The election had been very official. There had been a ballot (a folded piece of kitchen paper), a returning officer (the cucumber, who was very long and therefore felt she had authority), and three candidates: the red bell pepper, who promised everyone would be sorted by colour, the carrot, who promised nothing but kept waving enthusiastically, and the potato.
The potato did not make promises. She made a statement.
"I will be serious," she said. "I will be organised. I will maintain order in this drawer."
She won by a landslide.
That is the thing about vegetables. When things get chaotic, they vote for whoever looks the most worried.
The potato took her responsibilities very seriously. She appointed the broccoli as Head of Arrangement. She commissioned the leek to draft a rulebook. She had a small piece of cheese rind set up as an official mayoral desk, and she sat behind it every morning and reviewed the state of the drawer.
The drawer had problems. It always had problems. Things rolled when they shouldn't. Things got soft. The aubergine was going through something — nobody quite knew what. But for three weeks, the potato managed all of it with calm, quiet authority, and things were, more or less, under control.
Then the spring onion arrived.
Nobody knew where he came from. One morning he was simply there, at the back of the drawer, very green and very springy and extremely pleased with himself.
"Hello," he said.
"Who are you?" said the potato.
"I'm a spring onion," he said. "I don't stay anywhere long. Just passing through."
"This is a managed drawer," said the potato. "You'll need to register."
"Register what?"
"Yourself. Your intentions. Your likely shelf life."
The spring onion thought about this. "Nah," he said, and bounced off.
The potato watched him go. She had a feeling about this. It was not a good feeling. It was the kind of feeling you get when you are a very serious potato and someone very unserious has just entered your jurisdiction.
She was right.
By lunchtime, the spring onion had reorganised the garlic bulb's collection of loose cloves into what he called "a more interesting arrangement," which was simply scattered everywhere. He had also taught the cherry tomatoes to roll in formation, which was chaotic and frankly impressive, and he had somehow convinced the mushroom that the back corner was actually the front corner, which the mushroom found very upsetting.
"MAYOR," said the broccoli, bursting into the potato's office. "He's done it again."
The potato straightened her desk. "I'll speak to him."
She found the spring onion at the far end of the drawer, conducting what appeared to be an orchestra of radishes.
"ONE two three, ONE two three," he was saying. The radishes were nodding enthusiastically.
"Spring onion," said the potato. "I need you to stop."
"Stop what?"
"All of it."
The spring onion looked at the radishes. The radishes looked at the potato. The potato looked at all of them in a way that was very official and quite tired.
"But they like it," said the spring onion. "Look at them. They're having the best time they've ever had."
This was, the potato had to admit, probably true. The radishes looked extremely alive in a way they usually didn't.
"Nevertheless," she said. "There are rules."
"Rules are fine," said the spring onion cheerfully. "I just don't know any of them."
"I'll have the leek send you a copy."
"Great," said the spring onion. He caught the copy the leek sent over, glanced at it, and used it to slide the carrot across the drawer in what he called a "dramatic entrance," and which the carrot called "the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me."
The potato went back to her desk and put her head down on the cheese rind for a moment.
Being mayor was harder than she had expected.
She tried three more approaches. She tried a formal complaint, which the spring onion received politely and then lost. She tried an official warning, which he took very seriously for about four minutes. She tried a curfew, which lasted until nine o'clock, when the spring onion announced that nine o'clock was technically still the evening and therefore nothing counted yet.
Finally, the potato called a meeting.
Everyone came. The broccoli, the carrot, the mushroom, the radishes, the aubergine — who had, it turned out, been fine all along, just thinking — the cherry tomatoes, the garlic cloves, even the leek, who brought extra paper in case anyone wanted to write anything down.
And the spring onion, who arrived last and sat at the back and waved.
"We have a situation," said the potato.
"We do," said the broccoli, darkly.
"It is a situation," said the spring onion, helpfully.
"The drawer is in chaos. Things have been moved. Rules have been ignored. The mushroom spent forty-five minutes convinced he was in the wrong corner." She paused. "However."
The drawer went quiet.
"The radishes have not been this energetic in weeks. The cherry tomatoes have learned a skill. The carrot has discovered she is faster than she thought. And the aubergine—" the potato looked at him. "How are you, actually?"
"I'm great," said the aubergine. "The spring onion told me the soft bit was just character. I feel much better."
The potato took a very long pause. She was a serious potato. She believed in order and rules and proper arrangements. She had built her entire political career on the idea that the drawer could be managed if everyone just tried hard enough.
But she was also a fair potato.
"Spring onion," she said. "How would you like a job?"
He sat up very straight. "What kind of job?"
"Director of Events. You may organise two activities per week. They must be announced in advance. The radishes must be willing. And the mushroom always knows which corner he is in."
The spring onion thought about it for approximately half a second. "Done," he said. "Can I start now?"
"It's Thursday."
"Thursday is a great day to start things."
The potato looked at her drawer. The vegetables looked back at her. Things were messy and bright and slightly chaotic and, she could see now, rather alive.
"Fine," she said. "Thursday it is."
The spring onion stood up immediately, rubbed his hands together, and turned to the radishes. "RIGHT," he said. "Who wants to learn a song?"
The potato sat back down behind her cheese rind, picked up her pen, and wrote very neatly at the top of her notepad: Week Four. Unusual. Possibly improving.
She smiled, very slightly, where nobody could see.