Plantville

Plantville

The people of Plantville love their plants. They nurture them, sing to them, they give them their every leaf's desire. One sunny day, Fern was outside watering her flower garden—ablaze with scarlet tulips, orange marigolds, and yellow daffodils. She was to go on a trip to visit the great flowering plants of the rest of the country. She wanted to give her plants a last watering and encouraging word before she turned them over to her plant-sitter.

On her journey back, she was very thrilled with her sightings. Fern had managed to capture five film rolls worth of flowers. As she thought back about the twenty-foot tall sunflower, there was a tremendous bang. Fern's car swerved into the opposite lane, she turned the wheel quickly back the other way, narrowly avoiding an oncoming nursery truck.

"My goodness," gasped Fern, "I almost hit that truck full of plants. I couldn't imagine how people waiting to buy those plants would feel if I  had hit it. The plants would probably be terrified!"

Fern got out of her car and looked at the front tires. One of them had a gash at least four inches long. She looked up at the edge of the road. A post leading up to a sign that read "Wehateplants" gave Fern hope for help with her car. Fern walked down the road the sign indicated to take to get to the town.

We-HAT-e-plants she pronounced the name to herself. It sounds like they might like plants just as much as the people of Plantville. Unfortunately for Fern, the town's name was pronounced We-HATE-plants.

Fern stared, astonished at the bareness of the yards in the town. Fern saw someone she thought might be of help to her.

"Hi! My name is Fern, and I…"

"We don't want any plants around here," said the man who Fern now saw as a threat to her life.
Fern was very disappointed. Out of all the people in this town, she had to pick one that hated plants. She started to walk away wehn the words "rare plant" caught her ear.

"Rare plant?" Fern repeated.

"Ya," said a man, "that plant is so…" beautiful Fern thought, "…It is believed to have dominated this town 200 years ago, but fortunately for us, our ancestors were able to make it nearly extinct…"

"Oh!" Fern said, shocked.

"It is said that there may still be one left in the caves of "Spooky Light."
Fern was very upset about what the man said. To actually kill a plant was beyond Fern's reasoning.

Fern was able to find a mechanic that did not react so shockingly to her name. He said that he would get her car towed and fix the tire for her. Fern was not too happy about the two-thousand dollar price tag, but she would be stranded without him.

Fern was still curious about this mystery plant. She found a tourist stand selling maps. When she looked at the map, there was no mention of "Spooky Light Caves."

"Where is this plant you, er…are so terrified of, in 'Spooky Light' something?" Fern asked of the owner of the stand.

"You aren't looking for the rare Verifronds Astra Carnivorous, are you?"

Fern nodded her head at the word "rare."

"Well, if you promise not to go there," the owner of the stand looked around cautiously, "you can find it right her." He pointed to a spot on the map.

Fern, very excited, thanked the man and ran off in the direction of Spooky Light Caves.

The caves indeed looked spooky, but the light was even spookier. A strange glowing light emanated from the cave entrance. Fern tip-toed into the cave. The farther she walked in, the brighter the light became. The light seemed to be coming from above her. She squinted and looked up. All she could see was a bright light. She rached up and surprisingly, the tips of her fingers touched something glassy. It was probably a huge vein of quartz that was conducting light from the surface to the undergroud! Fern smirked, proud of herself for figuring out where the "spooky" light was coming from.

As Fern looked around the edge, she noticed something very odd. Bones! There must have been hundreds of bones scattered all over the cave. She wondered if all these people (or animasl, as some appeared to be) came to see the magnficent plant, or perhaps were attracted by the light and decided to take up residence.

As Fern looked over all the bones, her eye came across a brown dried up thing. It was attached to a brilliant green plant.

"My!" shouted Fern. She shuddered when she heard her echo bounce around the cave walls.

Oddly enough, the plant was already in a pot. She lifted the pod and adimired its lush leaves. It was a mystery to Fern for how it maintained such vibrance with its limited reach of nutrients in the rocky cave and small pot. As she began walking away from the spot, a piece of paper fell from the bottom of the pot that read: "Responsible for the destruction of Flower Town, banned from private ownership." The piece of paper landed next to a ribcage with a pin inside.

When Fern got back to town, she went straight back to the mechaninc. When she showed the plant to him, he said, "Get that Spooky plant away from me!" She started to get her money out to pay for her car, but the man refused and told her to leave immediately with that plant.

Fern left immediately and was very happy that she did not have to pay the $2,000. She decided she would spend it on the plant, get it a new pot and whatever it needed.

When she returned home, she told everyone what happened. Everybody liked the plant except for one:

"Why were they acting so strange," asked her brother.

"It might be poisonous," Fern said and shrugged her shoulders.

"No plant," said her father, "would use poison on my sweet daughter."

Just then, the plant began to bloom. Everyone made exclamations of excitement as a green pod rose from the plant and turned a crimson red.  The flower turned towards Fern, then to the crowd, and died.

"Oh my goodness! Such rare, short beauty witnessed by all these people!" someone said.

Then, another bud appeared at least five times as big as the last one.

"It's going to do it agian!" someone else said.

The bud got bigger and bigger until it finally bloomed. The flower opened up, fell on top of Fern and her family, and swallowed them up into the flower head. The flower turned yellow, then brown in a few minutes; the people of the town just stared. When it opened again, hundreds of seeds flew out and amongst the people. The plant then coughed up Fern's and her family's skeletons and died.