Peter Rabbit's Arc

Chapter 7 of 13

The fox's peace held, and the rows stayed quiet. But one morning Peter walked his patch and felt a cold worry. He owed a full basket to the shop. He owed a share to a dozen warren families. He had never once counted how many carrots his rows would give. He knelt by the first row and stared at the green tops. He had no idea if there was enough for everyone. He pulled one carrot to test its size. Then he stopped himself. Pulling early would waste the crop. He needed a way to count without digging up the whole patch. He could not answer that alone, so he set off for the shop. The Ginger Pickle Shop sat with garlic and pickle jars crowding its windows. Inside, Ginger stood on two feet in his green coat, wiping a jar he did not need to wipe. Pickles, the tri-colored terrier in his brown coat, bent over a ledger, his brow tight. They ran the only shop in the village, and Peter owed them the first basket by winter's end. If he failed, the shop closed. "I don't know if I have enough," Peter said. "I never counted my crop." Pickles set down his pen. "Then you're guessing at your own debt. That's a poor way to run anything." His voice was flat, but his eyes were kind. Ginger smiled and leaned on the counter. "No need to guess, young one. Count one row you can see. Pull ten carrots, weigh what they'd fill, then measure the rest by rows. One row tells you all of them." "A sample," Pickles said. "Ten roots, times the rows. Simple arithmetic." Peter ran home with the plan burning in his ears. He chose the fullest row and pulled ten carrots. He lined them in a basket and marked how much they filled. Then he walked the patch, counting rows, tapping each with a paw. Twenty rows. He set the numbers side by side and multiplied the way Pickles had shown him. The answer landed hard. His whole harvest would fill four baskets. The shop needed one. Twelve warren families needed the other three, split thin between them. It balanced, but only just. One ruined row, one bad frost, and someone went hungry. Peter sat back on his heels. For the first time he knew the true size of what he owed. The guessing was over. He had a number now, and the number was tight. Then a colder thought struck him. Four baskets left nothing spare. If even one family lost its rows, he could not cover the gap. His count had shown him the danger it could not fix. He would have to grow more, and soon, or the whole bargain would crack under its own weight.