Bixie’s Tomato Knock-Knock — Between the warm boards of the raised beds, Bixie kept a list of summer sounds: bean pods ticking in the breeze, squash leaves rasping like paper fans, and bees making tiny engine noises in the marigolds. Read the full story →
Between the warm boards of the raised beds, Bixie kept a list of summer sounds: bean pods ticking in the breeze, squash leaves rasping like paper fans, and bees making tiny engine noises in the marigolds. One sound was still missing. She wanted to knock on the tallest tomato stake, the one wrapped in vines and string, because everyone said it answered with a hollow tock. Bixie held up one knuckle. Her courage felt small, like a pea under her thumb.
Tap. The stake went tock. Tap-tap. It went tock-tock, and the tomatoes bobbed as if they were trying not to giggle. Bixie grinned and tapped a rhythm on the wood. From the bean poles came a softer click. From under the zucchini leaves came a dry rattle. “Who’s doing that?” she whispered, smelling green stems and sun-warmed dirt.
Then a striped cucumber beetle crawled from a knot hole no one ever noticed, wearing a curled tomato stem like a conductor’s baton. He bowed, thumped the hollow stake from inside, and the whole bed joined in: pods, leaves, pebbles, and one very rude squash blossom going pffft. Bixie wrote nothing down at first. She tapped once more, brave as a pea can be, and if you find the tallest stake among the vines, you may hear her tomato knock-knock answer.
