Garlic Cabbage

• Bailey Henry, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2015

I sit in Mum’s ever growing garden, waiting endlessly for something to happen.

Hi I’m Timothy, Wondering how I got here? Welllllllll it isn’t a very pleasant story.

It began at my Grandma Thud’s house. Usually she’s the one going ‘thud’ but this time it was me.
I had tripped over the garden hose that was winding through Grandma’s prized plants.


Grandma viewed her pots scattered on the verandah and said that I should have respect and treat her plants with care. She said that I had to grow my own plant and she would be around tomorrow to see that I had started.

With no experience, I rushed home panicking and found mum sitting in the living room. “What is it?” she asked as I tried to catch my breath. ‘How do you plant a flower Mum?” ‘There are seeds in the pantry, you can use those if you wish. “




I grabbed the first ones I saw and ran to our garden, dug a tiny hole and threw in the funny looking seeds into the soil. I watched and waited endlessly for something to happen,

It began to grow dark outside. I was hoping for a big plant to prove Grandma Thud wrong. (Sigh) With my head hanging low, I went inside for the night.






The next morning at 8:00am, I was waiting for the doorbell to ring, when in a blink of an eye, a weird plant popped up where I had planted the seeds, It smelled strongly of garlic but looked like a cabbage.

Just then the doorbell rang and Grandma Thud came into the backyard.
“Timothy where have you planted the seeds?” I proudly showed her the strange plant that had spouted in an instant.





She was astounded and said “Timothy, That’s a Garlic Cabbage? No one has seen a Garlic Cabbage in one hundred years.” Why don’t you enter it in this evening’s Farmer’s Food Festival?”

After saying goodbye to Grandma, I proudly walked back into the house. ‘Crash!’ the sound of smashing glass splits my ears. I rushed outside to view pot plants scattered all over the backyard with mother face down, a hose winding around her ankle.



It was in that instant that I found out two things;- where I got my clumsiness from and that my unique Garlic Cabbage had vanished from the garden…”Noooooo!”

After helping Mum up, panic was about to set in. What if I can’t find the Garlic Cabbage to enter it in the competition?

Rushing into the house, I saw that Mum had placed the Garlic Cabbage on the table. Looking at my watch, I grabbed the plant and jumped on my sister’s bike, (I didn’t have time to look for my bike.) and rode to the festival.


After entering my plant in the competition, I waited painstakingly for 30 minutes. The winner was finally announced,
“The winner of the rarest plant in history goes to - Timothy Thud!”
‘I won!” I screamed with joy.