Part 2: He learns about his world
By Andy Valencia
Tom woke on the second day and got busy fortifying his position. He looked at how much energy and materials remained, and decided to push his shoot up just a bit more, and then thicken the stalk to make it stronger. If it snapped off, he didn’t have enough energy left over to send a new one up!
He hoped the bouncy thing would happen again, as some extra dirt had settled on his roots last time, but it didn’t. Still, with his longer stalk he was actually getting enough sunlight to do some real good. Tomorrow he’d grow his leaves a bit.
Having done all he could for survival, he took time to study his new world in more detail.
Way down below him, he could see a whole bunch of his kind of weed dotted on the ground. He called out “hellooooo” down to them, and all the youngest ones called back “hello!” But they didn’t know enough to say anything else. However, there was a large weed down there who answered “greetings” in a deep (for a weed) voice. His name was Samsamrotatidion, and he didn’t have a short version of his name. He was stuffy that way, but Tom didn’t mind because Samsamrotatidion had a wealth of information.
Tom was riding on a “car,” nestled in the rear of it in a part known as a “bumper.” In all Samsamrotatidion’s immense memory, this had never happened before. Tom’s situation was unique! Just for a moment, Tom felt a little arrogant and important, but then he looked at Samsamrotatidion’s tremendous size – at least three inches across! – and his own tenuous grip on a bumper. And he went back to being his humble self.
They spent the day chatting back and forth. From Tom’s higher vantage point, he could see much further than any of the weeds on the ground. He described one big box, and a weed that had once taken a ride on a shoe said it was a “house.” A different box was over the other way, and a weed which had once ridden on a tractor said it was a “barn.” They wanted to know what he’d seen when the car had been moving, but he admitted that he’d been too small and weak to gather any impression. He promised to do better next time.
There was one weed who was brown and still. She had “gone to seed,” using all her energy to build a big bulb full of seeds. As this happened, she talked less and less, and all her green just faded away. Finally, she fell silent. The next day the pod split open, and silky little wisps of seed floated away as everybody watched in respectful silence.
As the day faded away again, Samsamrotatidion mentioned another danger. Tom’s car rolled around on those rubber circles he’d so briefly seen, and being pressed down by them was just dreadful. Many was the weed mortally stricken by that terrible pressing weight! Samsamrotatidion asked if there was anything Tom could do about this? Tom promised to help if ever he could figure out how.
Tom was almost asleep as evening arrived, wondering if he could possibly send out seeds without losing his life’s energy. But then the people came out to the car, putting all manner of boxes and bags into it. It was completely dark by the time they finished, and Tom finally fell asleep, wondering what sort of adventure he’d have next.
