The Morning the Flowers Forgot

Canvas Valley woke up the way it always did — noisy, bright, and full of color.

From the tallest tower of Paintbrush Palace, Ms. Paintbrush Panda leaned out over the ledge and took a deep breath of cool morning air. Below her, the valley stretched out in every direction: red rooftops, golden wheat fields, the violet shimmer of the Inkstone River winding through town.

"Still perfect," she said, smiling.

Behind her, Mr. Bristle — her round, cheerful assistant goat with a clipboard tucked under one arm — trotted across the tower floor.

"Your schedule is packed, ma'am," he announced. "Three school visits, a ribbon-cutting at the new mural in Pigtown, and — oh — Mrs. Dewdrop called again. Something about her rose garden."

Ms. Paintbrush Panda turned from the view. Her rainbow cape caught the breeze.

"Tell Mrs. Dewdrop I'll stop by first," she said. "A rose garden always deserves the first hour of the day."

What the Garden Forgot

Mrs. Dewdrop's garden was the most talked-about spot in all of Canvas Valley.

Every neighbor, every passing pig or deer or sheep, said the same thing: "Mrs. Dewdrop's roses will knock your socks off." The old goat woman — round-cheeked, silver-furred, with reading glasses perpetually sliding down her nose — had grown flowers in every shade imaginable for forty years.

Except this morning, something was wrong.

Ms. Paintbrush Panda landed at the garden gate and stopped cold.

Every single rose was gray. Not wilted. Not dead. Just... gray. Like someone had taken an eraser to them.

"It happened overnight," Mrs. Dewdrop said quietly, wringing her apron. "I came out for my morning cup and — gone. All of it. Gone."

Ms. Paintbrush Panda knelt beside the nearest bush. The petals were still soft. They still smelled faintly sweet. But every drop of color had been pulled clean out.

She stood up and looked down the lane.

Three houses away, a neighbor's bright blue door had turned the same flat, empty gray.