Sasha’s Little Seed

In early spring, Mom opened her hand in front of Sasha. In the middle of her palm sat a seed. A tiny seed with black and gray stripes, no bigger than your pinky nail.

“It’s a sunflower seed,” said Mom. “One day, it will be taller than you.”

Sasha looked at the seed. Then she looked at her feet, her knees, her tummy, as high as her eyes could go. Then she looked at the seed again.

“Taller than me? This little crumb?”

“Taller than you,” Mom said with a smile. “But you’ll have to give it time.”

Sasha filled a pot with dark, crumbly soil. She poked a little hole with her finger, tucked the seed inside, and covered it up very gently. Then she poured in some water, just a little, the way Mom had shown her. She set the pot on the kitchen windowsill, right where the sun came to say good morning.

“There,” she said. “Now you can grow.”

The next morning, Sasha ran into the kitchen, still in her pajamas. She looked at the pot. Nothing. The dirt was flat and plain, just like before. The day after that: nothing. And the day after that: still nothing.

“It’s not growing,” Sasha sighed. “Maybe it fell asleep down there. I’ll just take a peek. A teeny, tiny peek…”

Her finger reached for the dirt. Mom gently put her hand over Sasha’s. “If you dig it up, it will have to start all over again. It’s very busy under there. You just can’t see it working.”

Sasha folded her arms. Waiting took so long. Waiting was the longest thing in the whole wide world. She stood in front of the pot for a while, frowning. And then, all of a sudden, she had an idea.

She got a big sheet of paper and her crayons, and she drew boxes, lots and lots of boxes, like a calendar. In the first one, she drew a pot full of dirt and nothing else. “Every morning, I’ll draw one box,” she decided. “That way, we can wait together, the seed and me.”

With a popsicle stick and a scrap of cardboard, she also made a little sign and stuck it next to the seed. Dad helped her with the letters: “Shh! Seed at work.”

So every morning, Sasha gave the seed a little water, drew her box, and told the seed all about her day: the neighbor’s cat napping on the fence, the soup she didn’t like, the new song she learned at school. And when her fingers really, really wanted to dig, she tucked them into her pockets and hummed.

On the ninth morning, Sasha stopped short in front of the window. In the middle of the dirt was a tiny bump. And out of the bump poked a little green hook, bent over like someone taking a bow.

“Mom!” Sasha whispered, because you don’t shout at a baby sunflower. “Mom, come look! It woke up!”

The next day, the hook had straightened up. Two round leaves had opened like two hands waving hello. In that day’s box, Sasha finally colored some green. Lots of green. She pressed so hard that her crayon wore down to a stub.

The weeks went by. The stem grew: first as tall as a pencil, then as tall as the watering can, then as tall as a kitchen chair. It was time to plant the sunflower outside, in the backyard. Dad set a stake next to it. Every Sunday, he drew a line on the stake to measure the sunflower, and a line on the door frame to measure Sasha. Sasha stood on her tiptoes. Just a little.

By the start of summer, Sasha had to tip her head back, and back, and back some more to see the top of the sunflower. It was taller than her. Taller than Dad, even! Way up high, a huge yellow flower had opened, round as the sun, and the bees came buzzing by to visit.

At the end of summer, the big flower bowed its heavy, heavy head. In its middle were seeds with black and gray stripes, every one just like the first. Sasha tried to count them. “One, two, three… ten… twenty… Mom, how many are there?” “Hundreds,” said Mom.

Sasha gave a handful to the birds. She kept five for herself, for next spring. And she slipped five more into a little envelope. She drew a sun on it, and Dad wrote underneath: “For Nina.”

The next day, when her friend Nina came over to play in the backyard, Sasha handed her the envelope. Nina opened it and tipped the seeds into her hand. “What are these?” she asked. “Sunflower seeds,” said Sasha. “One day, they’ll be taller than you.” Nina looked at the seeds, then at her feet, then at the seeds again. “Taller than me? These little crumbs?”

Sasha smiled, just the way Mom had at the start of spring. “Taller than you. But you’ll have to give them time. When spring comes, I’ll show you how to make the boxes.” Nina tucked the envelope deep in her pocket, nice and flat, like a treasure.

Above the two friends, the tall sunflower bowed its heavy head, as if it were listening.