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thought Henry.
    And then Henry noticed a small tool kit alongside the sleeping bag. When Roger saw Henry looking at the tool kit, he shoved it into the sleeping bag, also.
    Roger stood and stretched. Then he leaned down and cautiously opened the lumpy burlap bag. “Cucumbers!” he said in surprise. “The bag is full of cucumbers!” Roger removed a cucumber from the bag, inspected it, and bit into it. Everybody heard the loud, juicy crunch as he did so.
    “Good,” Roger declared, “but they wouldn’t win a blue ribbon.”
    Violet saw Lucasta’s rabbit sniff at the cucumber. The rabbit tried to jump out of Lucasta’s arms, but she held it close and didn’t allow it to escape.
    Rabbits must like cucumbers, thought Violet.
    Mr. Yee and Benny both took cucumbers out of the bag and bit into them.
    “This is good,” said Benny.
    “But not good enough for a blue ribbon,” said Roger.
    “How can you tell?” asked Jessie.
    Roger held out the half-eaten cucumber and pointed to its green skin. “The skin is too thick,” he said. “A thinner skin is better because it’s less bitter.”
    “That is correct,” said Mr. Yee as he finished eating his cucumber. “This is a good tasting cucumber, but not quite good enough for first prize in a contest.”
    “Well,” said Roger as he took several cucumbers out of the bag, “I’m going to take some of these home to eat. Everybody else is welcome to take some, too.”
    “Thank you,” said Jessie. “We’ll take some home to Mrs. McGregor.”
    “And I will take some, also,” said Mr. Yee as he reached into the bag.
    “What about you, Lucasta?” asked Roger. “Do you want the rest of these cucumbers for your rabbits?”
    Lucasta stroked her Rex rabbit and shook her head. “No,” she replied.
    Roger Walski looked surprised. “No?” he asked. “Why not?”
    “My rabbits are prize-winning rabbits,” said Lucasta. “They deserve only prize-winning vegetables. They need to eat the very best in order to have the shiniest fur and brightest eyes.”
    Mr. Yee nodded his head slowly. “That is why you raised beautiful vegetables in your garden but did not enter them in the fair—you fed them to your rabbits instead.”
    “My rabbits are going to win first prize again this year,” said Lucasta. “They win every year. That’s important.”
    Lucasta turned and hobbled away, heading toward the barn across the road.
    “I don’t understand why her leg seems to be hurting,” said Mr. Yee, looking puzzled. “Yesterday she had her cast off. Her leg should be healed by now.”
    Just then Henry remembered that he never got a chance to give Roger yesterday’s message from Alex Kirk.
    “Roger,” said Henry, “Alex asked me to give you a message. He said, ‘My father still says no.’”
    “Is that so?” said Roger with a scowl. He bent down and rummaged in his sleeping bag. Finally he pulled out the clipboard and pen and held them to his chest. “We’ll see about that,” he said.
    The children and Mr. Yee watched as Roger Walski walked away from them. They watched him walk up to Section B and talk to a gardener.

CHAPTER 7
Move the Gardens?
    After Roger departed, the children and Mr. Yee went to work.
    Now that Jessie and Violet had done all the thinning, Mr. Yee showed them how to use a hoe to kill weeds.
    “Oh,” said Jessie, “this is so much easier than being on the ground and weeding.”
    “Yes,” said Mr. Yee, “but don’t hoe for too long, or you will get blisters on your hands. Start out for fifteen minutes today, then you can switch to something else, like carrying water buckets.”
    “I like to carry water buckets,” said Benny, who was squatting down one row away. He was checking each strawberry plant to make certain it wasn’t too dry, and to see which berries were ripe for picking.
    As his sisters and brother helped Mr. Yee do the things that needed to be done in the garden, Henry started to repair the tomato stakes that the vandal had