She spun around in wobbly circles on the damp pavement. Above her were the branches of one of the big Bradford pear trees that lined the sidewalk; it was mid-April, and now the tree was an explosion of white, the tiny white flowers of spring. The wind whispered softly, its breath pulling a few more flowers from the tree, allowing them to join the others that blanketed the lawns and streets and sidewalks. The sun’s rays filtered through the trees, distilling into a soft morning glow that enveloped the whole block. The air smelled of fresh mornings, the dew that still clung to the long blades of grass. No one was awake – that is, no one but her and the purple morning glories that crept on vines over the holly bushes that decorated the porch steps. When she stopped spinning, her dizziness morphed into weightlessness, like the breeze might carry her away.
This was the best part of spring, better than the daffodils that appeared in the garden every March and even better than the prospect of summer and freedom. All these flowers floating down, some settling on the crown of her head and decorating her ratty brown hair, transforming it into the silken strands of royalty. Every spring, she would stand under the trees, waiting for a gust to shake some petals down, make her beautiful, a spring princess.
There, the petals were coming now, falling to her. She was a princess, a princess for two more weeks, and then the flowers would all be on the ground and rotting to an unsightly brown, and she would have to wait until next year to twirl in the blizzard of snowy spring blossoms.