Title: A Bit of Earth
Prompt:
writerverse challenge #02 september mini table of doom
Book Title Used:
The Secret Garden (by Frances Hodgson Burnett)
Word Count: 247
Rating: G
Original/Fandom: original (
Zeke Jones ‘verse)
Summary: One of Zeke’s neighbors shares a secret.
Note(s): originally posted to the
writerverse wv_library A Bit of Earth
“Officer Zeke!”
I closed my mail box and looked across the lobby of my apartment building to see Carly Varona clomping down the stairs.
“Hey, there, kiddo,” I said, “Does your mom know you’re down here?”
It was just about dawn- very late for me, and presumably very early for a six-year-old, especially during summer vacation.
“Yes,” Carly said, patiently. “She said I could meet you when you got home. ‘Cause I want to show you something!”
I tucked my (junk) mail into my jacket pocket. “Show me what?”
The girl giggled. “It’s a surprise, Officer Zeke! You have to come outside.”
“Okay, sure.”
She grabbed my hand and I let her pull me through the building and out the back door. Carly’s mom was head of the group organizing some of our usually-overgrown back yard into a vegetable garden- I’d helped a couple of times when they were still turning over the dirt, but I was pretty much incapable of taking care of anything besides myself and my fairy cat. Carly dodged through the half-grown plants, toward the back of the yard, where it butted up against the much-fancier wall of the much-fancier apartment building on the next block.
“Here,” she said, beaming. “This is mine.”
It was a tiny patch of dirt, between the wall and the storage shed, containing half a dozen green plants.
“Nobody knows but me and Mommy and you,” Carly told me.
I smiled. “Your secret’s safe with me,” I promised.
THE END
Current Mood:
snowy