rickety
fence or joining the long, black embers of a dead fire young boys had
prepared months back. Surely, she was the outcast of the plant world.
How grotesque her features were, so hard and unpliable seemed her
flesh. Even her skin tones were half-caste. No recipes called for her
presence. A mood of growing helplessness seemed to envelop her.

A boy, the earlier fire setter, is describing an odd vegetable, tubular
and often misshapen, that was excellent for all sorts of childhood
pursuits--making paperweights, building scarecrows and decorating
mantles.

"If only people knew," he bubbles.

"Still more success stories," the little gourd cries on hearing the
child's comment.

"At least I won't have to be humbled in her presence," the gourd
thought, her self confidence shattered.

And with that the little gourd approached the Vegetable King and asked
to use her remaining wish. For in those days all living things were
handed one means for improving themselves.

"I resolve to be a new edible," she sighed, "something other than a
gnomish gourd. Make, O King, a glorious . . . pumpkin." But the
Vegetable King decided not to abandon his earlier invention and so
gourds live on. Distant relatives of the bright, new pumpkin, but their
inspiration nonetheless.

THE MONARCH

She wanted her beauty too soon and must now forfeit it for the moment.

One day, when the Earth was a glorious garden and ruled by a brilliant
sun flower towering above the plants of her domain, Monarch butterfly,
not yet her familiar orange, complained she wished to be large as a
bird with petal wings translucent to the sun, folding with the rain.
Sunflower, taken back by this unusual demand, sought to humble Monarch.

"Henceforth for your imprudence, each one of your race must toil for
your wings. No more shall you enjoy fruits without labour. By daring to
be mighty you will begin existence as a pale, green egg hardly
distinguishable from the lowliest leaf. Moreover, as a reminder of your
insolence, you must pass through four purgatorial stages. The bitterest
bane of your people will be the bread of the milkweed."

"You wish to aggrandise yourself? So be it--you will shed your skin
like a snake and hang upside down in stupor for weeks on end. Only
then, will I allow you to retain your former excellence."

And with that, sunflower drew hard upon her curse and winter formed.
She, too, planted seed-eggs across the face of the earth. Her fac