Mabel’s backyard had always been a graveyard for forgotten gadgets—until the day she decided to turn them into art. Her masterpiece? A 12-foot-tall gnome made entirely of lawnmower parts, broken keyboards, and a suspiciously large quantity of soda cans. ‘It’s not junk,’ she hissed at the neighbor’s cat, who was currently napping inside a microwave. ‘It’s… conceptual.’ The town fair was two days away, and Mabel was halfway through welding the gnome’s beard when her youngest nephew, Timmy, showed up clutching a bag of stolen sidewalk chalk.
‘Aunt Mabel,’ he said, ‘I think your gnome is haunted.’
She glanced up from her soldering iron. The gnome’s eyes—two burnt-out traffic lights—were flickering. ‘That’s the *vibe,* Timmy. Now go ask Mrs. Pritchard for a cup of sugar. And don’t touch the chalk.’
Two hours later, Mabel discovered the gnome’s left arm had been replaced with a neon-green pool float. ‘Who?’ she barked. Timmy, covered in glitter, grinned. ‘I thought it needed *flair.*’
The fair arrived. The gnome stood proud, its body a mosaic of chaos, until a rogue breeze blew the chalk off the pedestal. Panicked, Mabel grabbed a broom handle and jabbed at the falling chalk, shouting, ‘NO! NOT MY MASTERPIECE!’ The crowd gasped as she vaulted onto the gnome’s head, waving the broom like a sword. ‘I will not let this art die!’
Later, Timmy asked, ‘Was it worth it?’ Mabel stared at the gnome’s new accessory—a literal crown of chalk. ‘Absolutely. Now help me rewire the eyes before someone thinks it’s a haunted toaster.’
