The Garden Thief by Gertrude Chandler Warner Read Free Book Online Page A

this land! I thought if gardeners left, Mr. Kirk would sell it to me.”
    “It doesn’t matter how much you want this land” said Taylor, “it’s very wrong to do what you did.”
    Roger looked ashamed. “I shouldn’t have done it,” he admitted. “I won’t do it again.”
    “I think you should help the people whose gardens you vandalized,” said Violet softly.
    Roger looked at Violet. He sighed. “You’re right,” he said. “I have to apologize to each person I hurt. And I have to fix what I broke.”
    Roger turned to Mr. Yee. “Albert, I’m sorry I broke your tomato stakes. I’ll put in new ones for you tomorrow.”
    Mr. Yee scowled. “That was very wrong of you, Roger. But I don’t need your help because Henry has already fixed the tomato stakes.” Mr. Yee stroked the rabbit and fed it more lettuce. “You go help the other people, Roger.”
    “And you owe everybody for all the vegetables you stole,” said Taylor.
    “But I didn’t steal any vegetables!” shouted Roger. “I’m not a thief!”
    Taylor looked at Roger. “Then Alex must be the thief,” she said.
    But when everybody turned to look at Alex, he was no longer there.

CHAPTER 9
Thinking It Through
    The footprints in the lime showed that Alex had walked away, back toward the Kirk farm.
    “Hmmpph,” said Taylor. “I’m going back to my garden, but I’ll talk to Mr. Kirk later. Alex can’t be allowed to steal our vegetables.”
    “I have to apologize to a lot of people,” said Roger. “I’ll get started.”
    The children and Mr. Yee watched Taylor unlock her garden gate, go into her garden, and lock the gate behind herself. Then they watched Roger walk to the far end of the community gardens, where he began to talk to a gardener.
    Mr. Yee still held the big American blue rabbit.
    “Is that your rabbit now?” Benny asked. He liked the way the rabbit’s ears moved back and forth and how its nose twitched.
    “No, Benny,” said Mr. Yee. “It is probably Lucasta’s rabbit. And I don’t like rabbits.” He fed the rabbit another lettuce leaf as he said this.
    Henry and Jessie and Violet all smiled at one another.
    “Come,” said Mr. Yee. “We’ll go to work.”
    Once they were inside the garden, Benny went straight to the strawberries and Henry went to the peas and beans.
    Jessie and Violet went to the lettuce and carrots. Mr. Yee followed them.
    “Oh, no!” cried Violet when they reached the rows of carrots. She pointed to the ground. “The garden thief has been here. He stole all the carrots!”
    “What?!” shouted Mr. Yee. “My carrots! I always win a blue ribbon for my carrots!” He was very upset.
    Jessie looked around. “Not all the carrots were stolen, Mr. Yee,” she said. “Only some.”
    Mr. Yee and Violet looked where Jessie was pointing, and they saw that one long row of carrots had been stolen. But another long row was still growing, the feathery tops standing straight up.
    “Ooohhh,” said Violet. “The row of purple carrots is still here. So you can still win prizes for your purple carrots, Mr. Yee.”
    Mr. Yee handed the rabbit to Jessie. He stooped down and pulled out a carrot. It was long and straight, with a feathery green top.
    Violet could smell the carrot the minute Mr. Yee pulled it out of the ground. “That smells so good,” she said.
    Mr. Yee snapped the carrot in half. Then he fed part of the carrot to the rabbit that Jessie was holding.
    “We must find out who is stealing our vegetables,” he told the girls. “It is a terrible thing to walk into your garden and find your vegetables missing. I think—” Mr. Yee stopped talking in the middle of his sentence. He pointed.
    Jessie and Violet looked to where he was pointing. There, at the far end of the row that once held orange carrots, was a burlap bag. A lumpy burlap bag.
    Without speaking, Mr. Yee and Jessie and Violet all walked toward the bag. Mr. Yee took the rabbit from Jessie and held it close. “You look,” he told