The cellar was a place of quiet dignity, redolent of damp earth and the hushed whispers of slumbering roots.

Here, Barnaby, a potato of considerable girth and stolid temperament, lived a life of rhythmic stillness alongside Julian, a leek whose slender frame and papery layers suggested a certain aristocratic sharpness.

They were "dirt-folk," content with the cool darkness, until the day a forgotten ventilation shaft rattled open, spilling a beam of golden light that smelled—incredibly—of sun-warmed sugar.