The Garden Thief (5 page)

“And that means you are not much of a guard,” said Mr. Yee. “Not if somebody can sneak up in the middle of the night and deposit a big bag next to your head.”

Roger scowled. “Never you mind,” he said to Mr. Yee. He crawled out of his sleeping bag. As Roger crawled out of the bag, a clipboard and pen fell out of the bag. Henry stooped to pick them up, but Roger shouted at him. “No! Leave that alone!” Roger quickly grabbled the clipboard and pen and shoved them far into the sleeping bag.

Henry wondered why Roger didn’t want him to see the clipboard. I wonder what’s on it, thought Henry.

And then Henry noticed a small tool kit alongside the sleeping bag. When Roger saw Henry looking at the tool kit, he shoved it into the sleeping bag, also.

Roger stood and stretched. Then he leaned down and cautiously opened the lumpy burlap bag. “Cucumbers!” he said in surprise. “The bag is full of cucumbers!” Roger removed a cucumber from the bag, inspected it, and bit into it. Everybody heard the loud, juicy crunch as he did so.

“Good,” Roger declared, “but they wouldn’t win a blue ribbon.”

Violet saw Lucasta’s rabbit sniff at the cucumber. The rabbit tried to jump out of Lucasta’s arms, but she held it close and didn’t allow it to escape.

Rabbits must like cucumbers, thought Violet.

Mr. Yee and Benny both took cucumbers out of the bag and bit into them.

“This is good,” said Benny.

“But not good enough for a blue ribbon,” said Roger.

“How can you tell?” asked Jessie.

Roger held out the half-eaten cucumber and pointed to its green skin. “The skin is too thick,” he said. “A thinner skin is better because it’s less bitter.”

“That is correct,” said Mr. Yee as he finished eating his cucumber. “This is a good tasting cucumber, but not quite good enough for first prize in a contest.”

“Well,” said Roger as he took several cucumbers out of the bag, “I’m going to take some of these home to eat. Everybody else is welcome to take some, too.”

“Thank you,” said Jessie. “We’ll take some home to Mrs. McGregor.”

“And I will take some, also,” said Mr. Yee as he reached into the bag.

“What about you, Lucasta?” asked Roger. “Do you want the rest of these cucumbers for your rabbits?”

Lucasta stroked her Rex rabbit and shook her head. “No,” she replied.

Roger Walski looked surprised. “No?” he asked. “Why not?”

“My rabbits are prize-winning rabbits,” said Lucasta. “They deserve only prize-winning vegetables. They need to eat the very best in order to have the shiniest fur and brightest eyes.”

Mr. Yee nodded his head slowly. “That is why you raised beautiful vegetables in your garden but did not enter them in the fair—you fed them to your rabbits instead.”

“My rabbits are going to win first prize again this year,” said Lucasta. “They win every year. That’s important.”

Lucasta turned and hobbled away, heading toward the barn across the road.

“I don’t understand why her leg seems to be hurting,” said Mr. Yee, looking puzzled. “Yesterday she had her cast off. Her leg should be healed by now.”

Just then Henry remembered that he never got a chance to give Roger yesterday’s message from Alex Kirk.

“Roger,” said Henry, “Alex asked me to give you a message. He said, ‘My father still says no.’”

“Is that so?” said Roger with a scowl. He bent down and rummaged in his sleeping bag. Finally he pulled out the clipboard and pen and held them to his chest. “We’ll see about that,” he said.

The children and Mr. Yee watched as Roger Walski walked away from them. They watched him walk up to Section B and talk to a gardener.

After Roger departed, the children and Mr. Yee went to work.

Now that Jessie and Violet had done all the thinning, Mr. Yee showed them how to use a hoe to kill weeds.

“Oh,” said Jessie, “this is so much easier than being on the ground and weeding.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Yee, “but don’t hoe for too long, or you will get blisters on your hands. Start out for fifteen minutes today, then you can switch to something else, like carrying water buckets.”

“I like to carry water buckets,” said Benny, who was squatting down one row away. He was checking each strawberry plant to make certain it wasn’t too dry, and to see which berries were ripe for picking.

As his sisters and brother helped Mr. Yee do the things that needed to be done in the garden, Henry started to repair the tomato stakes that the vandal had smashed.

Hmmm,
thought Henry. The stakes were damaged, but they weren’t damaged that badly.

Henry thought for a while, then decided he could pound two thin but strong stakes into the ground alongside the big stake. After he did that, he attached the big stake to the thin stakes, using a strong wire. Then he went to find Mr. Yee.

“What do you think?” Henry asked Mr. Yee.

Mr. Yee clapped his hands in excitement. “Excellent!” he said. “This is a wonderful way to solve the problem, because it leaves the old tomato stakes in place.”

Mr. Yee reached out and touched one of the green tomatoes hanging from the first plant that Henry had worked to prop up. “You have done an excellent job, Henry, because you have thought of a way to keep the old stake in place. That means the tomato plant is not disturbed at all. And that means it is a happy plant and will produce wonderful tomatoes!”

“I’m glad you think this is a good idea,” Henry replied. “I’ll work on repairing the rest of the tomato stakes now.”

“Good,” said Mr. Yee. “You and Jessie and Violet and Benny are wonderful helpers.”

Henry looked out across the garden, down toward the other sections. He could see Roger walking around with his clipboard, talking to gardeners.

“Ahh, yes,” said Mr. Yee, following Henry’s gaze. “You are curious about what Roger is up to.”

“Yes,” said Henry. “I am.”

“And so am I,” said Mr. Yee. “When you finish the tomato stakes, why don’t all five of us take a break and walk to the other sections.”

Henry smiled. “That’s a very good idea. We can talk to the other gardeners.”

And so, after Henry finished with the tomato stakes and Jessie and Violet finished hoeing and watering, and Benny finished checking and picking the strawberries, the children and Mr. Yee felt they had accomplished a lot.

They put the garden tools away, into the community tool shed, and they washed their faces and hands at the water spigot. Then they walked toward Sections B, C, D, and E, and talked to the other gardeners.

Right away, in Section B, they learned that Roger Walski had been trying to get others to sign a petition. The petition asked the Greenfield Town Hall to relocate the community gardens to another area next year—because the gardens here were being vandalized.

“But we don’t want to move to another area,” said a gardener in Section C. “We like it here, where Mr. Kirk has built beautiful storage sheds and put in water spigots.”

“That’s right,” said another gardener. “We like it here. We just want somebody to find out who’s knocking down our tomato towers and breaking our trellises.”

“And riding a three-wheeler over our lettuce and kale and chard!” said a third gardener angrily.

“We’re going to help find who’s doing this,” Henry said to the gardeners.

Jessie and Violet and Benny nodded. Mr. Yee nodded, also.

Then the gardeners went back to their gardens, and the Aldens and Mr. Yee saw Mrs. McGregor coming to pick them up.

*  *  *

That afternoon Grandfather was back home from visiting his sister, Aunt Jane. And when he heard what his grandchildren had been doing, he called his old friend Mr. Yee and invited him to dinner.

Everyone was very happy as they sat down to another one of Mrs. McGregor’s wonderful meals. This one was full of garden-fresh vegetables that the children had brought home with them.

Mrs. McGregor brought a cucumber salad to the table. “My goodness,” she said, “I’ve never seen so many cucumbers in my life! Who picked all these cucumbers at once, and why?”

Benny told her how that morning they had found two lumpy sacks at one of the gardens. One sack held Roger Walski, the other held many, many cucumbers.

“Roger Walski?” asked Grandfather. “I know him. He owns and runs the big construction company that built the new Greenfield Town Hall.”

“It is a beautiful town hall,” said Mr. Yee as he gently scratched the place where his cast met his hand.

Henry spoke. “I wonder what Mr. Kirk was saying no to, in his message to Roger.”

“I don’t know,” answered Mr. Yee, carefully accepting more cucumber salad, using his left hand to spoon it onto his plate.

“Several years ago, Roger wanted to buy the Kirk farm,” said Grandfather. “But I haven’t heard anything about that in maybe three years.”

“Maybe Roger wants to buy the farm again but Mr. Kirk still won’t sell,” said Jessie.

“Mr. Kirk would never sell his farm as long as he can use it to grow crops,” said Mr. Yee. “He loves to farm.”

“Would he sell the part that the community garden is on?” asked Henry.

Mr. Yee shook his head. “Not as long as somebody wanted to garden on it. Mr. Kirk loves to see people grow food and eat it.”

“Alex is like his father,” said Benny. “Alex likes to grow food for people to eat.”

Mrs. McGregor brought more food to the table: barley and mushrooms, sautéed chard, and carrots sautéed with ginger and orange juice.

“Look,” said Violet as the carrots were being served. “Aren’t the purple carrots beautiful?” she asked. “I love how they’re purple on the outside and orange on the inside.” She turned to Mr. Yee. “Why did you decide to grow purple carrots instead of the regular orange ones?” she asked.

“I grow orange carrots, too, Violet,” said Mr. Yee. “But I like the purple ones better. I think they taste better, and purple vegetables are very healthful.”

“Getting back to Roger Walski,” said Grandfather, “I heard he wants Greenfield to build a new health center, with a pool, several running tracks, and a weight room.”

“Taylor would like that,” said Jessie. “She loves to exercise.” Jessie told Grandfather who Taylor was.

“Roger is petitioning the other gardeners,” Henry said. “He wants them to agree to move the community gardens.”

“But the other gardeners don’t want to move,” added Jessie.

“I don’t want the gardens to be moved,” said Benny. “I like them right where they are. And I like the rabbits, too,” he added.

“Well,” said Mr. Yee with a laugh, “you and I agree and disagree, Benny. I like the gardens where they are, but I don’t like the rabbits.”

Grandfather laughed, too. “Albert, I know you. What you really mean is that you don’t like the rabbits on the loose, where they can trip people.”

“Perhaps that is so,” said Mr. Yee.

By the time dinner was finished, everybody was full. But not too full—they had each saved room for fresh strawberries.

After the berries were all gone, Grandfather and Mr. Yee went to sit on the porch and talk. The children stayed behind to clear the table for Mrs. McGregor.

“This was a very interesting dinner conversation,” said Jessie as she collected the used bowls.

“Yes,” said Henry as he stacked plates. “We learned something very useful.”

“Was it about Mr. Walski?” asked Benny.

“Yes,” said Henry. “We need to talk to Roger Walski tomorrow morning.”

The next morning it was Grandfather, not Mrs. McGregor, who dropped Mr. Yee and Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny off at the community gardens. Grandfather then drove away and the five gardeners walked past Sections E, D, C, and B, saying hello to all the other gardeners.

And once again, as the children and Mr. Yee left these sections behind and walked toward Section A, they saw trouble.

Taylor Harris and Alex Kirk were standing in front of Taylor’s fenced-in garden, shouting at each other. A big American blue rabbit hopped past Alex and into Mr. Yee’s garden.

“You’re the one!” shouted Taylor. “You’re the garden thief!”

“I am not!” shouted Alex. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”