Drip

It had been a busy week in the windowsill garden. Tiny green sprouts poked up — the lettuce and carrots from Tuck's planting, growing fast — and Pot was very proud of them.

Pot had been watering his plants every single day. "That's what you do with gardens!" he told Sprig. "You give them water!" He loved watching it soak into the soil; it made him feel like a real gardener.

There is a special pull to doing more for something you love — watering it, checking it, fussing over it. Pot felt that pull every morning, watering can already in hand. It felt like caring. It felt like the most caring thing he could do.

One sunny morning Drip came to visit, walking slowly around the windowsill, studying each pot. Pot was just reaching for his watering can to give the lettuce its morning drink.

Drip knelt beside the lettuce and — instead of his own watering can — pressed a finger an inch into the soil. He closed his eyes, feeling it, then pulled his finger out and looked.

"Wet," Drip said calmly. "Way too wet, Pot. Don't water today."

Pot frowned and held his watering can tight. "But they look fine! See — green and happy!"

"They look fine right now," Drip agreed gently. "But if we keep watering like this, their roots will rot. In a few days the leaves turn yellow — and then you'll think they need more water, and add more, and they'll die." Pot's eyes went wide and his watering can nearly slipped. "Die?" A cold shiver went through him — he loved these plants, after all the work he and Tuck had done. "Roots need air to breathe," Drip said. "Always-wet soil has no air — it's like holding your breath too long." Then he taught the patient way: stop watering for two days and let the soil go from soaking to just damp — not wet, not bone-dry, just a little damp. Then water it well, a deep drink until a few drops run out the bottom, so you know the roots got a full drink. "And then?" Pot asked. "Then we wait again — two days, or three, or four — and we feel the soil every single time before we pour. The plant is teaching us. We just listen — with our finger." Pot put down his watering can and pressed his own finger into the cool, squishy soil. "It's really wet," he mumbled. Sprig smiled from the doorway. "That's Drip's big rule — the right amount of water is more love than more water. The hardest part is the waiting." So Pot waited. For two whole days his hand kept reaching for the can, and each time he remembered: they might die. On the third morning he pressed his finger in — not squishy, not dry, just damp. "Damp! It's damp, Drip!" Drip checked, nodded, and Pot poured a slow, deep drink and watched a few drops fall from the bottom, feeling a brand-new kind of pride — not about watering, but about listening.