Imogen and the Watering Can

Imogen grows tomatoes on her balcony. Also basil, three kinds of mint, and a lemon tree that has never once produced a lemon but which she loves anyway.

She learned something from her plants. When a plant droops, you don’t shout at it. You don’t tell it to try harder. You check what it’s missing, and then you give it something back. Water. Sun. A bigger pot.

People are a bit like that. That’s Imogen’s job in the Clue Club. The Restore move. When someone’s tank has run dry, she finds what refills it.

Her best case was a boy called Callum.

Callum was in Imogen’s tutor group, and he’d had a rotten term. His parents had separated. He was moving between two houses. His football team had lost every match. By the end of November, he looked like one of Imogen’s plants in August. Droopy. Dry.

The Clue Club had already done the clue-finding. They knew what Callum was carrying. Lessing had even found a rock that could come out: Callum kept leaving his kit at the wrong house, so his mum got him a second kit to keep at his dad’s.

“But he still looks empty,” Imogen said. “Taking out stress isn’t the same as putting energy back in.”

So they wondered together what might refill Callum’s tank.

Pella said he should come to the Friday cinema club. Lots of people, popcorn, fun. Bramley said he should play more football, because football always made Bramley feel better.

Imogen wasn’t sure. When she watched Callum, she noticed that busy, noisy things seemed to make him more tired, not less. At lunch, he always went to the quietest corner of the library. In art, he worked with his headphones on and seemed calmest of all.

“I think he refills quietly,” she said.

She didn’t tell Callum what to do. She just asked him one day, while they were waiting for the bus, “What makes you feel more like yourself?”

He thought about it for a long time.

“Drawing,” he said eventually. “And my dog. And when nobody’s asking me anything.”

So that’s what helped. The art teacher let him use the art room at lunch on Wednesdays. He started taking his dog for long walks on the weekends at his dad’s. And his friends learned that sometimes the kindest thing was to sit next to him and not ask how he was.

By the spring, Callum looked less droopy. He drew a picture of Imogen’s lemon tree and gave it to her. In the drawing, it had lemons on.

Here’s what Imogen tells the Clue Club.

Reducing stress is only half the job. You also need to put energy back. Rest. A proper meal. Time outdoors. A kind person. Something you love doing. Laughing.

But not everyone refills in the same way. Some people fill up by being with lots of people. Some fill up by being alone. Some need to move their bodies, and some need to sit very still. If you’re not sure, the best thing is to ask, or to watch for when someone seems most like themselves.

When the tank is empty, find what fills it back up: rest, a snack, a friend, something you love.