Matilda Gets Tangled up in a Garden
A Happy Flash Fiction
Matilda is driving along in her gentleman friend's refurbished 1951 Studebaker feeling like a terrible person. “How could I do that? I’m horrid, I am, and in front of you,” she says. She searches for the play button on the freestanding radio/cd player which was installed, along with other modern perks, in the antique car — just to suit her fancy.
“Bopeep, no puppy should hear such words. I’m not angry with you.”
Her chin resting on fluffy white paws, Bopeep looks up, eyes wide, “woof woof.”
“Let’s listen to The Melismatics. What are we going to do about your gas? Oh, my.” Matilda listens to the song and thinks about ways to help her new rescue puppy. A relaxing life at her home will be a good start, but the gas is so strong — will it explode the house?
She speeds past a pickup truck that’s straddling two lanes. The dainty little puppy blows one off and Matilda lowers the rear window with a chuckle, hoping the bad trucker guy will get a wake-up whiff. Of course, she immediately feels guilty for her bad thoughts. “What’s gotten into me,” she thinks.
Remembering that her sister Hazel has a herbalist veterinarian friend visiting, she decides to drop by and get his advice for poor little Bopeep. Noticing Bo is sleeping, she smiles as she enjoys the native wildflowers. From a profusion of oranges and purples, white queen anne’s lace sweeps down to the edge of the road like the long train of a wedding dress. Blue chicory speckles above dandelion blooms, some in their proud seed poufs and others holding tight to their deep butter-yellow blooms. I must make dandelion wine this year.
Matilda arrives at the back entrance to her sister's cottage nestled on the edge of town. Matilda shakes her head as she scopes the piles of assorted junk stacked about. How can she ruin this lovely spot with all this trash? “Well, no doubt, Bo, she’ll have a reason for each bit of junk. Something to make one of those strange art sculptures she loves.”
“There there little one. Let’s get you out,” she says while taking Bo from her travel cage.
“Let me put this leash on you.”
“Oh, no!”
Bopeep slips away, darting behind a pile of old metal and wooden crates. Matilda dashes after her getting on her hands and knees to reach behind the junk pile, “Drats, Hazel, you and your trash!”
Bopeep, having been used to punishment, takes off deeper into the pile in the direction of the garden. Matilda crawls after her as fast as she can. In her state of concern for the poor little puppy, she doesn’t notice how scratched she’s getting.
Running from the junk, Bo slips under blackberry bramble and gooseberry bushes. Matilda reaches the edge of the garden and stands up. She talks softly to the rescue puppy.
“It’s okay, little one.”
Just then she catches her foot on a downed piece of garden fencing and lands flat on her back in the prickly blackberry bramble. Bum sore from the fall, she rests where she fell. She’s scratched and tattered but laughing at herself for the silliness of getting on her hands and knees to chase a puppy.
Tilting her head to one side and then the other, Bo looks at Matilda. Bo runs to her, climbing through the bush and walking up Matilda’s legs to her shoulders. She licks, like happy puppies do.
“You’ve rescued me, Bopeep!”
Katie Michaelson tends plants and people from her 120-year-old home and small garden. She sees strength in the injured spirit and finds significance in the insignificant.