Why Roses Are Red

• Abhilash Sunny, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2014

My garden was a wonderful thing; a beauty to behold.
My garden had won many competitions, portraying a scenic landscape with plants that you’d have to go to other parts of the world to see. However, the most beautiful attraction was the roses. There was just something about the way they shone in the sunlight, a particular crisp, lustrous gleam, which captured and clung onto their viewer’s attention, whereas a standard white rose would look as dull as the colour white would show it; plain, mediocre and without any hint of eye-capturing colour. Anyone who tried to enter it at night would be viciously intercepted by our dog, an aggressive yet loyal German Shepherd named Bruce. Many of the people who tried to enter our garden, in the hopes of sabotaging our chance of winning the numerous garden competitions in our district, were shell-shocked by him because of his camouflaged fur, as dark as a raven’s wing. His fur allows him to camouflage perfectly, so when he pounces, it’s like he manifested out of thin air.

The town folk are kind, so it’s hard to keep a secret from them.

Yes, I have a secret, a secret that’s heart- warming, but at the same time could get me into a lot of trouble. You see, every Saturday night, while my parents are off to work, I cage Bruce to his funnel, and slant our garden fence ever-so-slightly open. So when the clock strikes 12, a group of kids would enter the garden. They would play in the trees, dance around on the grass and enjoy the savoury taste of our finest fruit, hand- picked by me, of course. Watching them smile, to be honest, brought tears to my eyes. However, all that changed in one, dreadful night. I followed my usual routine that night, hopefully expecting that the kids would arrive. However, to my surprise, only one child came out to meet me. He was an ivory-haired boy with brown eyes and blistered hands. I let him enter the garden, and waited by the fence in the hope that more would show up. However, I heard the clipping sound of scissors, out in the garden, and decided to see what the boy was doing. What awaited me filled me with rage and spite. There, in the rose orchard, was a boy with a hedge clipper, and my prized roses all around him.
Overcome with rage, I grabbed a shovel and charged at him. He saw me and, terrified, tried to make a run for it. However, as he turned, he slipped in the fresh dirt, and fell, before being impaled by my dad’s pickaxe. I stopped running, paralysed from shock. So as I watched the boy writhing, my face set in horror and my legs as solid as jelly, I vaguely noticed that my roses, once a peaceful sight that brought joy to many kinds of people, now dyed red from blood.