‘Jason’s Discovery’

STICKERS poked Jason through his socks and gummy stickers clung to his sweater. He had walked home through a big, open field of dry weeds.

At home he picked them off in the kitchen.

“Those foxtails got you, huh?” his mother said.

“Why do plants do this?” Jason kept picking.

“They are hitching a ride to a new place to grow. You are a regular seed Greyhound bus.”

Jason looked thoughtful. “Maybe that’s why dandelion seeds are so light and fluffy. The wind acts like a 747 flying them to new places. Are there other ways seeds travel? It’s a good idea for the nature study I’m supposed to do.” He ripped a sticky one from his sweater. It was like Velcro. “The man who invented Velcro got the idea from looking at stickery cockleburs. Maybe I will learn something too.”

As soon as he decided to do his study, Jason looked around for seeds and how they got to new territory.

One day at his Aunt Ellen’s he noticed big seed pods on her wisteria vine and told her about his study. “Take some,” she said with a strange smile.

He took several long, lumpy, bean-like pods. At home he laid them on top of the microwave. His mother was cutting up apples for salad. In the center of each apple she cut out seeds and put them in the garbage. Jason watched.

“Both people and animals like the fruit. When people eat an apple, they throw the core and seeds away, sometimes on the ground. Maybe an apple, plum, peach or cherry tree comes up. How clever of those seeds!” Jason said to whoever was listening.

His father was. “They pay for their ride with delicious fruit.”

“People also plant them on purpose. Do you know any other ways seeds travel, Dad?”

“When I was a boy in Texas, there were lots of tumbleweeds. The plants grew big and rounded. In the fall, they dried up and the wind blew them off their stems. They rolled everywhere, spreading their seeds.”

Jason wrote it all down. Then he remembered how at the beach he saw birds eating blackberries. Those tiny hard seeds probably went straight through the bird, who planted more blackberries by pooping them out.

“I want some other methods that are unusual and attention-getting.”

“If you look you will find them,” said his mother.

True! While walking to school Jason saw pine cones munched on like corn on the cob by squirrels wanting seeds.

On a TV show, Jason saw coconuts floating in the water. “Hey! I’ll bet coconuts are seeds and float around landing on shores planting coconut palms.”

“I’ll bet you’re right!” his dad said.

Jason studied the wisteria seed pods. After several days they were pretty dry. Jason figured that they would probably just drop and take root.

That evening, Jason’s family was eating in the dining room when from the kitchen came an explosive Crack! then a click. Like a gunshot. Jason ran out, looked around and saw nothing. As he walked back to the dining room, it happened again. Crack! The whole family ran into the kitchen and looked for the mysterious intruder. Nothing was out of place, but some little round, flat, brown disks lie on the floor. Then Jason saw that two wisteria pods had split open and were empty of seeds.

“Do you suppose …” he said to his puzzled family. “No, that would be too weird.”

Just after he said “weird,” another pod burst open, shooting more brown disks onto the floor, followed by another volley that clicked point blank against the refrigerator.

“That explains how a wisteria spreads seeds,” Jason laughed.

“Spreads them all over the kitchen,” his mother said. Everyone stared in astonishment.

“It also explains why Aunt Ellen smiled so funny when I took some,” said Jason. “What a slam-bang ending for my study.”

Kay Haugaard is the author of “The Day the Dragon Danced,” published by Shen’s Books.