Nico and the Moonflowers

Grandad's garden had flowers that were asleep all day.

They stood along the back wall in a row, tall and green and shut, like umbrellas nobody had opened. Nico had looked at them every afternoon of the holiday and they had never done anything at all.

"They're night flowers," said Grandad. "Moonflowers. They're not lazy. They're just on a different shift."

"When do they wake up?"

"When you're asleep," said Grandad. "Usually. But tonight, if you like, you can stay up and water them."

So Nico stayed up.

It was strange being in the garden in pyjamas. The grass was cool on his feet. The sky was going from blue to a darker blue, and the wall where the flowers stood was in shadow.

"Watch," said Grandad.

Nico watched. For a long time nothing happened, and he began to wonder if Grandad was teasing. Then the first flower moved.

It was slow. It was the slowest thing Nico had ever seen that was not a clock. The tight green bud loosened, and loosened, and a white edge showed, and the white edge became a white curl, and the curl turned and opened and spread until there, on the end of its stem, was a flower as big as Nico's two hands together, pale as the moon it was named for, and smelling of something sweet and far away.

"Oh," said Nico.

Along the wall, the others were doing it too. One, two, three, all down the row, opening in the dark like a line of small white lamps that gave off no light, only scent.

"Now they're thirsty," said Grandad, and gave him the little watering can.

Nico watered the first one. The water went down into the soil with a soft sound. The flower did not say thank you, but it moved a little, as if it had felt it.

He watered the second. And the third. He went slowly down the row, tipping the can, listening to the soil drink. A hedgehog came out from under the hedge to see what he was doing, decided it was nothing to do with hedgehogs, and sat down to watch anyway.

"How long do they stay open?" asked Nico.

"Till morning. Then they close up and sleep all day, and you'll be awake and they won't, and you'll each think the other one is missing all the good bits."

Nico thought that was a fair description of a lot of things.

By the time he reached the last flower, the can was nearly empty and so was Nico. His arms were heavy. His eyes kept closing between flowers, the way the flowers closed between days. He tipped the last of the water out, and the last flower drank it, and he stood there holding the empty can and looking at the row of white faces turned up to the moon.

"Grandad," he said, "I think I'm on the day shift."

"I think you are," said Grandad, and picked him up, can and all.

Over Grandad's shoulder, as they went in, Nico watched the moonflowers. They were wide awake. They would be awake for hours yet, doing whatever flowers do in the dark, being beautiful for the hedgehog and the moths and nobody else.

And in the morning, when he came down, they would be shut again, tight as umbrellas, and he would know, and they would know, and neither of them would say a word about it.