Mrs. Henderson always said her garden gnomes moved at night. Her neighbors smiled politely and chalked it up to her aging imagination, but Timothy, the paperboy, wasn't so sure. He'd seen things during his early morning route, suspicious things, like muddy footprints too small to be human, or her prized roses arranged differently than the day before.135Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ12LltGiI09
One particularly foggy morning, Timothy decided to investigate. He'd finished his route early and had thirty minutes before school started. Armed with nothing but his phone's flashlight and an excess of twelve-year-old curiosity, he crept toward Mrs. Henderson's garden.
The fog parted just enough for him to make out the familiar shapes of her gnome collection. There was Frederick, the fishing gnome by the pond; Beatrice, the mushroom-sitting gnome near the birdbath; and Winston, the wheelbarrow-pushing gnome by the vegetable patch. Everything seemed normal, until it wasn't.135Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJKb4e59Zji
Winston's wheelbarrow, which Timothy distinctly remembered being full of ceramic vegetables yesterday, was empty. He stepped closer, careful not to crush any flowers. That's when he heard it: a tiny sneeze, followed by muffled giggling.
"Shh! You'll get us caught!" whispered a high-pitched voice from behind the tomato plants.
Timothy froze. His heart thundered in his chest as he slowly turned his flashlight toward the vegetable garden. There, in the early morning mist, he witnessed something extraordinary.
Winston, Beatrice, and Frederick were working together to harvest actual tomatoes. Real ones. Winston's wheelbarrow was already half-full of them. Frederick had traded his fishing rod for garden shears, while Beatrice directed traffic from atop her mushroom, which she had somehow managed to relocate closer to the action.
"Oh bother," Beatrice sighed, finally noticing Timothy. "Well, don't just stand there catching flies with your mouth, young man. If you're going to bust us, you might as well help."
Timothy blinked hard, then blinked again. "You're... real?"
"As real as that atrocious red baseball cap you're wearing," Frederick chimed in, struggling with a particularly stubborn tomato stem. "Now, are you going to help or not? Mrs. Henderson's arthritis has been acting up, and she hasn't been able to tend to her garden properly this week."
Without waiting for an answer, Winston thrust a small basket into Timothy's hands. "We're collecting these for her famous tomato sauce. She always makes it for the church bake sale, but this year..." He trailed off, looking worried.
"This year she thinks she'll have to tell them she can't do it," Beatrice finished. "First time in twenty-seven years! We simply couldn't let that happen."
Timothy found himself smiling. Of course the gnomes were helping. It made perfect sense, in a completely nonsensical way. He joined their assembly line, picking tomatoes and passing them to Winston, who arranged them carefully in his wheelbarrow.
As they worked, the gnomes shared stories about Mrs. Henderson, how she talked to them every day, how she made sure they were clean and well-positioned, how she defended them when the neighborhood association complained they were "tacky." They worked quickly, racing against the rising sun.135Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡATE0D7KTlI
Just as they finished, they heard Mrs. Henderson's back door creak open.
"Places, everyone!" Beatrice hissed. The gnomes scurried back to their spots with practiced precision. Timothy dove behind a hydrangea bush, hardly daring to breathe.
Mrs. Henderson stepped out onto her back porch in her floral robe and fuzzy slippers, coffee cup in hand. She stopped short at the sight of her vegetable garden.
"Well, I'll be," she whispered, walking over to inspect the perfectly harvested tomato plants and the mysterious wheelbarrow full of ripe tomatoes. "I was just thinking about the church bake sale..." She glanced at her gnomes with a knowing smile.
Timothy watched as she gathered the tomatoes, humming happily to herself. As she turned to go back inside, he could have sworn he saw Winston wink at him.
That afternoon, Timothy took a different route home from school, one that passed by Mrs. Henderson's house. She was in her front yard, carefully wrapping jars of tomato sauce in bubble wrap and placing them in a box marked "Church Bake Sale."
"Oh, Timothy!" she called out when she saw him. "Would you like a cookie? I always make extra when I'm cooking."
As they sat on her porch steps, munching on chocolate chip cookies, Mrs. Henderson looked at her gnomes and smiled. "You know, sometimes I think they move around at night."
Timothy took another bite of his cookie and grinned. "You don't say?"135Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkLgkG7ryU9
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