Too Many Blooms (12 page)

Read on for a sneak peek at the next
Petal Pushers book!

“May I ask how many prom orders you’ve gotten so far?” Aunt Lily asked.

“We were just discussing that,” said Mom. “Not so many. But Del just told us there’s to be a middle school prom, too, so we’re feeling optimistic….”

Aunt Lily cut her off. “As I suspected,” she said. “It seems as if our rivals are trying to take away our business. Again.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. My heart sank. I knew this couldn’t be good.

“Benjamin, would you please hold up the paper?” commanded Aunt Lily.

Dad complied, lifting the paper so we had a full view of the front and back pages. And what we saw made us gasp.

The entire back page of Saturday’s paper was an ad. An ad for Fleur. There was a photo of a girl’s wrist with a simple orchid corsage on it. Under the photo were the words:

FLEUR.

ELEGANT. SOPHISTICATED. STYLISH.

WHY GO ANYWHERE ELSE FOR YOUR PROM FLOWERS?

Fleur is our competition. The new, fancy florist in town with software so you can design virtual bouquets. Fleur is in the mall, is twice as big as Petal Pushers, and has tons of flowers we don’t normally carry.

And there’s one more part of the Fleur story. The store is owned by Hamilton Baldwin’s mom. Yes, Hamilton Baldwin — the new guy in school who I think is cute. The guy in gym class who Ashley has a crush on. But Hamilton doesn’t know I know his mother owns Fleur.

As if things weren’t complicated enough.

Mom took a closer look at the ad. “Oh my,” she said in a small voice. “It says ‘Become a Fleur Fan on Facebook’!”

So Fleur was at it again. Last month they had tried to steal away our first big job — a large wedding. Luckily, we had managed to keep it. Now they were taking out newspaper ads and creating Facebook pages. I glanced around our store. It was sweet, small, and very old-fashioned. We had no website, no virtual bouquets, and certainly no Facebook page.

“So you think everyone is going to Fleur instead of us?” Dad asked with a frown, putting down the paper.

“Yes,” said Aunt Lily. “Especially if they’re doing a lot of advertising.”

Mom cleared her throat. “I’m sure all the kids will start coming in this weekend.”

“I am, too,” said Dad optimistically. “I’ll bet we have a line out the door this very afternoon!”

“I hope you’re right,” Aunt Lily said. But she didn’t look convinced. I didn’t feel convinced, either. “Good day,” she said. She gave us a curt nod and marched out the door.

We all stared at one another after she left.

“Well I think that proms sound bee-you-tee-ful,” Poppy pronounced. “Mommy, can you make me a corsage?”

“Another time, my love,” said Mom. “I have to start another arrangement. Del, can you help me?”

I busied myself cutting flowers for the new arrangement. But inside I was fuming. I couldn’t believe Fleur was trying to take away our prom business.

This means war!
I thought.

Read all the Petal Pushers books!

Too Many Blooms
Flower Feud
Best Buds

Catherine R. Daly
has been a children’s book editor for many years and has also written or adapted more than one hundred books for children. She lives in New York City with her family. Her middle name is Rose, which perhaps helps explain her lifelong love of flowers. Petal Pushers is her first series for young readers.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

Copyright © 2011 by Catherine R. Daly
Cover illustration by Bella Pilar
Cover design by Yaffa Jaskoll

All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

First edition, March 2011

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

e-ISBN: 978-0-545-41494-4