THE REASON FOR ROSES
by Dave White
Unintentional Inspiration - John Nowak
Story Editor - Melody Rondeau
Music - Joel McNeely
Executive Producer - Ponsonby Britt, O.B.E.


A walk through the middle of Los Angeles’ Elysian Park would inevitably bring one to a heart-shaped plot of grass, in the center of which grew an oak tree that might have been the oldest in the city if anyone could have guessed its age. Not infrequently you would hear the chatter of the small animals who made their home in the tree. And if you listened very carefully and with an open mind, you might well begin to understand the words the animals spoke to each other.

And you’d end up as crazy as they are.

On this fine afternoon in the oak, which was home to the Rescue Rangers, the words being spoken were: “No, you can’t.” and “Yes, I can.” Over and over again. It would be no surprise to find Dale as the irritating “No, you can’t.” But it would certainly be a surprise to find Gadget as the adamant “Yes, I can.”

“You couldn’t do it, Gadget,” Dale repeated for the fourth time. “It’s not a problem that’s mechanical, electrical, or math-ee-matical. It’s just not somethin’ for you to solve.”

“Be reasonable, Dale,” Gadget said for the fifth time. “If a problem has an answer, I can find it. Go ahead and ask me the question.”

“Nope. You’ll get frustrated and ask someone else for help and spoil everything. With a problem like this, surprise is the whole point.”

“All right, Dale. I’ll bet you I can answer it. Name the stakes and ask me the question.”

“I’ll bet you can’t answer it.”

“Yes I can.”

“No you can’t.”

“Yes I can!”

“No you...”

“Don’t start!” she said menacingly.

Dale made a show of considering the offer for moment. “I’ll tell you what. Since I’m betting against you, if you can’t find the answer, I’ll take over cleaning the whole headquarters for a month.”

“Are you sure you want to make that sort of bet?” Gadget asked with genuine concern. “You wouldn’t have time for any fun at all.”

“When you believe big, you bet big,” he responded. “On the other hand, if you can figure it out, I’ll take you to dinner tonight at Chateau Sans Culottes.”

“Oh! The restaurant in the Hollywood Hills that makes the lethal cheese fondue?” She eyed him suspiciously. “Don’t they have a dress code?”

“That’s right. You’ll have to wear an evening gown for this dinner.”

“You’re not going to try to wear that green and orange Zoot suit of yours?”

“Nope. I’ll wear my Double-O-Dale white dinner jacket.”

“You’re very handsome in that jacket. But is it safe?”

“Sure. Chip made sure it was de-fused and disarmed. Except for the bow-tie camera. I’m going to want a few photos.”

“This is beginning to sound like I can win either way. All I have to do is say I can’t find the answer.”

“You could. But you wouldn’t lie. And I know how hard it is for you to admit there’s something you can’t do. You promise won’t tell anyone else?”

“I promise I won’t ask anyone’s help.”

“Okay, you have a bet.”

“What’s the question?” she asked, rubbing her hands together in eager anticipation. She was braced for a problem of boggling complexity. Mind warping scope. Terrifying obtuseness.

Dale stood very straight and spoke with a serious demeanor that made Gadget smile.

“What is the reason for roses?”

“What kind of question is that!” Gadget complained. “It isn’t quantifiable, verifiable, measurable or even scientific!”

“Of course not,” he answered smugly. “It’s a riddle. Do you still think you can solve it before dinnertime?”

Gadget took on a look of stern determination. “You better get spruced up, mister. In two hours, you’re going to play the perfect gentleman.”

“Aw, shoot, Gadget. I’ve never been perfect.” He gave her a wide smile and scurried out of the room.

Gadget closed her eyes and shook her head gently. The white dinner jacket, she thought. She remembered fondly when Dale had tried to imitate the fictional super spy Dirk Suave and built a host of weapons and spy devices into his dinner jacket. It impressed her that his efforts worked as well as some of her own. When she and the other Rangers decided to play a game of spies and secrets with Dale, she had planted a full, heartfelt kiss on him as part of the effort. And she discovered to her surprise that it wasn’t the spy stuff of that day that thrilled her, but that single kiss.

Gadget assumed this would not be a difficult task. She was sure Dale was just thinking of a romantic reason. Some cute, sentimental purpose that roses especially filled. Unbeknownst to most, Zipper kept quite a collection of poetry and romantic novels tucked away. Gadget slipped into the room he shared with Monterey Jack and picked her way through several books, some modern, some classical. Each gave some lovely metaphors or poetic similes in which roses figured prominently. None of them quite qualified as a reason. Somewhat annoyed that the answer wasn’t easily falling into place, she picked up a tiny copy of Bartlett’s Quotations. As she leafed through the volume, she came upon a slip of paper, written in the script Dale used when he was crafting something of great importance.

Roses have a fragrance fine,
That tickles cute pink noses,
With petals soft as mother’s arms,
In which a baby dozes,
The form and shape of loveliness,
An opening bud discloses,
And colors wide as the rainbow’s arch,
So bright and pure they glows-ez,

This flower has beauty much more rare,
Than what a poet composes,
And all of this makes a rose a rose,
But they’re not the reason for roses!

This was unexpected, she thought. Dale was no more given to poetry than he was to mechanics. But when he put his mind to a task, and kept his attention on it, he was capable of amazing things. In a hidden Himalaya kingdom, it had been Dale who concocted the scheme that sent the treacherous Princess Sue-Lin into a paroxysm of confession to save her slipping sanity. True, he relied on Monty and Chip’s muscle and her own technical know-how to carry out the plan. But the concept, and the credit, were all his.

Perhaps that was the key. Dale didn’t necessarily know how science worked, but he knew that it got results. She went into her workshop, turned to her bookshelf and took down books on botany, ecology, evolution and even agriculture. All she had to do was find the natural niche of the rose in the great scheme of life. How roses evolved and where they fit into the ecology had to be the clues to the reason they existed. But many volumes and pages later she still had no answer to the riddle. She finally resorted to first cases and took out Darwin’s The Origin of Species, hoping for a lead. She turned to the index and discovered another small slip of paper. Dale had been ahead of her here as well.

From seed to bloom to empty stem,
All sorts of flowers grows-ez,
They bloom with joyful certainty,
From spring to winter snow-ez,
Daisies, bluebells, violets,
Tulips for tip-toes-ez
Lilies, lilacs, lavender,
And smoocher’s mistletoes-ez,

Throughout the year, throughout all time,
Life forever flows-ez,
To be alive’s a wondrous gift,
But that’s not the reason for roses!

At least he isn’t letting me waste time on dead ends, she thought. Dale could play with scrupulous fairness. He could also be a terrible cheater. He’d certainly taken advantage of her good nature in New Zealand when he’d faked a broken toe and allowed her to fawn over him for days before Chip found him out.

Of course, once they got home, she’d had to agree with Monty that Dale wouldn’t have behaved so badly if she hadn’t coddled a minor injury. And Dale had made it up to her with a sincere apology and a lovely white rosebud as big as he was. She remembered with a smile how it had filled her bedroom with sweet fragrance even after the bloom had passed on. She had been so reluctant to discard it, even though the more it dried, the more formidable it’s thorns became.

Then Gadget was seized with a dreadful thought. She recalled something she had overheard Fat Cat say about roses when the Rangers were involved in foiling one of his evil schemes. “Thorns were the whole idea behind roses,” she had heard him confide. She hoped that Dale hadn’t resorted to such an idea, even for a playful riddle. Reluctantly, she turned to Chip’s detective resources and located a volume called Natural Defenses of Life on Earth. She hoped Fat Cat was wrong, but she had to be sure. She had hardly opened the book when the pages fell open to the section on flowers, and there was another slip of paper from Dale.

For each soft flower, a host of thorns,
Awaits the hand that closes,
Don’t grip too tight, for they can bite,
And holding’s touch-and-goes-ez,
This blossom must be gently touched,
As any fool should knows-ez
To pluck and keep this pretty bloom,
Will keep you on your toes-ez,
.
A beauty that defends herself,
Attack she well forecloses,
The thorn’s her mighty, sharp defense,
But it’s not the reason for roses!

Gadget regarded this latest poem with uncertainty. It was almost as if Dale were describing her instead of roses. He knew full well she was capable of taking the offensive, as when she built a rolling arsenal and launched a one-mouse assault on the Cola Cult to save her friends. Dale had that capacity as well, as his brief stint as the dangerous Ram-Dale proved, to her astonishment. But just as a powerful fighter lay concealed within Dale, these poems proved that a caring, sentimental soul lived there as well.

As the last minutes passed, Gadget wracked her brains for an answer. She knew it couldn’t be as difficult as she was making it. Dale had bet a romantic dinner that she could solve the riddle. He was counting on her, and she was on the verge of letting him down. Isn’t there anything that’s a reason for roses? Nothing occurred to her. Her mind simply went blank.

Sadly, she went to the front room. Walking with her eyes downcast, she almost bumped into Dale at the doorway. He was leaning nonchalantly against the doorframe, expectantly waiting for her and already dressed in his natty white dinner jacket.

“”Hi, Gadget! Did you find the reason for roses?”

Gadget took Dale’s hand and spoke with clear disappointment. “Roses are wonderfully alive and bloom under the most awful conditions. They’re sweet and beautiful. They’re soft and fragrant but they come with thorns. They inspire lovers and poets. They convey affection and even love. But a reason? I know you went to a lot of time and effort to prepare all this, the poem and the dinner reservations, and it was really sweet of you. But I guess you were right in the first place. I can’t find a reason for roses.”

“That’s it. You got it!”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.”

“No, I didn’t!”

“Yes, you did.”

“What are you talking about!?”

“That’s the answer, Gadget. There isn’t a reason for roses.”

He brought his right hand into view and presented a bundle of brilliant red and glowing white rose buds, each smaller than the palm of her hand. The bouquet was perfectly mouse-sized.

“Omigosh!” she squeaked in delight. “Baby bonsai roses! Dale, these are impossible to get. How’d you ever find them?”

“It wasn’t as hard as writing the poem. But it was all worth it.”

“You didn’t have to be so elaborate. You could have just asked for a date.”

“True. And you might have said yes. Now that you’ve won the bet, you can’t say no.”

“That was sneaky,” Gadget said with a smile.

“I did sort of set you up,” Dale confessed. “I knew you’d work hard to solve the riddle before you’d swallow your pride and admit you couldn’t. Sometimes you get so busy you don’t always notice when someone wants to be nice to you. So I did this to make sure I had your attention.”

Gadget bit her lip and hid the blush in her cheeks behind the bouquet, feeling somewhat ashamed. She remembered when Chip had tried to give her a lovely flower, potted in a thimble. She had been intent on an engine repair at the time, and she had thoughtlessly tossed the flower aside and used the thimble for a propeller spinner. Later, when she realized what she’d done, she rescued and repotted the flower and placed it on the nightstand next to her bed where, to her amazement, it flourished. Dale had her dead to rights.

“But why, Dale? What’s the occasion? It’s not Valentine’s Day or my birthday or any of the Ranger’s anniversaries?”

“There’s no occasion. No reason at all. It’s just like the riddle, Gadget. It’s just a reminder that there’s someone who cares.”

Then he took a slip of paper from his pocket and recited the poem’s last verse:

And so the riddle has been solved,
With this rhyme it closes,
A rose is true sincerity,
With pretense it disposes,
Incapable of fib or fake,
Without disguise or poses,
Affection, care and kindness to
our deepest love they shows-ez.

From a simple gift of friendship,
To what the groom proposes,
Except to show what’s in your heart,
You don’t need a reason for roses!

THE END


COPYRIGHTS AND DISCLAIMERS: Gadget, Chip, Dale, Monterey Jack, Zipper, Sue-Lin, Fat Cat, Dirk Suave and the Rescue Rangers are © and T.M. The Walt Disney Studios and are employed here without permission. Don’t let them fool you. They ALL appreciate roses.

All other characters, locations, equipment and situations are © 2001 by David D. White. Permission to copy and redistribute without charge is granted, provided the work is not altered, edited, changed, hooked on rose thorns, or otherwise fiddled with.

Thanks to the Washington Park Rose Test Gardens, Portland, Ore. If you’re ever going to find baby bonsai roses, this is the place to look.

Don’t wait for dates, occasions, holidays, anniversaries or birthdays. If you care about someone, give them roses.