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The vibrant pink-fuchsia-purple flowers, still planted in the two twin plastic containers they came from the gardening section of the Housing Depot with, already blooming with springtime, land hard against the wood of the stump as Craig puts them down.
“Woah,” says JP with genuine awe. He has a certified black thumb, an official flower serial killer, and all the plants in his yard are long dead thanks to him. It’s been a while since he’s seen potted anything. “Where’d you get those?”
“The store.” Craig sticks out an arm and stretches. “Bought them with my own money, since my mom wouldn’t pay for them,” he adds inconspicuously.
“Where are you gonna plant them?” Kelsey asks (sans Mortimer, because he was scared off into a tree when Craig dropped the containers, and still hasn't returned). “They’d look really good here.” She points with her PVC sword at a spot besides the tree. “Or here.” She points again at the brook besides the running creek. “Or here.” She stomps this time, implying that the ground underneath her was good enough.
“I’m not gonna plant them.” It is a statement of fact, so obviously obvious that Craig doesn’t know why they need explanation. “Jason’s gonna plant them.”
“Why are you making him plant them? He had no eye for exterior design. Unlike me, who thinks it will go well...” She points again with her sword, this time at a patch of dirt in front of them. “Right there.”
JP falls flat-backed to the ground, face turned up and thinking hard. “What about in the tree? So when we look at the sky we can see them.”
“You’re the only one here that's looking up there,” says Kelsey. "And Mortimer, I guess, but he'd be looking down."
“Well, we’re always hanging out in the stump, so why not there?”
“Do you want the poor things to die of… no sunlight? What would you call that,” Kelsey whispers to herself.
“Solasphyxiation.”
“I don’t think that’s a real word.”
“Does it need to be?”
“Guys,” Craig interrupts them. “I’m giving them to Jason. We’re not planting them. If I had to guess, he’ll probably plant them in his backyard, so…”
A moment of silence, processing, confusion, then screaming was shared between Kelsey and JP.
““YOU’RE GIVING THEM TO JASON?!?””
“The bossy boy scout that wouldn’t give us information yesterday? You had to ninja-kid-sneak into his yard!”
”The one that wanted to re-break my leg to reset the bone? That’s not how bones work!”
“The evil slave to the sash, bionic mouth and metallic fangs that tear through the will of man and woman?”
”The guy who threw my limited edition Captain Koala cereal into the creek because he said it would give me cavities?”
“The boy that is vengeful of all things fun, who tortures every child that steps foot on these soils?”
”The kid that you don’t even play with?”
“The scourge upon the creek that nobody likes?”
”And even fewer people would GIVE FLOWERS TO!?”
“Yep,” Craig states. “That’s him.”
““WHY!?””
“I messed up his flowers yesterday." He turns back to look at the new flowers, a glint in his eyes. "It’s the right thing to do.”
“Since when have YOU had a strong moral compass? That’s MY thing.”
“Why flowers? Can’t you just give him the money to buy his own?”
“I have a moral compass, Kelsey, and I saw them when I went to the store with my mom, JP, and I thought he would need them. I’m saving the day here! He’s going to be grounded until next summer if he doesn’t replace those flowers that I crushed!“ He climbs onto the stump, nudging the pots out of the way with one sock-like sneaker. “I will redeem my mistakes! I am the hero of this episode! It is my DUTY-“ he stamps his foot for emphasis “-to provide justice for those I have wronged! Yes! No need to thank me!”
They do not thank him. He is met with silence. There is still disbelief and confusion on his audience’s faces, even after his incredible and sufficiently explanatory speech.
No, scratch the silence part. There is a faint but sharp noise from somewhere far off, that was approaching and increasing frequency.
“THAT’S HIM!” He jumps up, legs levitating in air for a split second, before crashing onto the ground with a thomp. He turns and heaves the potted rhododendrons up, one in each arm, and runs off faster than his friends can tell him to stop.
“Alright, I get it!” says the girl that was currently being harassed by the Junior Forest Scout trio we all know and (according to Kelsey and JP) dislike.
What they were arguing about is unimportant, but it has something to do with running. For some reason, that really gets on the group leader’s nerves. When people are running everywhere. Ugh. Absolutely terrible. Nobody knows why he hates it so bad, and they don’t try and find out. Jason is always getting mad at people breaking rules they don’t know or care about, long after anyone else would stop trying. Even his co-scouts don’t mind as much as him, but he’s a good leader, and they are good followers. As I’m telling you this, Jason is still lecturing that poor girl, and Tony and Boris are standing behind him, as menacing as elementary schoolers can be. Let’s just skip to the good part.
“Blahblahblahblahblah, and you—“
“JASON!”
The sonic boom Craig makes when he runs up to the trio (and the girl, but she sees her chance to escape, and takes off in her own sprint) shakes the forest.
“Hello, Craig,” Jason greets him, with the usual amount of disdain he always has towards peers his own age. “I think you just broke the speed limit. Again.”
“What? No I didn’t!”
“Yes, you did!”
“No, I didn’t!”
“Yes, you did!”
“No I— Okay, whatever, Jason.” He huffs. “Anyway, here. These are yours.” He drops the pots on the floor. The one on the left tips over and spills some dirt onto the ground.
“Agh! Nonononono,” he stammers, putting it up again and shoveling some of the dirt back into it. After the disaster is solved, he says “Okay, all better.”
Jason (and Tony, and Boris) stand there, staring.
“They’re for you,” Craig states.
“…What,” Jason says, voice flatter than Handlebarb’s tire when she ran over a nail.
“They’re rhodedo… rhedeno… rhedo… your flowers. Whatever they’re called.”
“…My flowers?” he stresses, then looks at his fellow Forest Scouts.
They also have absolutely no idea what to make of this.
“Yeah,” Craig continues, “The ones in your yard. You know. The ones I crushed yesterday. Sorry about that. Again.”
“…Why did you get me flowers?”
“Because I killed your flowers, Jason, obviously,” he says, in unintentional iambic pentameter. “Do I really need to explain why?”
Apparently yes, because the trio is still standing there in contemplative silence. Tony is glaring at Craig because he has the audacity to interrupt their lecturing, Boris is looking at Jason still wondering what’s going on, and Jason is staring at… his flowers.
Given to him.
By Craig.
His enemy. Frienemy. Rival. Acquaintance. Possible future friend.
Or something completely different that he is trying to figure out the specifics of.
Craig clears his throat. “So do you not want them? ‘Cause I have the recei—”
“NO NO NO, I NEED THEM.” Jason puts his hands out, waving, stammering. Then he catches himself. Much calmer, and more sure (and full) of himself, he says “My parents haven’t noticed the wreckage you caused yet. I shut the curtains in the living room so they haven’t seen the backyard.” He walks up to one of the pots and tries to pick it up. “I’ll just take these back home—“
Due to his limited upper body strength (he’s always been more of an intellectual, and hiking builds muscles in legs only), the pot easily slips out of his grip. Now there are two extra piles of dirt on the ground.
“…BORIS!" Jason barks. “Help me carry these to my house. It’s about time we get our gardening badge, anyway.”
“Actually, the gardening merit badge requires planting—“
“Shove it, Tony! And, uh,” he turns back around, and nods. “Craig. Thank you.”
He beams an assured smile. “You’re welco—“
““CRAIG!””
Oh, right, Kelsey and JP still exist. They have been trailing behind Craig and his supersonic speed this entire time, and have just now caught up to him.
“Jeez- dude-” JP says, wheezing on the ground. “How- do you- run that fast-?“
“It’s okay, guys,” Craig tells them. “I’m done here.”
“I’m not,” says Kelsey on her knees, propping herself up with her sword. “I have been defeated by my mortal enemy…” She takes her free hand, forms a fist, and shakes it at the sky. “THE CHARLIE HORSE!”
“Well,” Jason says, “We are done here, too.” He turns and waves for his troop to follow.
“Bye! Seeya Jason!” Craig waves, excited as ever.
Jason turns his head around, and gives him back a shy wave goodbye.
When Kelsey recovers after a full minute (and a half), she says “The next time you do something like that, consult us first.”
“Do something like what?” Craig asks.
“Oh, you know, just getting our arch-nemesis flowers."
“I didn’t need to consult you. It was the right thing to do. And we aren’t arch-nemesises anymore. We’re…” He purses his lips, thinking over what exactly they are now.
An ex-enemy. Friendly rival. Acquaintance. Possible future close friend.
Or something else that he will figure out after he reaches that 'close friend' status.
“He seemed pretty mad at you,” says JP. “Are you sure you aren’t arch-nemesises?”
“Yeah, that was weird,” Craig admits. “He should have liked them. Who doesn’t like flowers?”
Kelsey gives him a strange look. “You do understand why people get each other flowers, right?”
“Yes. To make up for crushing their other flowers.”
“…No, that’s not why people do that.”
“They were pretty flowers,” JP says. “Wish we could have kept ‘em”
“Exactly.” Craig throws his hands in the air. “Why didn’t he like them? They were perfect!”
“Why do you want him to like them so bad? I thought you were just ‘paying your dues’, or whatever.”
“Yeah, Craig, you didn’t need to—“
He interrupts JP with “I am in control of my own actions. I’m an independant man. I don’t owe anyone an explanation!”
“Are you gonna go on another speech again?” Kelsey asks, rhetorically.
Unlucky for her, Craig doesn’t know the meaning of that word. “Yes! I am self-independant! And self reliant! And an enigma! And… all that other stuff."
Lucky for her, the speech is short lived. He completes it with "I am a mystery to the masses.”
“I thought that was me.”
“...You too, JP.”
“How come I don’t get to be a mystery?”
“We can all be mysteries!”
“Do we get those hats and magnifying glasses?”
“That’s not a mystery, JP, that’s a detective. They solve the mysteries.”
“So they're basically the same thing, Craig.”
"Not really..."
"How do you know?"
"Wait, I read this book about a detective once! There was this one kid, and he was murdered. I didn't I finished it, though, so I don't know who did it."
"What's it called?"
"I don't remember. Maybe I can find it if we go to the library."
"Yeah!"
"Let's check it out! Haha, literally!"
"Wait, I need to pick up Mortimer first."
"Okay, then we can go!"
"Totally!"
The children of the Stump have finished their discussion on the matter of Jason, Craig, and flowers, and while they may return to it eventually, they have a new objective to complete today.
The same cannot be said for the Forest Scouts.
“Why did he get you flowers?”
“Did you not hear what he said? Of course you didn’t, you never listen to people.”
“…Why did Craig get Jason flowers?”
“Yeah, what Boris said. Come on, don’t you hate him?
“I don’t… I don’t know anymore! But I don’t want to get in trouble with my dad, so I’m taking them.”
“Doesn’t Jason think it’s weird that—“
“Stop talking about it.”
“My dad got my mom flowers for their anniver—“
“Stop! Stop! TWOOT TWOOT TWOOT TWOOOOOOOT!!!”
“That’s his whistle,” Craig states.
“Yeah, we know.”
“Who else owns a whistle here?”
“Nobody. I’m just…" He shrugs, also unsure of why he spoke. "Pointing it out.”
“Always on your mind, isn’t he?”
“I wonder why.”
“Did you guys say something?”
““Nope, nothing!””