All MiNe

Gardening Club

Helping one another do our classwork made it fast and easy enough to finish it quickly.

Honey walked me to the gardening club. It was quiet as we waited for other people to show up. I was touching a purple Pacific Rhododendron, or a species of azalea.

Then a butterfly landed on my nose. I blinked a couple of times it was a Red Admiral butterfly, my Grandma used to tell me that butterflies have varied meanings, I'm going to have to look up the meaning of Red Admirals.

"This reminds me of something from when I was a kid." Honey quietly said as he walked closer to me, " My uncle died and I was sad, confused, and hurt. My mom would recite this poem for me and at the time I didn't completely understand what it meant, but I liked it." Honey took a deep breath and spoke:

" I will trade you one bad memory for a memory I have of a young pine tree covered in butterflies.

A hundred monarchs resting on their long flight have laid here, on these green needles. You reach out. The tired creatures crawl onto your arms, wings slowly parting and closing, parting and closing, as they breathe. They rest covering you in magic. You spin in the sunlight, laughing. You are small, very small, and they glow like candles behind colored glass.

I will trade one terrible, inescapable, and awful thing for this one golden moment in time, this moment of honeycomb light and a warm autumn day tapering to an endless evening.

Look, you made a trade. You can take your memory back anytime you want to, but you don't have to bear it alone. For right now I will hold it for you so that way it can be smaller and further away.

Look at the butterflies. Every time I would feel a negative emotion I would tell my mother what was wrong and she would make me a butterfly out of paper, napkins, and anything she could fold. It made me feel better. Sorry, I got a little emotional. Whenever I see a butterfly that's what I think of and I guess I wanted to share that with you."

"Thank you, Honey, for sharing, you didn't have to and you did, so thank you. " The Red Admiral flew over to Honey and landed on his index finger smiling as he lifted his hand watching the butterfly fly away.

Wait? Where did that Red Admiral come from?? They aren't butterflies that are common here.

"Honey you aren't on my list of attendees." Honey and I whip around to see Rodas standing there with a clipboard.

"I was dropping Asteria off, I didn't want her to be alone y'know? Since you're here I can leave. I'll catch you later Mini-Titaness!" Honey called from the doorway as he was leaving. I could only smile and wave as he left.

"Mini-Titaness?"

"He calls me that because of my name. So, what are we going to do in the club today?"

"We're going to plan the Fall Ball. It's a celebration of the Fall fauna and flora. Which leads up to a Halloween party. We're connected to the flower shop, so we get the flowers from there when we don't have enough in the school garden."

I nodded smiling looking at the different types of flowers and picked pale pink and purple peonies and started weaving them together with some white carnations and weaving those together. Then picking anemones, asters, alstroemerias, and carnations and weaved them together and placed this crown on my head then walking over to Rodas and placing the peony crown on Rodas' head.

His face turned a bright red as I stepped back from him. My face burned a little too, "You look handsome."

"Oh, thank you- I mean you think I do? Like really, but thank you." Rodas spoke struggling to find the right words. Smiling as I cupped his face.

"You look handsome Rodas."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you guys' moment." A voice from the doorway. Turning around I spot Ezra.

"Ezra! Join us! Here pick some flowers and I'll make you one too." Stepping away from Rodas and walking toward the flower beds dragging Ezra with me. Rodas' face was still bright red when I walked away. Ezra picked red poppies and handed them to me.

"So were you two gonna kiss or what?" Ezra asked, he made it seem like a casual question to ask.

Rodas was trying to stammer out a response, while I just responded.

"No. I was doing something my Grandma used to do. She would cup my face and repeatedly say the same thing to me every time I felt sad.", pausing to check the flower crown then continuing, " If I called myself, I don't know, an ugly piglet, my Grandma would cup my face and say, 'You are a beautiful princess.' and she would say it till I said it without stuttering and days after she would ask who I am and I would respond 'I am a beautiful princess.'" As I spoke I cupped Ezra and Rodas' faces and gave them a closed-eyed smile.

Both their faces felt warm so I opened my eyes and their faces were bright red. It was cute. It got cuter when I gave Ezra his flower crown and snapped a photo of the two boys by themselves and then a selfie in between the two of them.

"You're both so cute! Where's everyone else?" I asked, before looking at the clock, just as I asked a few more students came into the room. "There they are!" I excitedly shouted. The boys were still and I was confused, but shrugged it off and went over to meet the other members and that's pretty much how the Gardening Club went today, with both boys slacked jawed as I interacted with everyone else until it time to go home.

Rodas and Ezra walked me home and I gave my number to Rodas, saying I would text him later as I walked into the house to check up on my sisters, then when they were all set I went upstairs to my room and started walking to my room to work on my piece for the talent show.