“Horribly
now, warm fearless pigs
(5,7,5,3,7),”
whispered the lovely red rose as the first
few drops of rain fell. “You can complain
because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice
because thorns have roses.” Rankled,
the garden flowers rustled. “Will
someone please clip her head off already?”
sputtered the Coastal Sand Verbena, a proud
cluster of yellow flowers from the Four-O’clock
Family, sadly confined to a low growing
vine. “My, aren’t we snippy
today,” the tall Parry’s Agaves
bristled, the yellow land bound sea anemone
of the Lily Family. “You know it’s
bad luck to say that word, even in fun,”
the Verbena verbalized. “Snippy, snip,”
the Agave aghasted. “Hew, hack, slash,
cleave? You said ‘clip’ yourself.”
A flower commit suicide? What an impractical
idea! “Clip yourself!” the Ox-eyed
Daisies perked up. “Leave the lone
rose alone. She’s as doomed for the
knife as are we all, we in the Aster Family.”
The Black-eyed Susan couldn’t keep
quiet. “Don’t flatter yourself,
children. A whole handful of daisies tain’t
worth one single rose.
You don’t see folks doing ‘love
me, love me not’ with a rose, do you?”
The daisies stared blankly like two sumptuous
fried eggs. “If you want to say it
with flowers, a single rose says ‘I’m
cheap!’” testily
interrupted the gruff Purple Candle of the
Cactus Family, a low-growing, rock-loving,
glad-to-be-blooming, sure-hates-the-rain
smug
prickly pear.
“Be grateful for the roses,”
rhapsodized
the Sunflower, peering down illogically
away from the sun. “Without their
beauty, we might all lose our heads.”
The tallest member of the Astor Family had
only one lament. “The birds eat my
face,” she sighed. The bluebird chirped
back, “You’re tasty. I cannot
deny
it. Garden flowers are well bred.”
Another, a delicate azure flower, boasted,
“I am of Kingdom Plantae of
Division Magnoliophyta of Class Magnoliopsida
of Subclass Magnoliidae of Order
Magnoliales of Family Magnoliaceae
of Genus Magnolia of Species Magnolia
Grandiflora, but you can call me Maggie.”
The bluebird retorted, “I’d
call you lunch, if your face were half as
delicious as hers.”
“I sip my lunch,” the hummingbird
hummed. “Flowers are both nutritious
and delicious, face-to-face.” The
strong Indian-Hemp trembled her small cream-colored
flowers, “Parasites, all of them!”
she groused skeptically,
proud sponsor of the Dogbane Family. Making
a late entrance, the Spelling Bee, the main
character,
buzzed in, “You think we’re
maltreating
you? This is a symbiotic relationship. Think
of it objectively.”
“She lies!” spat the orange-yellow,
spotted with reddish brown, flowering Jewel-Weed
of the Touch-Me-Not Family. “Bumble
bees are untoward
pollen thieves!” “What you construe
as unsuitable,”
the Bee bandied, “is, in fact, nature’s
calling, the birds and the bees, don’t
you know?”
The Spelling Bee resented being (11)
not a debate yet requires two speakers
+ rote with a keyboard by a Dogbane.
She had her fill of cultivated flowers and
needed to fly on the wild side. “Such
a verbal assault
has no merit,”
the Bee buzzed, flitting past the dandelion
heads on the edge of the lawn beyond the
garden fence. The weeds were silent, but
(5)
the deciduous shrub, having small
purplish flowers, pink fruit,
and scarlet arillate seeds sprouted,
“What the Dogbane spoke was thinkable.
You, stay away from my face.” “And
your name is?” the Bee bumbled, thinking
first of elm and then mackerel. “I
have oodles
of flowers who’d gladly have me rub
my feet on their face.”
The Spelling Bee escaped
through the acre
of wood and came to a pond where the rays
of sunlight, reflecting off the water, were
splendorous.
“Why not just say splendid? Why be
a word snob?” sniffed the lily pad
flower tactlessly.
“I’m the muse of orthography
on this earth,”
the Bee burbled. “Why say whichever
when you can say whichsoever.”
“I see,” flustered the flower,
seeing nothing at all. “All I hear
is how how is (11)
top highland, an adjective
mishmash to me.” “Toy, house,
and topsoil,
yes, to here pears,” the Bee homophoned
facetiously.
One algae perked up, “You expect me
to see what you say?” “No,”
she replied. “I expect you to remember
you are an alga
of one.”
Flying diagonally
across the pond, the Spelling Bee found
no appreciation forthcoming
from the lake flowers in regards to her
wordly witticisms. “Maybe you try
too hard,” cooed the wild yellow forsythia.
“Only prissy garden plants have the
need to flaunt big scientific words.”
“I can’t agree,” the Bee
blurted. “I need to quash
this fallacy.”
“Not with words like that you won’t,”
the shrubby
plant shrugged. “No one out here needs
a bee in their bonnet.” Insulted,
the Bee hatched a plan
to educate the backwater
flora.
“If I say (11)
two A’s + two short brassieres
+ one ungentleman, is my meaning
confused? Or is it the magic I need?”
Secretly, she longed for her honeycombed
home sweet home.
“If I had a mouth, I’d eat
a (11)
nautical, ice cream in root beer
+ short meditative + a grave verb,”
the Crimson Mallow announced. The Spelling
Bee couldn’t believe her ears, mostly
because she didn’t believe she had
ears. “Cannibal,” the (5)
Georgia vine with
large leaves and sweet-smelling blooms
muttered as she quietly strangled a tree.
“Can plants be vegetarians?”
the Bee baffled, alighting on a crimson
petal
to do her duty.
“My, the undergrowth
alone is worth the sightseeing.”
“Don’t you dare wipe your feet
on my face,” the Crimson Mallow mouthed
off. “I abhor
such behavior. Land on a thorn
instead.” “Don’t lay an
egg,”
the Bee blasted. “The birds and the
bees are your friends.”
“The birds and the bees and the
butterflies,” boasted the Stained
Glass Monarch, a (8)
half of a meat
+ half of a marriage + night flyer
of insectdom. “I thought you were
strictly into dairy products,” the
Spelling Bee sassed. “Ah,
a myth
often told
in the East,”
mugged the Monarch, always happy to be
irking and
bamboozling a bee. “Oh,
go choke on genetically-modified maize plant
pollen,” the she-bee swore madly.
“Ms. Bumble, you be
catchin’ no flies with that vinegar,”
and the butter flied to
search for better company.
The yellow and red tulips, together, they
tooted, “We do
it with bulbs, no need to wipe your feet
in our faces, thank you!” She couldn’t
resist, “No anthers from me today.”
The wildflowers crowded and intruded in
on her sojourn.
“No questions, no anthers? How dare
you toss a (11)
half of arithmetic
+ half of génie’s crib + half
of formal + half of gemstone + what’s
missing in SE---IC at us.”
The Spelling Bee circled the myrtle,
contemplating whether to worry.
The head bellflower
said, “We teach our saplings to wipe
their feet before they enter their home.
It’s a refined (11)
half of female
horse + middle 3 of inky mollusk + half
of remedy + half of what all ye faithful
do + half of common genus Mentha
of flora etiquette. Do you dare to defy
it?” “Not when you put it like
that,” the Bee buttered. “But
it’s nature’s threesome. You,
me, and another.”
The wildflowers rustled and bustled and
jostled, not bad for flighty flora without
feet. (11)
“Caesar reversed
+ mortar sans Greek aisle + middle 3 of
reek + middle 2 of 2 play your
chatter,” peeped a violet and cyan
petunia. “The size
of your lie is the sum
of all fears.” From another story
altogether, “Affleck affects ruin
on film,” said the eel
to the rooster
driving the taxi.
“Stop that this instant,” the
Spelling Bee bemoaned. “We could have
used those words if you gave us half a chance.
The flower as yellow as a taxi and
the flower as red as a rooster and
the flower trimmed in gray like an eel...”
“Oh, give it a rest,” bloomed
the proud yellow stamen, “but you
can walk on my face anytime.”
“I cannot think of anything eerier,”
shivered the asexual Quackgrass, “then
to allow insects to crawl on my face if
I had the face to face them.” (11)
“No vampire
in battle + golf goal + me or myself + sew
+ the fourth of 26 + the third of yesterday
are useless in this arena,”
the Spelling Bee sputtered. “Who needs
pollen when you have bulblets to drop?”
fawned the fuchsia
bearded iris. “Hold your horses,”
the Bee bungled. “I thought you had
a stamen? What about last night?”
“I possess both male and female sex
organs,” asserted the asexual Monocot.
“Just behind my beard you will see
my male stamen and directly above is the
sticky lip of my female style crest.”
The lilies all gagged.
“By
running stolons, we round the homestretch,”
strawpolled the wild strawberry plants.
“I do budding plantlets,” the
Mexican Hat plant danced. “I do corms,”
the gladiolus gossiped. “Our interests
do not overlap,”
they concluded. “We are the model
of self-sufficiency.” In (11)
wise jester jeers,
the Spelling Bee had thought she was the
star
of this show, but by each plant’s
(11)
half of apprehension
+ berry vault + Connery or Penn,
asexuality had become all the rage outside
of the garden. “But I still need your
sticky feet,” a red bloom raised a
cry. “A rose among wildflowers?”
the Bee bubbled. “Milady, your carriage
awaits.”
“You may wipe your feet on my face,
but don’t sneeze into it.”
The rose bloomed open wide. “That
was perfect,” she sighed. The wildflowers
gasped, uttering something sounding
like (11)
“silver wets.”
The Spelling Bee besotted, “Icy
own lee won!” And with a quick snip
of shiny shears, the rose vanished. “Do
I need twelve or a dozen?” a voice
was heard to say as the figure went on
his own merry way. “That was weird,”
said one flower. “Truly,”
said a second. “Wholly uncalled
for,” said a third. The Spelling
Bee buzzed to a height where all could
hear her. “It’s too late for
that gag,” the flora agreed. “You
had your chance with ‘bamboozling’
and you flubbed it.” “That
I’ll grant,” she admitted,
“but aren’t you a tad curious
who did this dastardly deed and why?”
