By: Phineas Zhang

Mr. Cord was in his garden. His grass was not growing well, nor were his vegetables, flowers, or anything. His grass was yellow, his flowers were drooped and dead, and his vegetables hadn’t made a single piece of food yet. He had no idea why. He majored in botany, yet when he made a garden, nothing grew. One day when he came back from work, he saw some kids playing soccer in his garden.

“Hey! Get out of my garden!”

“Sorry mister, we’ll leave now,” the smallest of them said. They grabbed their ball and fled. There were some footprints, and some plants were smashed. But the next day, his garden was suddenly thriving, but for some odd reason it was only thriving in some places but not the others. When he took a closer look, the footprints were on the parts that were thriving. He wondered how that could be? Ever since then, his garden has improved a lot. He’s grown many vegetables, his garden is blooming with flowers, and his grass is the greenest grass that grass can be. (End of prologue)

Mr. Cord loved his garden more than anything. He lived by himself, and he studied botany, of course. With all his spare time he worked in his garden. But the neighbors next door always interrupted his progress. They had 4 kids, 2 boys and 2 girls. This family was a new family (same one as in prologue), they just moved in. He could never get his garden right, and when he first saw those kids, he thought that it was those kids who made it so that his garden was bad. They all loved sports, but instead of going somewhere normal to play, they for some reason always went to his garden to play. When he left for work, he expected that the kids would be back in his garden, playing another sport. Last week they played basketball, last last week they played soccer, and the week before that they played football. He wondered what they were going to play this week. When he got back from work, he sprinted for his garden. For the kids, it became a routine. When they heard his car pulling up, they fled the garden. Today, he had it with them. When he looked at his garden, every single plant was trampled. His grass was somehow yellow. All his vegetables were on the ground, smashed. There was a volleyball on the ground, signifying they played volleyball today. This time, they took it too far. He hired someone to build a fence around his garden, and only he had the keys to get in.

The next day, Mr. Cord went to work thinking everything would be all right. But when he got home from work, he saw the kids climbing over the fence to get out of the garden. He should have known. Those kids were really athletic. When he started tending to the garden, there was still one beet left untouched. He pulled it out of the ground, and under it was what looked like a giant beet but with human features. It had arms and legs, eyes, a nose, a mouth, ears, but it looked exactly like a beet.

“Hello, Mr. Cord.”

“H-how do you know my name? What are you?”

“I am a beet genie, a normal genie but shaped like a beet and can only grant one wish. Normal rules apply.”

“So, I can make a wish?”

“Yes.”

“I wish that those kids would never play in my garden again.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“I’m warning you; they might not be the problem.”

“Of course, they are the problem. Now grant me my wish.”

“Your wish is granted.”

Mr. Cord went to sleep, knowing his garden would thrive and never face those kids again. When he came back from work on the next day, he saw no kids coming out of his garden. When he went to tend to his garden, the plants condition was lowered by only a bit. But the next day, it was lowered, and the day after that, and that, until the condition was as bad as it started out with. Yellow grass, withering flowers, and no vegetables. He knew the genie probably didn’t have an answer to this, but he didn’t care. He turned over every plant that used to be a beet, but no genie was there. He tried watering his garden extra, but he couldn’t restore the condition. All he could do was sit there, watching his precious garden perish. For some reason, he thought this had something to do with the kids.

Epilogue

Mr. Cord went to his neighbor’s house, and asked

“Hello, are your kids the ones who play in my garden every day?”

Someone who appears to be the kids mom shows up at the door. “Yes, and I have a question for you. They said that whenever they try to get close to your garden now, there’s like an invisible barrier that makes it so they can’t go in. Did you do something?”

“Never mind that. Ever since your kids stopped going to my garden, it became bad. Did your kids curse my garden?”

“Curse? Quite the opposite! My kids are gifted, and they’re gift is whatever garden they touch, they will help it grow. And if you’re wondering why they play in it is because they also run faster in gardens, which they enjoy very much.”

“So, it’s just your kids who are gifted?”

“Oh, no! Our whole generation is gifted.”

“What is your gift?”

“My gift is being enemies with strangers who think my kids cursed their garden.” And with that, closed the door and walked away. No one else in the neighborhood had a garden. He looked for the genie, wanted to take his wish back, but the genie was long gone. Besides, even if he did find the genie it would be no use. A day after Mr. Cord gave up looking for the genie, the family left, looking for a neighborhood with a garden. Mr. Cord realized something: Because of his selfish actions, his garden will never thrive again.