Finchosaurus by Gail Donovan

Author:Gail Donovan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Islandport Press
Published: 2018-08-23T16:36:07+00:00

14. The Fruits of Our Labor

The next day was as hot and muggy as dog breath.

Grammy Mary sat on one of the big boulders alongside the garden. She wore a straw hat with a giant plastic purple flower on the brim. “Good morning, Finch,” she said with a smile.

“Hey, Grammy Mary,” said Finch. “Cool hat.”

“It’s keeping me cool,” she said, taking it off and fanning herself.

“Fifth graders!” called Mrs. Adler, raising her hand in the air for silence. “Let’s give our full attention to Miss Kirby.”

“Good morning, everyone,” said Miss Kirby. She was wearing short overalls, like a cross between a farmer and a little kid. “Because of this heat, we’re only going to work outside for about thirty minutes. Then we’ll go in and make a salad from the greens we’re going to harvest. Who here wants to eat some kale?”

That wasn’t a real question, because the whole class garden thing was being willing to at least try eating the food they grew. So everybody raised their hands to show they would eat kale.

“Then let’s get gardening!” said Miss Kirby, and began assigning different kids to different jobs.

Finch sidled up to Noah. “Let’s split up,” he whispered. “I’m gonna talk to Atticus.”

“Check,” said Noah. “I’ll hang with David.”

Finch grabbed a trowel and went over to where Atticus was cutting leaves and putting them into a bowl. “Miss Kirby said I could weed,” he said. “What’s a weed, again?”

“What’s a weed?” echoed Atticus. His face scrunched into a worried frown. “Weeds are the plants we don’t want.”

“I get that,” said Finch. “I mean, where are the weeds?”

“Oh,” said Atticus, his frown switching to a grin. “This is kale,” he said, pointing to a row of plants with dark green curlicue leaves. “And all this other stuff is weeds.” He pointed to clumps of green here and there. “Weed. Weed. Weed.”

“Got it,” said Finch. He stuck his trowel into the ground, yanked up a weed, and tossed it aside.

“You’re supposed to make a pile,” said Atticus. “Remember? For the kids collecting stuff for the compost? Miss Kirby says a weed isn’t edible but it can still help us make edible things.”

“Who says it’s not edible?” asked Finch.

“Umm . . . Miss Kirby?”

“But is that true?” asked Finch. He dug up another clump of weeds, bit off a mouthful, and chewed.

“How is it?” asked Atticus, staring at Finch as if he was doing a magic trick.

Finch swallowed. “I’m gonna go with not edible,” he said.

Atticus cracked up, laughing. “Too bad you’re not a cow. Then you could eat it.”

“Too bad I’m not an herbivorous dinosaur,” said Finch.

“Diplodocus,” suggested Atticus.

“Or Iguanodon,” said Finch.

“Totally,” agreed Atticus.

Finch kept digging and tossing the weeds into a pile. Dig, yank, toss. Dig, yank, toss. He should have talked to Atticus a long time ago. Not because of his investigation; just because the kid was pretty fun. Why hadn’t they ever hung out before?

Maybe because he was already hanging out with Noah, pretty much 24/7. They hung out during school.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.