FFF #9: Vera's Garden

This challenge was issued over a month ago, but I needed a writing jump start, so decided to try it on the "better late than never" principle. Anyway the prompt includes a flower, a sentient tomato, and a goblin. So here goes:

Vera's Garden

The morning glory vine was, without doubt, viable. It twined around the trellis it was meant to twine around, and shot out tendrils into the air in search of new supports. It had wandered around the railing of the deck and was constantly trying to join the caged tomato plant that sat beside it on the deck. But Vera vigilantly redirected the vines to other posts, or, sometimes, just cut them back. She loved morning glory flowers—especially this variety, Heavenly Blue. But it was already mid-September, and the vine, full of lush green leaves, had yet to produce a single flower bud that she could see. Vera wondered if it was withholding blooms in stubborn retaliation for her efforts at keeping its wanderings in check.

“This may be Georgia, but it’s not eternal summer here, you know,” Vera told the plant. “Before long there’ll be a freeze, and you’ll die. You’re an annual in this zone. If you would just produce some flowers now you might still have a chance to have some seeds ripen. Then I could collect them and plant them next year, and your life would continue that way.”

“What, are you trying to scare the poor thing?” asked an indignant voice. Vera looked around. Just her and the potted plants there on her deck. Not even one of the usual squirrels.

“Well, I guess that’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?” she replied (after looking around very carefully to make sure she wasn’t in earshot of any neighbors).

“Well, I guess you’re not very nice then, are you?” retorted the tomato—the only possible source of the voice that she could identify. And a sentient tomato plant wasn’t that much of a stretch, to her way of thinking—she had always known that plants were alive in a more literal sense than the scientists admitted.

Vera was taken aback by the words. After a slight, shocked pause she defended herself: “Hey! I mean, I’ve watered and fertilized you all summer. Not to mention that that vine would choke you if I let it. Who are you to say that I’m not very nice?” Vera was becoming rather indignant herself. The loving care she lavished on her plants was a point of pride.

A wheezy, high-pitched giggle came from within the plant. Then, “Ha! Just bustin’ chops. No need to get all huffy on me. And tomatoes don’t talk, silly lady.” More giggles as the tomato plant started rustling, and out came a small leathery, wrinkled, manlike, naked little creature.

“Oh . . . oh . . . ewww. . . what are you?” sputtered Vera. “A goblin?”

“Well, well, not a goblin, we don’t like that word, and you’re not so pretty yourself, is she?” asked the creature, looking back inside the plant. Another face peered out of the leaves at Vera and grimaced, then grinned wildly and laughed. “Nope, she ugly.” They both giggled and snorted and stomped the ground. “But we like you,” the second creature—a female—told Vera. “We here to help you with this garden.”

With that, they both jumped up, and before Vera could even register what was happening, began pulling leaves off the morning glory vine, fast and furiously. “Hey!” she yelled, “Stop that right now!” She moved to pull the male away from the plant, and he suddenly bared pointed teeth at her in a rage, causing her heart to drop into her stomach as she backed immediately away. His rage turned to back to laughter in an instant, and he was giggling once more, till his companion shushed him. She addressed Vera again: “Lady, you calm down. We helping you, you’ll see. This plant don’t care if you make threats. We scare it the way it understand.” Vera no longer had the courage to do more than watch as they resumed their plucking until they’d defoliated about a third of the vine. Then they both looked at her and smiled and yelled, “Bye lady!” with a wave. Just before they jumped over the deck rails and scampered across her lawn and into the woods behind her home, the male said, “You can call us leprechauns or menehune if you want.” “Or even brownies or gnomes,” added his companion, “but not goblins.” Followed by more giggles, of course. She could no longer see nor hear them once they dove into the undergrowth. “But leprechauns wear clothes,” she protested weakly, in a whisper. “And we’re in Georgia.”

Vera just retreated into her house in shock after a few moments, sure that of course she must have imagined what could not have been possible. But in a few days she saw tiny flower buds all over the morning glory vine, which still had enough leaves to look fairly lush even after its plucking. A week or so after that, the first flower opened and bloomed—large, perfect, glowing deep blue. And then the following week, rich waves of blue flowers covered the plant and tumbled down the deck just as she’d meant them to when she’d planted the seeds last spring.