Carrot Cure

The only true torture in this world, Élodie thought bitterly, is being locked inside while it’s sunny outside…

Her forehead pressed against the warm glass of her window, Élodie mourned the loss of one of such a fine summer’s day.

She should be running along the harbour, chasing seagulls, kicking up orange clouds of sand at the beach – being free…

Instead, here she was, serving this endless prison sentence at home. What she – and the rest of humanity – had done to anger the Earth, she had no idea.

Lost in sour thoughts, she slipped into her favourite daydream… she stood on a high silver podium, shining sunlight bathing her in golden glory as she lifted the legendary cure to coronavirus into the air – the adoring crowds below her cheered wildly, chanting her name –

“Sulking in your room all day won’t get you anywhere, Élodie!” The stern voice of her mother yanked Élodie clean out of her wishful fantasy, leaving her sulkier than ever.

“What else is there to do?” she yelled back, peeved.

“Well, you were quite keen on finding the cure to coronavirus a few days ago.”

Élodie could hear the condescending amusement in her mother’s voice. She sighed and didn’t answer. She was an imaginative person, but even she didn’t really believe it was possible to discover the cure to coronavirus by boiling herbs, yoghurt and crayons in a pot.

But her mother had a point – maybe boiling herbs, yoghurt and crayons in a pot would be more productive than daydreaming all day. Well, maybe not productive, but fun. Her mother looked pleased as Élodie marched into the kitchen – less so when Élodie pulled out the largest pot from the drawer.

“Wait, wait, wait! Not that again! I had enough trouble cleaning up your rancid yogurt mixture on Monday!”

“Why don’t you,” she called over Élodie’s whiny protests, “explore the house? Isn’t that what Coraline did in the movie when she was bored?”

“That movie was scary.”

“Yes, but it’s a good idea.”

“I don’t want to find a secret doorway that leads to some creepy place with people with button eyes!”

“Well, don’t go through it then.”

Élodie chewed her lip as she mulled over her mother’s, sadly, reasonable logic.

“I suppose exploring the house wouldn’t be so bad…” she mused, possibilities racing through her mind – she could rearrange all the hanging paintings in the house, just for fun… or hide all the rubbish bins inside a closet…

“I’ll even let you look inside my bathroom!” Élodie’s mother quickly added, sensing a possible victory.

That settled it – the prospect of actually being able to see, in person, her mother’s countless perfumes and lotions was an offer she couldn’t refuse. Her mother sighed in relief as Élodie bounded eagerly upstairs to her mother’s bedroom. Bursting through the door, she gleefully upended all the drawers in sight, revealing rows and rows of colourful bottles and jars.

Before she could begin unscrewing them all, she noticed something odd – a weird little knob along the inside of one of the drawers, like some sort of wart. Impulsively, she reached out and yanked on it. With a dry grating noise, the entire inner side of the drawer fell away, revealing a thin, hollow compartment behind it.

Inside the hollow compartment was a small, cream coloured package.

Excitement buzzed inside her like electricity – something important was going to be inside the package, something significant, something exciting! Élodie gently lifted the package out of the compartment, half-afraid it would crumble to pieces if she looked at it too hard.

She soon realised it was less a package and more a packet - it was much too flat. The brittle paper of the packet gave her the impression that it was very old, and therefore very important.

Flipping the packet over to find an opening, she saw that crudely drawn on the back of the packet was a spiky circle thing – the iconic shape of the coronavirus!!

Mystified, she cracked open the slit at the back of the packet and peered inside. It contained what looked like numerous tiny brown specks, each the size of a pinhead. As she frowned in bewilderment, something clicked. They were seeds!

Instantly, she realised what she held in her hands – the cure to coronavirus! Her wishes had finally been granted! Some time-traveller must have found a plant that could cure coronavirus and hidden the seeds in her mother’s perfume drawer!

But why would they hide it, Élodie briefly wondered, why didn’t they give it to the hospitals?

She shrugged the thought off – that didn’t matter. She needed to plant the seeds now, so that she could give some to the infected patients as soon as possible!

Élodie hurtled into the kitchen and brandished the packet of seeds excitedly in her mother’s face.

“Look, look, I’ve got the cure to coronavirus!”

Startled, her mother took the packet and looked inside.

“What makes you think they’re the cure to coronavirus?”, her bemused mother asked.

“I just know.” Élodie impatiently replied, then dashed off the garden, leaving her mother looking strangely uncomfortable.

She spent the whole afternoon digging up little pits, then reverently placed the seeds inside.

Within a few weeks, they sprouted into tiny green shoots. Élodie was ecstatic. It was all happening at last!

For the next month, the plants were all Elodie could think about. She spent hours on end in the garden, gazing at them, wondering what they would look like when they grew bigger. Would they have huge blue flowers which can heal those infected with its scent, or small plump red berries that had to be eaten?

Meanwhile, her mother looked more and more uncomfortable every day. Élodie could tell her mother didn’t believe her plants would be the cure – but she’d see that Élodie was right eventually, when she visited the hospital at their appointment next month.

As the date of the appointment drew nearer, her plants grew steadily into tall, leafy ferns, with no hint of any exotic fruit or flowers. Unfazed by this, Élodie picked some of the leaves and ground them into a paste so they were ready for the hospital trip the next afternoon.

While she did this, however, her mother suddenly tugged on her elbow, cleared her throat and said, “Elodie, I need to show you something.”

A strong feeling of foreboding heavy on her shoulders, Elodie followed her mother back out to the garden, over to the patch where her beautiful plants were growing.

Without warning, her mother seized one of her plants and ripped it out of the earth - and dangling there was a large, knobbly, orange carrot!

Élodie screamed, then stared at the carrot, stunned. Equal amounts of denial and despair raged in her head, until finally, she hung her head into her mother’s chest and cried.

Her mother patted her on the back, and murmured consolingly, “It’s alright, Elodie, it doesn’t matter…”

Élodie sobbed harder, horribly gutted.

“Wh-what ab-bout the people in h-hospital?”, she sniffled after a few minutes.

“I’ve already spoken to them, darling, they said that some nice carrot soup would be really nice, anyway,” her mother said soothingly, “You can help me make some this afternoon if you want.”

Wanting to distract herself from the crushing disappointment in her chest, Élodie agreed.

That afternoon, while she sliced the carrots she’d had so much hope in, she asked her mother, “Did you know all along they were carrots?”

“Yes, I did.” Her mother sighed, “But you were so happy, I didn’t want to spoil it… You found those carrot seeds in my perfume drawer, didn’t you?”

As Élodie nodded mutely, her mother continued, “Those seeds were my given to me by my grandmother… I never had the heart to plant them after she died. That picture on the back of the packet is a sun, if you were wondering, to remind me to plant them in summer.”

“I thought it was a picture of the virus…” Élodie mumbled, and her mother laughed affectionately.

The next morning, they brought the soup over to the hospital, where it was given to the patients. As disappointed as she was that she hadn’t found the cure, Élodie felt a warm glow of happiness as she watched the soup be taken off to the wards. Her carrots had served a good purpose, and she was happy with that.

The End :)