The Garden Thief (6 page)

The children ran up to Taylor and Alex. Mr. Yee hurried into his garden, after the rabbit.

Just then Roger came out of his garden and walked up to Taylor and Alex.

“What’s wrong?” Henry and Roger asked the question at the same time.

“Alex Kirk has been vandalizing our gardens—that’s what’s wrong,” snapped Taylor.

Roger took a step backward. He looked confused.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Alex replied angrily. “I would never vandalize anything, especially a garden!”

“Then explain your footprints,” said Taylor, pointing at the ground.

Everybody looked down at the grass they were standing on. It was dusted with a white powder. At first it was hard to notice that there was something on the grass, but after Taylor pointed downward, it became clear.

Jessie looked at the trail of whitish powder. It started at the outside of Alex’s garden, went past Taylor’s garden, past Mr. Yee’s garden, and stopped at the end of Roger’s garden.

And: there was one set of footprints in the powder. The footprints came from the direction of Lucasta’s empty garden and stopped about halfway to Mr. Yee’s garden. It was clear to Jessie that whoever had been walking there walked right into Mr. Yee’s garden.

“I came here late last night,” said Taylor, “and sprinkled some bonemeal fertilizer across the grass. I wanted to see who was walking around here breaking Mr. Yee’s tomato towers.” She folded her arms across her chest. “And now I’ve caught the vandal. Those footprints match Alex Kirk’s shoes,” she said, pointing down to Alex’s feet.

Everybody could see that the footprints leading up to where Alex was standing were the same as the footprints that walked down the row of gardens and turned into Mr. Yee’s plot.

Taylor pointed to Alex’s hands. “He has a hammer in his hand, to smash tomato towers with.”

“I don’t smash tomato towers!” Alex shouted. “I was coming to fix something.”

Roger Walski rubbed his chin with a hand. He started to say something, then stopped.

Henry spoke up loudly, so that Taylor and Alex would stop shouting. “Alex isn’t the vandal!” said Henry.

Taylor stopped shouting at Alex and turned toward Henry. “What do you mean?” she asked.

Henry looked at Roger. “Don’t you have something to tell us?” he asked.

“What?” sputtered Roger. “Me?” He backed away another step. “No, I don’t have anything to say. Except … except that I don’t think Alex is a vandal.”

“I’m not,” said Alex.

“We think you do have something to tell us,” Jessie said, looking at Roger.

“What?” asked Roger.

“We know you’re trying to buy the land the community gardens are on,” said Jessie. “We think you want the town of Greenfield to build an exercise center on this land.”

“What?” said Taylor. “Build a gym on the community garden land?”

Mr. Yee came out of his garden and joined them. He was holding the big bluish-gray rabbit in his arms and feeding it leaves of lettuce.

“That is why you want people to sign your petition,” said Mr. Yee, nodding his head. “You want to buy this land and then sell it to the town.”

Alex spoke up. “That’s right,” he said. “Roger has been trying to buy this land from my father, but my father won’t sell.”

“What’s wrong with a gym?” demanded Roger. “Exercise is good. Greenfield could use a nice new exercise center. And this land is so close to the center of town.”

“But this land is our garden,” said Taylor. “It’s good, rich land, meant for growing food.”

“That’s right,” said Alex.

“Are you the vandal?” demanded Taylor. “Did you break Mr. Yee’s tomato posts? Did you run over everybody’s kale and lettuce plants?”

Roger didn’t say anything.

“You drive a three-wheel ATV,” said Henry. “And yesterday you had a tool kit with you, with a hammer and saw. You were going to use it to break down more trellises and towers.”

Roger looked sad. He stared at the ground. “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “It was wrong to damage people’s gardens. But I really want this land! I thought if gardeners left, Mr. Kirk would sell it to me.”

“It doesn’t matter how much you want this land” said Taylor, “it’s very wrong to do what you did.”

Roger looked ashamed. “I shouldn’t have done it,” he admitted. “I won’t do it again.”

“I think you should help the people whose gardens you vandalized,” said Violet softly.

Roger looked at Violet. He sighed. “You’re right,” he said. “I have to apologize to each person I hurt. And I have to fix what I broke.”

Roger turned to Mr. Yee. “Albert, I’m sorry I broke your tomato stakes. I’ll put in new ones for you tomorrow.”

Mr. Yee scowled. “That was very wrong of you, Roger. But I don’t need your help because Henry has already fixed the tomato stakes.” Mr. Yee stroked the rabbit and fed it more lettuce. “You go help the other people, Roger.”

“And you owe everybody for all the vegetables you stole,” said Taylor.

“But I didn’t steal any vegetables!” shouted Roger. “I’m not a thief!”

Taylor looked at Roger. “Then Alex must be the thief,” she said.

But when everybody turned to look at Alex, he was no longer there.

The footprints in the lime showed that Alex had walked away, back toward the Kirk farm.

“Hmmpph,” said Taylor. “I’m going back to my garden, but I’ll talk to Mr. Kirk later. Alex can’t be allowed to steal our vegetables.”

“I have to apologize to a lot of people,” said Roger. “I’ll get started.”

The children and Mr. Yee watched Taylor unlock her garden gate, go into her garden, and lock the gate behind herself. Then they watched Roger walk to the far end of the community gardens, where he began to talk to a gardener.

Mr. Yee still held the big American blue rabbit.

“Is that your rabbit now?” Benny asked. He liked the way the rabbit’s ears moved back and forth and how its nose twitched.

“No, Benny,” said Mr. Yee. “It is probably Lucasta’s rabbit. And I don’t like rabbits.” He fed the rabbit another lettuce leaf as he said this.

Henry and Jessie and Violet all smiled at one another.

“Come,” said Mr. Yee. “We’ll go to work.”

Once they were inside the garden, Benny went straight to the strawberries and Henry went to the peas and beans.

Jessie and Violet went to the lettuce and carrots. Mr. Yee followed them.

“Oh, no!” cried Violet when they reached the rows of carrots. She pointed to the ground. “The garden thief has been here. He stole all the carrots!”

“What?!” shouted Mr. Yee. “My carrots! I always win a blue ribbon for my carrots!” He was very upset.

Jessie looked around. “Not all the carrots were stolen, Mr. Yee,” she said. “Only some.”

Mr. Yee and Violet looked where Jessie was pointing, and they saw that one long row of carrots had been stolen. But another long row was still growing, the feathery tops standing straight up.

“Ooohhh,” said Violet. “The row of purple carrots is still here. So you can still win prizes for your purple carrots, Mr. Yee.”

Mr. Yee handed the rabbit to Jessie. He stooped down and pulled out a carrot. It was long and straight, with a feathery green top.

Violet could smell the carrot the minute Mr. Yee pulled it out of the ground. “That smells so good,” she said.

Mr. Yee snapped the carrot in half. Then he fed part of the carrot to the rabbit that Jessie was holding.

“We must find out who is stealing our vegetables,” he told the girls. “It is a terrible thing to walk into your garden and find your vegetables missing. I think—” Mr. Yee stopped talking in the middle of his sentence. He pointed.

Jessie and Violet looked to where he was pointing. There, at the far end of the row that once held orange carrots, was a burlap bag. A lumpy burlap bag.

Without speaking, Mr. Yee and Jessie and Violet all walked toward the bag. Mr. Yee took the rabbit from Jessie and held it close. “You look,” he told her.

Jessie knelt down and opened the bag. Inside were carrots: dozens and dozens of orange carrots. She took one out and handed it to Mr. Yee. “Is this one of your carrots?” she asked.

Mr. Yee shook his head. “No,” he said. “I can tell by looking that those aren’t my carrots. The variety I planted grow long and slender. The variety in the bag grows short and chunky. I do not understand,” he said. “Somebody stole my carrots, and then that somebody gave me different carrots.”

Benny and Henry came to see what was wrong, and Jessie told them about the carrots.

Henry picked up the bag of carrots and looked at the burlap bag itself, then at the carrots. “I think we have a lot of clues,” he said, “and we can talk about them at lunch, after we help Mr. Yee with his garden.”

“Good idea,” said Jessie. “I brought my notebook.”

And then the Aldens and Mr. Yee returned to garden work: weeding, thinning, tying up vines and climbing plants, and watering.

*  *  *

When it was time for lunch, Mr. Yee, still holding the rabbit, went off to see how Roger was doing with his apologies. The children found a shady spot under a big tree that grew nearby. They sat and opened the lunches that Mrs. McGregor had packed for them.

As they ate, they talked.

“I don’t think that Roger is the thief,” said Henry. “He thought that breaking things in people’s gardens would make them want to move. I don’t think he thought about stealing their vegetables.”

Jessie and Benny and Violet agreed.

“Roger was very upset when his cucumbers were stolen,” said Benny. “He was not cool.”

The others laughed.

“No, Benny, he wasn’t as cool as a cucumber,” said Jessie.

“When it comes to the garden thief,” said Henry, “some clues are more important than others.”

“When it comes to the thief, the burlap bags aren’t important,” said Violet as she munched on one of the cucumbers that Mrs. McGregor had packed.

“I agree,” said Jessie. “And when it comes to the thief, the footprints aren’t important, either.”

“Well,” said Benny impatiently, “what is important when it comes to the thief?”

“Green trash bags are important,” said Henry.

“Lucasta has a green trash bag,” offered Benny. “We saw Henry put it away.”

“That’s right,” said Jessie. She paused in the middle of eating her sandwich. “The cobbler’s apron is equally important.”

“We saw a cobbler’s apron hanging in the barn,” said Violet. “But Alex put it away as soon as we saw it.”

“We saw the apron not long after we saw Taylor’s leg weights,” said Jessie thoughtfully. “Her leg weights have pockets, and so does a cobbler’s apron.”

“Are there any more cucumbers?” asked Benny.

Jessie gave him one of hers. “Blue ribbons are also important,” she said.

“Blue ribbons are important to Taylor,” said Henry. “She’s never won one.”

“And to Lucasta,” said Benny. “She wants every one of her rabbits to win a blue ribbon.”

“So,” said Jessie, counting on her fingers, “we have three important clues about the thefts: the green trash bags; the cobbler’s apron; the blue ribbons; and—” She looked at her sister.

“The purple carrots,” said Violet.

“But nobody stole the purple carrots,” Benny argued. “How can they be a clue?”

“Because,” said Henry, “sometimes what isn’t stolen is as important a clue as what is stolen.”

The children got up and brushed the grass and twigs off their shorts.

“I wish the burlap bags were a clue,” said Benny. “I really like the burlap bags!”

Jessie tousled Benny’s hair. “Oh, the burlap bags are an important clue, Benny. They just aren’t a clue to the thief.”

“That’s right,” said Henry. “Where have we seen burlap bags recently?”

“In the Kirk barn,” Benny answered eagerly. “They were hanging on the walls near the rabbit hutches.”

“Taylor was with us,” said Jessie. “She saw them, too.”

“The burlap bags are important,” said Henry, “but what’s inside them is even more important.”

Jessie spoke. “It’s time for another trip to the Kirk barn,” she said.

Just as the children finished lunch and their discussion, Mr. Yee arrived back at his garden, still holding the rabbit.