The Secret Wild by Alex Evelyn

Author:Alex Evelyn [Evelyn, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781529508994
Publisher: Walker Books Ltd.
Published: 2022-05-05T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

A week later and there was no stopping Special; it had a pod like a small melon and its spike was like a crocheting needle.

“Don’t grow any bigger or you could really hurt someone with that,” Fern said. Special turned away sheepishly. “It’s all right, I don’t mind. I still love you even if you are turning into a pin cushion.”

Fern began to keep a chart of Special’s growth, measuring its height and width each morning. They had daily walks to the park for fresh air and tree climbing. The bigger it got, the harder it was to hide from Uncle Ned, so she would wait until she heard snores from his room before hurrying down the stairs and out into the world – and sneak back upstairs while he was busy singeing their toast.

She spotted Woody at the park a few times, but when she called his name, he would disappear quickly into his house. She couldn’t understand it. Were friendships a bit like seedlings and some of them just didn’t survive past the first tiny bit of growth?

Now that Special was well again, and now that she seemed to have lost Woody for reasons she couldn’t explain, Fern turned once again to her running-away plan.

If she was going to fly, she needed money, much more than her pocket money (which was just coins, never notes). The only way she could think of to get money, since she didn’t have anything worth selling, was to get a job. The problem was, she had no idea how to go about getting one of those.

So she took her sketchbook out from under her floor bed once again and wrote a list of what she was good at, which was difficult because she couldn’t think of much, but also because Special kept stealing her pencil. Snatching it back, she used the rubber end to give it a quick tickle, which made it shake all over. If only there was some kind of job where you got to be with plants all day, she’d be good at that…

An idea sprang into her head.

Ginkgo had said that the botanist was going to need someone to work as a gardener. Was it crazy to think that she might apply? She had hardly been able to stop thinking about the botanist since they had escaped, and although Ginkgo still terrified her, if there was some way of impressing the botanist, perhaps he wouldn’t matter. She had seemed desperate, after all. Anyone will do, young or old. As long as they have good botanical knowledge and are willing to work hard. Could it really be that hard to be a gardener?

She looked at Special. It was so big now, there was no way she could hide it in her dungarees pocket or even in her plant-hunting bag to go on a plane. It might even need an extra seat, and how much would that cost? Two tickets to Africa would mean she needed to save up more than she had first thought.

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