THERE WAS A bright yellow flower on the plant. Cheery and star shaped. Fluted but enormous. The plant’s leaves had covered the whole of the raised garden bed by now, and tendrils and vines, all spiky and prickly, were snaking through and over one another.

“It’s a pumpkin!” exclaimed Marty.

Grandad let out an enormous belly laugh.

“At last!” Grandad said, clapping. “I thought you’d never guess! But this ain’t no normal pumpkin, my boy! This is an Atlantic Giant pumpkin that’s going to grow the size of a small family car!”

Gracie laughed.

“This, my dears, is going to be a pumpkin so large that they’ll be able to see it for miles around. This will be the envy of everyone on this allotment and the whole city. This, my darlings, is our master plan!”

“Our master plan is that we’re going to grow an enormous pumpkin?” asked Marty flatly. Gracie giggled.

“Marty!” His grandad feigned disgust and puffed out his chest. “Don’t say it like that. We’re not just going to grow an enormous pumpkin. It will be stupendous. Glorious. It will be the stuff of history. It will be”—he lowered his voice now and widened his eyes—“the biggest pumpkin in the whole wide world.”

“The biggest pumpkin in the world?”

“Yes!” Grandad’s whole body was quivering with excitement.

“What we’re going to do,” explained Grandad, “is let it set fruit, and when it does, we’ll chop off every single pumpkin except the biggest and the strongest and the healthiest. We’ll pick one and put all our efforts into it. Treat it like a king. Feed it till it’s obese, massage it with oils, give it everything its little pumpkiny heart could desire, and then, only THEN, will we start to have some fun! You see, growing the pumpkin is only step one…”

His eyes were shining now.

“It’s step two I am really interested in…”

“What? What’s step two?” asked Gracie, leaning in.

Grandad leaned even closer …

“Step two is the most glorious thing you’ve ever heard. Step two will blow your tiny little minds. Step two … will be le-gen-dar-y…”

Gracie was studying him, her face getting closer and closer to his. Her face spellbound.

“And step two will be…?” she prompted.

She waited for an answer. Grandad held the drama a little longer until he confided …

“That, my kiddos, is a surprise…”

“Oh my goodness, Grandad! You can’t do this!” said Marty, exasperated. Gracie’s shoulders dropped in disappointment.

“… but, suffice it to say, it’s going to be spectacularous!”

Marty rolled his eyes.

“You have to dream big, kiddies! Dream big! Now, come on!”

The allotment was bursting out all over now. Buds and saplings, sprouting bulbs and creeping tendrils. It was as if everything was setting out its plans for summer. Feeling its own potential.