The pumpkins glint with dew, the sun glaring on a cold fall morning. Cypress tucks his hands in the pockets of his sweater as he checks each gourd in the row. They have flushed bright orange this week. Cypress can already taste his first pie of the season. The bumpy decorative gourds should also be ready for the market soon.

The row along the edge of the road is his showstoppers: the giant pumpkins for the pumpkin boat race at the fall festival. They are already too large to fit in his garden cart, and they still have a week of growing to do. On the day of the competition, they will be hoisted straight into the event organizer’s massive wagon.

A crow swoops down and lands on a pumpkin.

“Johnnie, you’re leaving footprints!” Cypress shoos her away.

“You’re so uptight,” the crow grumbles from the ground, shaking her dark feathers into place. “They cut the tops off anyway.”

“And I give them to the event organizer in good condition. Every. Year.” The gardener stoops over the next pumpkin. “Do you think they need water today?”

Johnnie scratches at the ground and shakes her head. They’ll need plant food, though, if they are going to keep up this growth rate. Cypress pats his pockets. Did he forget the plant food?

“Johnnie, can you fly back to the house? I think the bag of plant food is on the counter. I can get started on the spells while you’re gone.”

Johnnie cocks her head at him skeptically.

“Are you sure? We have time.”

“I can handle it. I’ve been growing these giants since you were a hatchling. I can manage one basic spell by myself.”

Johnnie shrugs, stretching out her wings. “Okay. I’ll be quick.” She lifts off toward the house.

Cypress returns his attention to the pumpkins. They are large and firm, perfect for racing. He stoops slightly to rest his hands on the surface of the first one.

“Cito cresce planta!” He recites the spell seven times for seven days of growth. The pumpkin glows a slight yellow with magic. By tomorrow it will grow several inches.

Turning to the second pumpkin, Cypress spots a neighbor waving from the road.

“They’re looking good this year! I can’t wait for the festival to see them in action!”

Cypress waves back, beaming with pride. No one has challenged his place as official pumpkin grower in years, but nevertheless he doesn’t want to supply an inferior product.

He rests his hands on the wide ridges of the second pumpkin. This taller one is perfect for the competitor whose long legs were barely contained within last year’s boat. He recites the spell again, satisfied with the yellow glow left behind.

He moves to the third pumpkin, this one a little wider and lower than the others.

“Cito cresc—-” Something thumps into his legs, sending him sprawling into the dirt mid-incantation.

A child stands at the edge of the field, frozen in fear. The frightened child turns and bolts down the road.

Cypress shakes his head. He wants to be angry, but he doesn’t suppose he was any better-behaved as a child. He stands and brushes loose soil from his pants. He just needs to continue from where he was interrupted.

Fear drops like a rock in his stomach when he turns around. The beautiful pumpkin has withered into a gray husk on the ground, spidery veins tracing its papery surface.

“No, no, no, no, no!” He drops to his knees, reaching for the ruined gourd. At his touch, the husk collapses.

He glances across the field to the house. Where is Johnnie? He steps down the row; he can’t afford to let one failure become six.

Shakily, he places his hand on the pumpkin and recites the spell. It seems to stretch upward in response to the magic, eliciting a sigh of relief. He glances over his shoulder at the road. Normally, Johnnie would keep watch for him to prevent interruptions. What will she say when she gets back and sees the missing pumpkin?

Cypress moves down the line and casts the spell on each pumpkin, hoping that Johnnie will land at any moment.

At last, he steps back from the row to admire his work. Johnnie lands beside him with a mournful caw, dropping the bag of plant food on the ground.

“I- It- Um, that happened,” Cypress stammers.

Johnnie casts an appraising eye over the field. What is she looking for? Nothing can be done with only a week left before the race.

Cypress grabs the plant food bag and begins applying the fertilizer to the remaining pumpkins. How is he going to explain to the mayor that he doesn’t have enough pumpkins? It was stupid of him to not have been growing an extra in case of an accident like this.

The road is empty. No one has walked past in a while; maybe no one has noticed that one is missing. Scanning over the field, he spots a solution.

He walks to the barn and loads the garden cart up with bales of straw. He wheels them over and lines them up along the edge of the field, throwing his sweater on top in the warm sun. After two more trips, the stack is artfully arranged to block the row of giant pumpkins. He tops it with a display of bumpy gourds and dresses a scarecrow in his sweater to prop on the side.

Now, if anyone asks, he can say that he’s keeping the final pumpkins a surprise until the festival. That should stave off some of the prying eyes. Johnnie perches on the top of the display and looks down at him.

Exhausted and sweating, Cypress trudges back to the house and flops down on the floor. The display might postpone his problems, but he still needs a good explanation by the time the competition starts.

Johnnie lands heavily on his chest.

“Can you leave me alone? I’m trying to figure this out.” He brushes her away and rolls over, resting his forehead on his arms. In all his years growing pumpkins for the race, nothing like this has ever happened.

“Can you stop moping and come out here?” Johnnie pecks him lightly on the shoulder. “You’re not the only one who can have ideas.”

Cypress lifts his head as Johnnie takes off through the window. He groans, dragging himself to his feet. Outside, Johnnie flies among the pumpkins.

“Is this your plan? Grab some random pumpkin and do two months of work in a week?” Cypress rolls his eyes as he walks up to where Johnnie has perched.

“Not some random pumpkin,” she says impatiently. “The right pumpkin. One that can handle the magic well.”

“Oh, sure, it’s that easy.” This crow has no idea how tiring it is to do so many spells.

“If it’s just the one, why couldn’t you do a spell every day instead of once a week?” She hops to the next pumpkin and pecks the top. “Or would you rather show up to the fall festival without your eighth pumpkin?”

Maybe being tired isn’t so bad. Cypress looks at the pumpkins. It would be better to start with one of the bigger ones. He strides across a couple of rows to a promising-looking one and knocks on it. It sounds too soft to hold up to the growth.

Johnnie caws from the next row, standing atop a large pumpkin.

“This one feels good.”

She’s right. The skin is firm and it doesn’t sound mushy. This might work. Cypress applies plant food to the roots. This pumpkin will need a lot of nourishment if it’s going to catch up to the others.

“So you agree?” the crow asks smugly.

“Yes, fine. I agree. We’ll try it.” He still needs to have an excuse ready in case this one doesn’t grow up in time. But if this works, his reputation will be saved. “Give me some room.”

Cypress kneels to touch the pumpkin. How many times should he recite the spell? He’s never done it daily before. Should it only be once, or can it overlap?

“Cito cresce planta!” He takes a quick breath before resolving to do a second incantation. “Cito cresce planta!”

Johnnie flutters to the ground beside him. The spell settles into the skin of the pumpkin, glowing yellow. This is the riskiest part of choosing the giants; some pumpkins simply won’t respond to the magic the way they need to.

Seemingly in response to their worries, the pumpkin swells by an inch. Cypress hurries to rearrange the vines and move some of its neighboring plants out of the way. A growing pumpkin will squash anything in its way.

Cypress returns to the house feeling hopeful.

They tend to the pumpkin, feeding, watering, and reciting the spell over it. It expands, nearly doubling in size daily. The evening before the festival, he stands beside it, hands on his hips. It is undeniably huge compared to the pumpkins around it, but not as big as it should be. There simply wasn’t enough time to grow it.

The next morning Cypress treks into the field before dawn, determined. Moisture seeps through his trousers as he kneels by the pumpkin, which is now the size the others were last week. He spreads his hands across its surface.

It needs just a little more time to finish growing.

Before he can begin the incantation, Johnnie caws, breaking his focus. He glances up in time to see a deer leap through the pumpkin patch and over the giant pumpkin. Startled, he falls onto the cold ground. He settles himself back in place to perform the final spell. The event organizer will be here in a few hours, and he doesn’t want to make any excuses when the time comes. He returns to the house, Johnnie flying at his side.

A few hours later, a shout comes from the road.

“Ready to load up?” The event organizer waves from the top of his wagon, three helpers waiting on the side of the road.

“Perfect timing!” Cypress calls back. “I just finished getting ready.” He strides to the stack of straw bales.

“I’ve got them right behind here for you.” Oh! He never moved the last one. “Well, most of them. One is a little ways in.”

The town organizer scans the field, laughing when he spots the giant pumpkin halfway down a row.

“Well, you can’t control where the plants decide to grow. You’ve had us spoiled putting them right up front every year, but we can handle that one.”

Cypress’ shoulders drop in relief. The town organizer isn’t angry. He has eight pumpkins. Everything is going to be okay.

The team of helpers makes short work of loading the seven giant pumpkins into the cart before trooping off to collect the eighth. They make it seem easy despite the gourds each weighing several hundred pounds.

When they haul the last pumpkin to the wagon, it is nearly the same size as the others. No one seems to notice that it falls short by a couple of inches. They pull Cypress up into the wagon. Johnnie perches on one of the wagon’s walls. They chat as the wagon rumbles to the center of town.

Cypress jumps out and thanks the event organizer for the ride. The pumpkins will be unloaded and gutted to prepare them for the race. On his way to the bleachers, Cypress buys an apple fritter and a hot cider. He will watch his pumpkins race as he does every year: sitting proudly at the finish line with Johnnie.

An hour later, the boats rush past the ribbon, the small pumpkin taking second place. Its proud captain boasts of her boat’s maneuverability around the tricky eddies that held up the other racers. Cypress smiles. Maybe the pumpkin was the perfect size after all.

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