Garden fairies here.

Seedy and Soddy were the first to sound the alarm.

“Tulip down!” “Tulip down!”

As they cried out again, “Tulip down,” garden fairies from throughout the garden came running towards them to see what had happened.

Even Granny Gus McGarden left The Vegetable Garden Cathedral, which she rarely does, bringing along her son, The Right Reverend Augustus McGarden. One never knew in situations like this if Seedy and Soddy were crying wolf or if last rites might be needed.

As they gathered around Seedy and Soddy, they could see this was no false alarm. Indeed a tulip was down.

Ol’ Rainbow Tanglefly made his way through the crowd of garden fairies to get a closer look.  Right behind him were SweetPea MorningGlory and Violet GreenPea MayDreams.

Violet had her notebook in hand ready to write down everything as it happened.  SweetPea was just being her usual busy-body self.

When Ol’ Rainbow reached the tulip, he exclaimed to everyone, “This is the worst tulip down situation I’ve seen for quite some time. We garden fairies can’t fix this. We are going to need Carol the Gardener to come out here and fix this.”

“How will we ever get Carol to come out here to fix it?” asked SweetPea.

They all started talking at once.

Then Seedy piped up and suggested the garden fairies should try to trick Carol into coming outside.  He and Soddy put forth several suggestions, including several tricks they had used in the past on Carol with some success. (Note from Violet: We will not reveal those tricks here because they are secrets we do not want Carol to know and she reads these posts sometimes.)

Granny chimed in, “We have no control over Carol, you all know that. Even with our best tricks, we never know what she is going to do. But have you noticed she comes out here every day to look around and take pictures and what not? We just need to be patient and wait and she’ll come out. Then it will be easy to lure her over here. Once she sees that tulip, she’ll know exactly what to do.”

And Granny was right, as always.  Within minutes, Carol came out as she usually does in the mornings. Within seconds, she walked toward the rain gauge but was stopped in her tracks when she saw the tulip was down. The garden fairies waited quietly and watched. Carol looked at the tulip, looked up and surveyed the garden, muttered something about rabbits, then pulled the tulip off and took it inside. There she placed in a small vase and set it on her kitchen counter so she could admire it as it opened up.

Following the tulip rescue, the garden fairies decided they would begin an investigation to determine who had knocked down the tulip. Who had cut it off in its prime?

They would bring in the great Hortcule Poirot to investigate!

“Yes,” they all exclaimed, “let us turn the case of the Tulip Down to the great Hortcule Poirot! He is the only one who can solve such a mystery, and he likes gardens.”

A minority thought they should bring in Hortlock Holmes or Miss Jane Hortple. But in the end, they decided that this case really did need a dedicated detective like Hortcule Poirot.

And with that decision made, Granny and Ol’ Tanglefly encouraged everyone to return to their homes, go back to what they were doing, and keep their eyes open for any clues as to how a tulip was snapped off like that in its prime.

To be continued….

Submitted by:
Violet GreenPea MayDreams, Chief Scribe and Investigative Reporter for the Gardens at May Dreams Gardens.