The First Gardener by Denise Hildreth Jones

Eugenia . . . well, he mighta come close.
    Shoulda knowed she be showin’ up on the first day a school. She kinda hobbled down them stairs—been walkin’ like that since she got that new knee. Look to me like she mighta got some used parts.
    “Madeline Quinn London, how was my favorite grandchild’s first day of school?” The voice comin’ out a that red painted-up mouth ain’t sounded near as pleasant as any canary I done heard. But Maddie, she jump up and smile at her grandma like there ain’t no happier chil’ in this here world. Provin’ to me, kids’ll love ’bout near anything.
    “Gigi!” Maddie gone and wrapped her tiny arms ’round that cushy middle section a her grandma. ’Bout near melted into her. I thought for one second I might need to go in and snatch her out. “It was awesome!”
    Miz Eugenia raised her eyebrows and looked at me. I just nodded. Safest response I knowed. Learned that the hardest of ways.
    “Awesome, huh?” she said.
    “Yeah! Sit, Gigi. Sit.” Maddie plopped herself back down in the grass and patted the ground beside her like Gigi be a new puppy.
    I was wonderin’ if Miz Eugenia actually gon’ do what Maddie want her to ’cause that woman be pretty picky ’bout her fancy outfits. She looked at herself, and I knowed she be figurin’ if she could sit in that green grass and rise up just as yeller. But she done shocked me and plopped herself right down there next to Maddie Mae.
    Don’t know why I be so surprised, though. Miz Mackenzie bein’ Miz Eugenia’s only chil’ and all, and she and the gov’nor havin’ trouble makin’ ’nother baby—all that make Eugenia plumb near crazy over Maddie Mae. ’Bout took all I had, but I grabbed hold a her hand and helped her down. Her hand felt smooth as silk ’gainst my ol’ ruts.
    Li’l one never knowed that sittin’ in the grass probably be one a the sweetest things her Gigi ever done for her. ’Cause she went right back to jabberin’ and carryin’ on.
    “There’s going to be a school play this year and a field trip and I can take my lunch to school if I want, but I don’t know why I’d want to do that because they have tables and tables of food and you can just pick whatever you want. It’s kind of like Sunday dinner at your house, Gigi.”
    If anyone else in the entire city a Nashville gone and compared Eugenia Quinn’s Sunday eatin’s to a school lunch, they be tarred and feathered and it’d be ’nounced in her church bulletin. But when Maddie say it, Miz Eugenia take it for the sheer compliment it be.
    “Well, baby girl, sounds like you are going to have the best year ever. Now take that grass out of your mouth. You look like a boy.”
    Maddie Mae pressed her lips together as if she be thinkin’. Eugenia eyed her. Li’l one just as stubborn. But she finally spit it out. The neighbor boy done saved us from any showdown. “Maddie!” he screamed.
    Her legs automatically pushed her up off the ground. “Oliver! I went to school!”
    “I know, silly. I saw ya there.”
    I studied that boy’s wild curls. If he and Maddie grow up and get married, I sure hope she make that baby brush his hair.
    “Wanna hear my campfire song?”
    Chil’ ain’t never been without a campfire song.
    “Sing it! Sing it!” Maddie squealed.
    And off he went. All that chil’ need is an audience, and Maddie always give him one. His campfire songs, he just make ’em up right there on the spot. Chil’ got more ’magination than most people out there in Hollywood. Somebody needs to find this chil’ and make him famous.
     
“I was sitting on a log eating hair,
And then my grandpa came with a chair.
He chewed that up and hit me,
Then he went to see a movie.
It was Shrek T-h-r-e-e .
Then he went to Subway
And bought a pack of Lay’s.
He chewed that up and hit me,
Then he went to see a mo—”
    Miz Eugenia cut him smack-dab off. “Seriously, darling, does your grandpa have to hit you in your new song?”
    “It’s just