Gemotions

The aroma of freshly baked bread wafted from Mrs. Gable’s kitchen, as it always did on Tuesdays. This week, however, something felt different. Perhaps it was the glint of the sunlight off the polished hood of a brand new, cherry-red convertible parked in her driveway. A giggle bubbled up inside Arthur as he leaned over his fence, feigning interest in his petunias.

He’d always known Mrs. Gable was… eccentric. The oversized hats, the cats that seemed to multiply weekly, the slightly off-key rendition of opera at dawn. But the convertible? That was new. A grin split across Arthur’s face. He knew what he had to do.

He spent the next hour meticulously rearranging his garden gnomes, positioning them in increasingly ridiculous formations that would be visible from Mrs. Gable's front window. A tiny gnome conducting a symphony of squirrels, a gnome attempting to ride a lawnmower, a gnome attempting to… well, he'd figured that out later.