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of—”
    “WORMS.” Ro continued tugging. “Come see, Jackson.”
    “He found a worm farm.” Gaby sighed.
    “Oh, those are great.” The man's eater-brows wagged happily. “I have a little one.”
    “Are you a worm judge?”
    “Roses,” said the man.
    “Well, anyway,
please
tell my brother an important fact: Worms are NOT pets.”
    Ro beamed. “My worm will have
hundreds
of friends,” he said.
    “Indeed,” said the man, looking confused.
    He waved the yellow rose at me, scattering drops. “May I take this, young man?”
    Gaby perked up. “What for?”
    “I want to identify it.”
    “We'll sell it to you,” said Gaby.
    “Shhh.” I poked her, then turned back to the man. “I guess you can take it. But why?”
    The man's brows wagged again. “I can't make any promises,” he murmured, “but this rose may be rare. Very rare.” He wiped one of Mama's wet business cards on his shirt and tucked it into his pocket. “I'll call when I find out.”
    “Jackson,” Gaby wailed as the man strode down the aisle. “You let him
steal
your mama's flower. Five bucks down the drain. Maybe ten. I bet we
never
see that man again.”

    Mama said pretty much the same thing when I told her the whole story. “We'll probably never hear from that man,” she said as we headed home in the zuke mobile. “What could he possibly discover?”
    “Nothing fancy-pants about that rose,”Mr. K. barked. “Good, hardy stock. My grandmother brought the cutting from Texas. In a potato!”
    “I mentioned that to the judge,” I said.
    Mama hummed as she drove. Lots of folks had stopped by and picked up her (wet) business cards. Ro hummed to his worm, now tucked in a non-stinky farm with some wiggly friends. The small contraption was a present from Mr. K. “You can start your own business,” he had told the little boy. “I'll buy your worms for my plot.”
    Business? Gaby IMMEDIATELY got involved. Miss CEO announced she would help feed the worms for a cut of the profits.
    I hoped to be humming soon. The haunted plant preyed on my mind. I had promised to take it back to the graveyard after the show. I couldn't rest till then.
    No bees, no broken bones, no poison ivy. No trouble.
Those words sang in my head all the way home. All the way to where that rose twig waited for me.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

    At six o'clock, that twig was still waiting.
    The zuke mobile had made a looonnng stop at the Space Shuttle Grill. Mama wanted to treat everyone to ice cream for helping with her booth.
    The Space Shuttle is my favorite eat-out place in the city. The ice cream is served in flying saucers. It's where Reuben and I had come up with the brilliant idea to create Captain Nemo.
    But right then, my man and I had places to go. Namely a graveyard.
    Of course, Gaby decided to chew each mouthful twenty-nine times. So did Ro.
    “You don't
chew
ice cream,” I said.
    “Chewing well is good for your digestion,” she replied, all prissy.
    “Enjoy the quiet,” Juana advised me, scraping her bowl. “Chewing keeps 'em busy.”
    I tried to hurry things along. “Look, Mama!” I flung my arm toward the window. “The sun's going down.”
    “The sun goes down every day,” Mama grumbled, mopping a soda spill. “See, you knocked my cup again. What's got you so jittery now? Another bee?”
    “It's getting
dark.”
    Reuben shot me a worried look. My man and I were sharing the same thought, for sure. It was bad enough to haul a ghost plant to a graveyard. We didn't want to do it at night.
    “Oh, Jackson,” Mama sighed. “Can't the planting wait till tomorrow?”
    “NO,” Reuben and I both shouted.
    “Your mama's tired, boy,” Mr. K. barked. “Of course the planting can wait.”
    Luckily, Mr. K. seemed fixed more on post-poningthe planting than on what was being planted. We had to get that cutting to the graveyard
fast.
Haunted twig? Rose ghost? He'd never believe us.
    “Mama, you
promised,”
I pleaded.
    And I had promised the twig. If I broke that