Reading out 3 - Ruby's Sunflower

As soon as Ruby heard about the contest, she
decided she wanted to win. Ruby liked winning.
Last year, she’d won a prize for the best story
and a green badge for swimming.

Ruby watered her sunflower every day. She
put sticks around it to stop her dog, Spider, from
digging it up.

Grandad gave her some special plant food.
Ruby watered the sunflower with the plant food,
and it grew and grew.

Saul was in Ruby’s class. He lived two doors away.
His sunflower was very tall. Ruby could see it from
her bedroom window.

“I’m sure mine is the tallest,” she thought. “Saul
never wins anything.”

The contest ended on Saturday. Mr Buckley was
coming round to measure all the flowers. Ruby was
so excited, she kept jumping around and getting in
everyone’s way.

“Go outside and play,” Mum said crossly.

Ruby went into the garden. Spider was excited too.
They played “fetch the ball”, and Spider ran round
and round, barking loudly. Suddenly Ruby’s hand
slipped. The ball flew straight at the
sunflower. Spider jumped after it.
The stem of the tall sunflower
snapped.

Everything went very
quiet. Spider stopped
barking. Ruby stared at
the broken sunflower.
She felt like crying.

Then she had an idea. She fetched the ladder and
found a small, straight piece of cane. No one was
looking. Carefully Ruby pushed the cane into the
broken stem till only a small piece was sticking out.
Then she pushed the flower down onto the stem.
The sunflower stood up tall again. It looked as good
as new.

Ruby went out into the street to see if Mr Buckley
was coming. Saul was practising basketball in his front
garden. He missed almost every shot.

“Dad says I have to practise if I want to get on the
team,” said Saul. “But I’m not very good.”

“Can I try?” asked Ruby.

The ball went in first time.

“I wish I was good at things,” said Saul.

He missed again.

Just then Mr Buckley came round the corner
carrying his ladder.

“Hello,” said Ruby. “Can you measure my
sunflower first?”

“All right,” said Mr Buckley.

Ruby led the way.

“That’s the biggest yet,” said Mr Buckley.
“Two hundred and ninety-five centimetres.
That’ll be hard to beat!”

He folded the ladder. “I’ll
measure Saul’s sunflower next,”
he said.

Saul was still playing
basketball.

“Hi!” said Mr Buckley.
“Let’s see if you can beat
Ruby. She’s in the lead
so far.”

Up close, Saul’s sunflower looked just about as
tall as Ruby’s. “Wow! Another whopper!” said
Mr Buckley. “Will you hold the top of the tape?”

Saul scrambled up the ladder. His fingers were
tightly crossed.

“Saul never wins anything,” thought Ruby.
“And I’m cheating.” Suddenly winning
didn’t seem so important.

“This is great!” said Mr Buckley.
“Two hundred and ninety-three
centimetres. I think you may be …”
“… the winner,” Ruby said quickly.
“That’s taller than mine, isn’t it?”

Mr Buckley looked surprised. Ruby
shook her head. “I’ll tell you later,” she
whispered.

Saul wasn’t listening. He was
punching the air with delight.

“I reckon it might be,” Mr Buckley said slowly.
“I’ll tell you on Monday.”

Ruby followed Mr Buckley back out onto the
street.

“Now what was all that about?” he asked.

Ruby told him. “It was a good sunflower,” she
said, “but I didn’t want to win like that. It wasn’t
fair.”

On Monday, Saul went up to collect his prize in
front of the whole school.

And Ruby clapped louder than anyone.

illustrations by Kirsty Lillico
Text © Sally Stephenson 2001. Illustrations © NZ Ministry of Education 2001.