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Whose Garden Grows at Midnight
mystery · Everyone
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Whose Garden Grows at Midnight

one path · 4 paragraphs

Nadia writes down everything that happens at the Marrow Lane allotments. So she's the first to spot it: Mr. Okafor's giant champion pumpkin moved overnight. Not gone, just sitting three plots away in Mrs. Pratt's strawberry bed, plump and shiny with dew. By morning both grown-ups are yelling at each other. Nadia opens her notebook and starts writing.

Nadia decides to keep watch that night. She tells her mum she's reading in bed, then climbs out the window and sneaks down to the allotments with a flashlight and a thermos of cocoa. She hides behind the compost bins and waits, eyes glued to the pumpkin.

Just past midnight, the pumpkin begins to glow. Nadia nearly drops her cocoa. Then she hears a snicker and spots a phone taped to a stick, shining green light on it. Two kids are filming a 'haunted garden' prank video. Nadia almost laughs out loud.

Nadia steps out and offers to help with the video instead of telling on them. Together they make the funniest haunted-pumpkin clip the allotments have ever seen. The grown-ups watch it the next day and finally stop arguing, laughing together at last.

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