CHAPTER 3
VEGETABLE KINGDOM, EASTERN DISTRICT
Brocc balanced himself on a stone wall, carrying a wooden basket of tools—hammers, screwdrivers, nails.
The stone wall zigzagged around the vegetable kingdom, rising over leafy roofs and separating the city from the shimmering cornfields to his right.
The air was full with ringing, hammering, and pounding. Vegetable citizens hung on scaffolds next to their vegetable-shaped houses, shuttering windows. Window sills that were once filled with potted flowers and buckets of herbs were now covered with mesh nets and nails meant to barb intruders. Tacks glinted on rooftops.
In the distance, red flags flapped on the castle spires—an attack warning.
Brocc lifted the basket in his hand and inhaled its thick, wooden smell. His dad had made it the ni
