their names, her entourage grinned and waved. "We'll try not to take too long."

   Upon entering the small hexagonal room, Sophie was blown away by how many pairs of glasses 500 was. It was like a glasses wonderland, but certainly not in a dream -- this was real, and Sophie got to keep one of these pairs.

   They were there for about an hour and a half before they narrowed it down to 2 pairs. One had a slightly thick black frame that was metal, and the other was a thick plastic frame with a lot of colors mashed into a speckled pattern. It had royal blue, sky blue, sea green, a rusty brown, and the color of light green lichen. It was really pretty, but Sophie worried it might be too much. She liked the black metal frames for their simpleness and effectiveness. So she turned to her entourage, who were looking at other glasses.

   "Hey, guys, stop searching for Fitz's old glasses and help me decide here," Sophie scolded them, feeling amused. "I'm trying to decide between these two frames. Which ones do you like best?"

   After conferring with each other, Edaline stepped up. "It's unanimous," she announced. "We choose . . . the blue speckled ones!" Keefe made a trumpet noise with his fingers and mouth.

   "Okay then," Sophie laughed, grinning at her friends and family for all their help. "I'm getting the blue speckled ones. And Fitz . . ." She searched her friend's mind quickly, looking for images of the famed hot pink spectacles. Finally, she found what she was looking for and set to work in the racks of frames. Two seconds later, Sophie came across a hot pink pair of plastic glasses frames and handed them to Fitz. He stared at them in astonishment.

   "How did you know?" he asked, looking incredulous.

   "You forgot your mental blocking," Sophie reminded him, laughing. "I could get in there as fast as a cheetah."

   "Teenagers and Edaline!" Dr. Kudowski called right then. "We need to talk for a second." For the first time, she had a grim expression on her face.

   "Wonder what that could be?" Fitz said, echoing everyone's thoughts. "Let's go find out."

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