The Garden Thief by Gertrude Chandler Warner Read Free Book Online

Alex.
    “What’s wrong?” Henry and Roger asked the question at the same time.
    “Alex Kirk has been vandalizing our gardens—that’s what’s wrong,” snapped Taylor.
    Roger took a step backward. He looked confused.
    “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Alex replied angrily. “I would never vandalize anything, especially a garden!”
    “Then explain your footprints,” said Taylor, pointing at the ground.
    Everybody looked down at the grass they were standing on. It was dusted with a white powder. At first it was hard to notice that there was something on the grass, but after Taylor pointed downward, it became clear.
    Jessie looked at the trail of whitish powder. It started at the outside of Alex’s garden, went past Taylor’s garden, past Mr. Yee’s garden, and stopped at the end of Roger’s garden.
    And: there was one set of footprints in the powder. The footprints came from the direction of Lucasta’s empty garden and stopped about halfway to Mr. Yee’s garden. It was clear to Jessie that whoever had been walking there walked right into Mr. Yee’s garden.
    “I came here late last night,” said Taylor, “and sprinkled some bonemeal fertilizer across the grass. I wanted to see who was walking around here breaking Mr. Yee’s tomato towers.” She folded her arms across her chest. “And now I’ve caught the vandal. Those footprints match Alex Kirk’s shoes,” she said, pointing down to Alex’s feet.
    Everybody could see that the footprints leading up to where Alex was standing were the same as the footprints that walked down the row of gardens and turned into Mr. Yee’s plot.

    Taylor pointed to Alex’s hands. “He has a hammer in his hand, to smash tomato towers with.”
    “I don’t smash tomato towers!” Alex shouted. “I was coming to fix something.”
    Roger Walski rubbed his chin with a hand. He started to say something, then stopped.
    Henry spoke up loudly, so that Taylor and Alex would stop shouting. “Alex isn’t the vandal!” said Henry.
    Taylor stopped shouting at Alex and turned toward Henry. “What do you mean?” she asked.
    Henry looked at Roger. “Don’t you have something to tell us?” he asked.
    “What?” sputtered Roger. “Me?” He backed away another step. “No, I don’t have anything to say. Except … except that I don’t think Alex is a vandal.”
    “I’m not,” said Alex.
    “We think you do have something to tell us,” Jessie said, looking at Roger.
    “What?” asked Roger.
    “We know you’re trying to buy the land the community gardens are on,” said Jessie. “We think you want the town of Greenfield to build an exercise center on this land.”
    “What?” said Taylor. “Build a gym on the community garden land?”
    Mr. Yee came out of his garden and joined them. He was holding the big bluish-gray rabbit in his arms and feeding it leaves of lettuce.
    “That is why you want people to sign your petition,” said Mr. Yee, nodding his head. “You want to buy this land and then sell it to the town.”
    Alex spoke up. “That’s right,” he said. “Roger has been trying to buy this land from my father, but my father won’t sell.”
    “What’s wrong with a gym?” demanded Roger. “Exercise is good. Greenfield could use a nice new exercise center. And this land is so close to the center of town.”
    “But this land is our garden,” said Taylor. “It’s good, rich land, meant for growing food.”
    “That’s right,” said Alex.
    “Are you the vandal?” demanded Taylor. “Did you break Mr. Yee’s tomato posts? Did you run over everybody’s kale and lettuce plants?”
    Roger didn’t say anything.
    “You drive a three-wheel ATV,” said Henry. “And yesterday you had a tool kit with you, with a hammer and saw. You were going to use it to break down more trellises and towers.”
    Roger looked sad. He stared at the ground. “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “It was wrong to damage people’s gardens. But I really want