Paddy crouched in the driveway prodding a dried up worm with a twig. Like so many other seven-year-olds, his knees were covered with scratches, his legs and forearms bumpy with the imprints- a symptom of lying on the asphalt for an hour observing the things that were smaller than himself. He carefully picked the worm up, spat on it, and gently rubbed it.
“Is that any better?” he asked. Not satisfied with the response, he cupped the worm in his hands and rushed towards his house, a one story ranch. He burst open the door and let it slam-
“What did I say about slamming the door,” he heard from the kitchen. His mother was washing the dishes.
“Mom, I need water, please.” She took a plastic cup she had already cleaned, switched the hot water to cold, and waited for the temperature to change.
“What do you have there?” She asked before he opened his hands to reveal dirt and a shriveled up worm. “Why did you bring that in the house, Padraig? Get that outside!”
“She’s just thirsty. She told me she needs water.”
“It’s dead, it doesn’t need anything!” She emptied the cup she was filling and put it back in the strainer, “and even if it were alive, worms don’t talk, sweetheart. We’ve talked about this. You need to learn the difference between your imagination and reality. The other kids at school are going to make fun of you.”
“Are you sure?” Paddy asked, “Maybe if she just had water, she’d be okay again! You said that worms are good bugs, and they help your garden! Don’t you want to save her?”
“Padraig, if it’s dead, it won’t be helping anyone with anything,” his mother insisted.
“Well, I’m thirsty anyway, can I have water?” His mother obliged and filled the cup back up and gave it to him. He took a sip, and walked away with it. As soon as he was outside, he took one more sip, and stuck the worm in the water. It sank to the bottom, and Paddy waited a few seconds, putting his eye up to the transparent plastic watching intently. The worm never moved.
“I was too late,” Paddy muttered to himself disappointed. He took the slimy worm out of the cup, walked towards the garden and displaced a handful of soil leaving a worm sized grave. “You were a good worm,” he announced as he lowered the worm into its resting place, “my mom might not understand, but she’s thankful for you helping her flowers grow. Grammy told me that when people die, they go back into the earth to turn into flowers. Maybe you can be a flower some day.” He replaced the soil and planted a twig to mark the tiny grave.
Paddy wandered off to the edge of the garden to find more creatures to observe. It didn’t take him long to settle down in the grass, prop his chin up on his hands, and get personal with some aphids.
“Where are you guys going?” He inquired, “Are you guys eating those flowers? I promise I won’t tell my mom. She hates bugs that eat her garden. I know you aren’t trying to make her mad, because you need to survive too.” He waited. “Just so you know, you should probably leave. I bet my mom’s coming outside soon to do some gardening. She might try to squish you.” Paddy heard the front door slam and got up to relocate so he didn’t reveal the aphids’ location.” He turned to realize it was his older brother, Ewan who had come outside with a baseball and mitt.
“What were you doing, why do you look guilty?” Ewan asked.
“I was just talking to some bugs, I thought you were mom.” Paddy was three years Ewan’s junior, but Paddy was fairly certain Ewan believed in Paddy’s ability to communicate with beings that weren’t human.
“How come I can’t hear them?” Ewan asked, “Are you sure you aren’t imagining it?”
“Shut up, Ewan! I know what I can hear. It doesn’t matter if you can hear them. No one understands what it’s like. They all have feelings just like you or me!”
“Mom and Dad think you’re pretending. They say it’s not normal for boys your age to get so caught up in their imaginations, Paddy.”
“I don’t care what Mom and Dad say.” Paddy sat in the dirt in defiance.
“I’m going to Don’s to play catch. I’ll be back for dinner.” Ewan started down the driveway, but before he was gone he turned back to Paddy. “Maybe you can talk to animals, but it will get Mom and Dad off your back if you’d just spend more time talking to people.”
Pouting, Paddy sat cross legged in the dirt for several minutes until a squirrel wandered nearby, “I learned in class last week that it’s time for you to start collecting nuts. Winter’s on the way, and all the nuts are going to be stuck under the snow.” The squirrel stood on its hind legs and moved its mouth around before removing an acorn from its cheeks and fiddling with it in its tiny paws.
“Oh I get it. You already started.” The squirrel put its rations back into its cheek and scampered off. “Good luck!” Paddy called out after it.
“Good luck with what?” His mom asked, as she exited the house wearing gardening gloves.
“Nothing.” Paddy retorted before painting his best pouty face back on. His mother sighed, and got to work in the garden. The sun began to lower in the sky as Paddy observed an ant hill several feet from his mother’s garden. Paddy would usually shout words of encouragement to the little laborers as they hauled off clods of dirt twice their size. He dared not speak to them while his mother was around to scold him, but he did pick up pebbles when he saw an ant that appeared to be struggling with his load.
A crowd of boys of an age with Paddy sprinted by the end of the driveway hollering at each other, and Paddy’s mom turned to him.
“Why don’t you go after those boys? Aren’t they in your class?”
Paddy replied, “They’re all jerks. None of them want to talk to me. Benjamin sits next to me, and he’s never even looked at me. He just sticks his bubble gum under my desk when I’m not looking.”
“Maybe if you just tried to have a common interest with them, they’d pay attention to you,” his mom suggested.
Her attention was diverted when Ewan arrived home and grabbed the mail from the mailbox as he passed it. He stopped to talk to his mother about report cards or something. Paddy wasn’t paying attention. What did catch Paddy’s attention was his mother’s mention that she had found an unwelcome resident in her garden.
“Gross,” she sneered as she picked a grub up from the dirt between her index finger and thumb. She flicked it onto the pavement next to Ewan. “Do me a favor, and squish it.”
“Okay,” Ewan replied before lifting his foot up to flatten the squirming larvae with his sneaker.
“Wait!” shouted Paddy in horror.
“Come on, Paddy. It’s a bad bug. Grubs are bad,” defended Ewan.
“Paddy,” his mother added, “these little things eat the roots of my flowers and kill them. If they grow up into beetles, then they’ll eat the leaves. I can’t have them in my garden!”
“But he said ‘wait’! He wants you to wait,” Paddy begged.
“Grubs don’t talk. Even if they did, I don’t imagine they’d have anything to say. Ewan, kill it.” His mother had just finished talking when a sparrow landed next to Ewan. It hopped over to the grub, picked it up in its beak, threw its head back, and swallowed it. Paddy, Ewan, and their mother were all fixed on that sparrow. It returned the gaze, fluttered up landing for a moment on Paddy’s shoulder, and cocked its head before flying off.
“Mom, he says ‘Thanks for lunch’”.
Evelyn had always wanted a green thumb, but in all 81 of her years spent on Earth, never did she grow anything remarkable. That would not, however, kept her from trying. As a matter of fact, she devoted her post-retirement years to maintaining half an acre of flowers, cucumbers, sage, parsley, beans, chives, beets, carrots, squash, and a number of other garden crops. Since the death of her husband four years prior, she had very little in her life to keep herself occupied. She had a friend in Darren, the eight-year-old boy who lived four houses over- which on this street meant almost a quarter mile away. Darren didn’t mind the bike trip to Evelyn’s, to keep her company- and it certainly helped that she’d cook his favorite meals for him.
It was the winters that Evelyn needed Darren most because her garden would become smothered and frozen by the harsh Maine snows. There wasn’t much else to do other than read books on gardening tips all day long, and by the time the soil thawed, if Evelyn had remembered anything she’d read, she’d do her best to put it into practice. In her 81st year and 43rd season trying to plant a successful garden, Evelyn learned something valuable. Several years ago, Evelyn’s daughter moved to Georgia with her husband and three children, and the only chance Evelyn had to see them was to spend every August at their home. The problem was that August was the time of year her garden needed her most, but it was a sacrifice she gladly made for family. While she was gone, she asked that Darren keep an eye on the garden- being rewarded $50 upon her return home.
She had three duffle bags filled with clothes, toiletries, and gifts for her grandkids- toy robots and remote control helicopters. Darren had helped pick them out and was lugging one of the bags to the van Evelyn would be taking to the airport. Darren, while crossing the threshold onto the porch, frowned and turned to Evelyn.
“Evelyn, I have bad news.” He said, “I leave for summer camp next week. I’ll be gone while you’re gone. Who’s going to keep an eye on the garden?”
“Oh no, Darren. I don’t know! It’s a little late to be worried about it now. Do your best while you’re still here. If you weed it really well, maybe it will stay maintained.”
“I’m sorry, Evelyn. I’ll spend all day here tomorrow making sure the garden is in the best shape its ever been.” Darren’s parents were in the van waiting to deliver Evelyn to the airport. On the drive to drop off Evelyn, Darren felt guilty for letting down his friend, yet he was excited by the challenge to do a month’s worth of weeding in a day. They parted with a hug and a promise that Darren would try his hardest to help the garden in whatever way he could.
The next day Darren had a playdate, but the day after, he made it to the garden by noon. He looked at the challenge before him, rows of green perfectly aligned like soldiers. Carrots were in the back left, heads of lettuce were next to that, beans grew in the back, a handful of cornstalks occupied the adjacent rows, and nearby squash and pumpkins neighbored one another methodically. Everything was so neatly organized that it was clear this was someone’s priority- an important hobby. It was Darren’s job to make sure that the garden was in good shape before it faced weeks of neglect. Darren thought to himself while observing the perfection of this garden that he’d never noticed nature practicing this kind of organization. Perhaps the garden didn’t want to be so well ordered. It was like they were constantly reigning it in every time it tried to reach out and flourish.
Darren got down on his hands and knees and started to pluck the weedlings from the earth. The soil was dry and coarse, and not surprisingly- rather void of weeds altogether. It seemed like there wasn’t much work to do on the garden at all. Though, of course, in a few weeks the weeds would start showing prominence again. While crawling near the squash looking for weeds, Darren spotted some squash that would surely be ripe by the time he returned. The yield on this year’s squash would be as disappointing as last year’s as indicated by the shriveled up runt Darren observed.
Darren returned two days later to make sure no new weeds had taken seed, but the tidy garden had seen no increase in weed population.
The day before Darren had to leave for his away camp he returned once more for his last chance to see the garden off. He spent no more than twenty minutes picking at some barely visible weeds, sprayed the garden hose over the rows, and said his goodbyes.
“Good luck, garden. Do your best to give Evelyn some quality crops. She tried really hard, you know. Goodbye garden! Goodbye worms! Goodbye bees! I’ll see you in a few weeks!”
So the garden sat alone for twenty-five days with no guardian other than nature. It was a child left home alone for weeks- it had its own agenda and opinions on what would be in its best interest.
Darren and Evelyn both returned to town on the same day prepared to start harvesting. Darren’s parents picked him up from the bus station in the same trip that they retrieved Evelyn from the airport. They were both anxious to see the state of the garden. They were prepared to get right to work frantically weeding and watering.
When they got to Evelyn’s home, neither went through the front door. They went straight to the back yard to behold the jungle that had grown in place of the organized rows. Lettuce and squash plants had relocated under corn stalks along with refugee heads of lettuce. Carrots and potatoes were sharing space. The tomato plants had taken up partnership with the basil. To Evelyn, this was chaos.
“My garden! How did this happen? I was expecting more weeds than usual. But not this mess! How could this even happen?”
“The garden has a mind of its own, I think,” Darren added, “this can’t all be bad.”
Evelyn was on the verge of tears.
“It’s okay,” Evelyn convinced herself, “it was worth seeing my family. Well, Darren, we have a lot of work to do!”
“I’ll say,” said Darren grinning as he leaned down to a squash vine hiding under a corn stalk. He lifted up the most beautiful squash ever produced by Evelyn’s garden. It was the size of his arm, “looks like we have quite the harvest, Evelyn!”
Evelyn was soon brought to tears by the discovery that her jungle garden yielded the most beautiful crops she could have ever dreamed of. Bright plump tomatoes, fresh greens, delicious sweetcorn, and every other crop she had planted was as healthy as ever, and the soil was rich and dark. The greenest thumb Evelyn ever had was in her total absence. Nothing pure came in orderly rows.
