Plum Harvest

          Plum Harvest

“Where do you live?” I asked him.

“On the M25,” He said.

“I’ve been there since the summer 2012.

I was going to Berkhamstead.”

“It was a quarter to eight in the morning

when the traffic all ground to a halt.

It will be a few years till they get it clear,

they say.  It was nobody’s fault.”

“I’ve made some good friends in the car next door

who were trying to get to Tring.

I’ve got a bit of a garden around my car.

I sell vegetables in the spring.”

“We British are great in a crisis.

The woman next door bakes cakes

in an oven they’ve made on their engine,

and wonderful barbequed steaks.”

“I must be getting back soon.

There’s activity in the fast lane.

I hope I’ve got time to harvest the plums

before we start moving again!”

Trevor the turkey

Trevor the turkey

Trevor the turkey was putting on weight.

He thought it had something to do with the date.

He racked his brains, but he couldn’t remember

why his mum had said most turkeys don’t like December.

He didn’t know why he was feeling so nervy,

more and more as his shape got increasingly curvy.

He caught a bus from the farm, and went down to the gym,

got a personal trainer and tried to get slim.

He spent hours each day on the exercise bike,

but the farmer said, “Trevor, leave my farm if you like.

I’ve got no room here for a turkey so thin.”

So Trevor went off and booked himself in

to a health farm and lived for a month on a diet

of lettuce and fruit juices, peace and quiet.

He stayed until spring, then went back to the farm,

but the farmer said, “Trevor, whilst your figure has charm,

I know that, when cooked you’d be rather sinewy.

Your fat–free physique would be tasteless and chewy.”

So Trevor, with hardly a backward glance,

left England for ever and headed for France,

where he lives to this day in a flat near Mon Martre,

drinking wine, eating brie, reading Jean Paul Sartre.

The moral is, if you’re a turkey, remember,

always go on a diet at the end of November.

Patterns

Patterns

Do you remember

dripping on toast,

melting, mingling, marbling of meat jelly,

or an oily kipper with buttered bread?

(Mind the bones!)

Scraping with your nails

the frost fronds on insides of windows,

light patterns on the ceiling

from the smelly oil stove at night?

(Don’t get out of bed!)

Hopping across

flower patterns on cold lino,

to reach the rag rug,

making it a game,

pretending the floor was

shark-infested seas,

buttoning rubber liberty bodice buttons

with freezing fingers?

Lining up carrots,

(eat the carrots first),

trying to eat

huge plates of gummy mutton stew

that took an age to chew.

(You have to eat it all.)

Skipping on the pavement,

(don’t tread on the cracks),

tram lines on the road

(Mind! Don’t get your feet caught,)

tall stark skeletons of elms in winter

rooks’ nests clumped together, high up, high up,

(if you see one rook, it’s a crow.

If you see a group of crows, they’re rooks.)

Streets of scrubbed front doorsteps

gleaming white before breakfast,

lines of flapping washing,

(It’s all a competition.)

mothers with hair in sleek victory rolls,

flowery overalls crossed on their chests.

Eerie air raid sirens,

(they have to test them,)

a quarter of a Mars bar each on Sundays,

(special treat,)

mangles and mincers,

galvanised buckets of washing

boiling on the stove.

Do you remember the pattern of the days?

The Nuthatch Nest

The Nuthatch’s Nest

Meet me near the nuthatch’ nest,

for who shall know but you and I

just where this creeping creature built

her home away from prying eye?

Who else has listened to her call.

Who else has spotted, as they stood

absorbing the sweet solitude,

in that quiet clearing in the wood,

that flitting flash of peach and grey,

that darting streak, that fluting cry,

whose hearts rejoiced to spy her

momentary rest, but you and I?

Who else had tied, on trunks and branches,

squirrel-proofed tubes of wood and wire,

who mended, tended, debated, worried,

discussed and fussed, and moved them higher?

who else had trudged, with earnest wish,

with nuts in rucksacks, every week?

Who scrambled and scrabbled to keep them filled,

to tempt the searching nuthatch beak?

Who spotted, one day, as the leaves

 blown by a breeze out off the way,

a hole in a trunk, and, as we watched,

an eye-stripe and a flash of grey.

Who watched to see, laboriously crafted,

from what was a jagged hole before,

with beakfuls of mud, on many trips

a perfectly circular front door?

Who but we wait, like anxious fathers,

helplessly hoping that all will be well

for those nuthatch eggs we hope have been laid,

for the first beak to break through the delicate shell.

A question for those who dare to assume

that we are in any way obsessed

with this elusive blue-grey bird-

Have you ever seen a nuthatch’ nest?

The Keeper of the Egg

The Keeper of the Egg

I am the keeper,

The keeper of the Egg.

Here in my hand

is the egg of the future,

for this is the world egg.

It is from the Earth.

Our world has given birth.

I am here to guard it.

I will keep it while it sleeps.

Soon, it will wake.

Soon, tiny rivers will begin to flow

from all the cracks and crevices

on its surface.

Rivers will form seas.

Mountains will rise.

Minute forests will grow.

Fish will swim in the waters.

Animals will appear on the land.

Birds will sing in the trees.

Its surface will teem with life.

At the end of the year,

on the stroke of midnight,

on New Year’s Eve,

I will carry it

to the top of a hill.

I will hold it aloft

and it will rise.

Up into the air

and out… out into space.

As it rises it will grow.

It will become a new world.

For this is

the Millennium Egg.

The Last Plant on Mars

Life was a struggle for the last plant on Mars

but the last plant on Mars didn’t know

there was only one place where conditions were right

for the last plant on Mars to grow.

It was touch and go for the last plant on Mars.

It had found the last patch of good earth.

The last plant on Mars spread its roots in the soil,

and clung on for all it was worth.

The roots of the last plant on Mars searched hard

as they burrowed deep under ground,

and the last plant on Mars found the last drops of water

that would ever on Mars be found.

The last plant on Mars grew glossy green leaves,

then a flower of purest blue.

Then inside the flower of the last plant on Mars

many thousands of tiny seeds grew.

The last plant on Mars turned its face to the sky,

from whence came, with a screeching sound

a man-made machine on a mission to see

if life upon Mars could be found.

The man-made machine spread its flexible feet

and made itself ready to land.

It landed on top of the last plant on Mars,

and crushed it to mush in the sand.

The Holly Tree

The Holly Tree

As the North Wind tore

the snowballs from

her frozen palms,

the holly tree screamed.

Her fingers reached

to clutch them as

the urgent air

crumbled them

away on the wind.

She cried as she

turned her head to watch,

then, shaking the crumbs

from her crinkled skirts,

turned into the tumult

of frenzied flakes,

stretched out spiky fingers,

and waited.

A Margo Moment

         Country Girl

We both adore the country.

We moved here from the town.

We made this wild garden

once we’d cut the forest down.

There was just a muddy stream here,

that we had to have diverted,

and the quaintest little chapel

that my husband got converted.

It makes a lovely summer house

since we took the end wall out,

and fitted those new windows

I was telling you about.

It  was covered in funny pictures,

very old and badly done.

I think the way we’ve painted it

 bright pink is rather fun!

We built the house entirely

from the local stone,

and those funny little roof tiles

cost a fortune on their own.

But the barking of the foxes

disturbs me in the night

and all the birds start chirping

as soon as it gets light.

Every year about this time

the kitchen swarms with frogs

and those horrid leggy spiders

keep frightening my dogs.

So we’re packing up and moving

to a penthouse in the city.

I’m leaving all the garden gnomes,

although they’re rather pretty.

I’ll rather miss my wellingtons.

They make me look the part.

It’s such a shame we’re moving.

I’m a country girl at heart!

A small badger poem

Badger

Snuffling, shuffling like a tramp.

Muffled up against the damp.

Sniffing nose and clenching claws.

Finding, grinding with strong jaws.

Concentrated rhythmic sound.

Crunching, hunching on the ground.

Will he sense me? Can he hear

me scarcely breathing, very near?

Stripy nose, short-sighted eyes,

and a look of mild surprise.

Retreating duffle-coated, grey.

Silently he walks away.

A Short Story

Awakening

   Papaya-pink seagulls scraped across the sunset as they flew to roost on bleak cliffs. Above my head, a dead branch, as stark as forked lightening against the darkening sky, mewed like a Siamese cat in the evening breeze. I imagined that the house put its arms around my shoulders as I sat there on the veranda, resting my aching limbs, watching the silver birch tree flowing, tousled as a mermaid’s hair.

   “Nina!” stabbed my mother’s voice, filling my head, tugging my attention to its feet. “Neena! Neena!” chanted like a police car siren.

   “I hate my nickname,” I thought through clenched teeth as I leapt up and hurried indoors.

   I was inside before I remembered that my mother was dead.

***

   My father, protector, confidant, best friend, had died six months before from a heart attack while I was in bed with ‘flu, leaving me to face the awful truth that my mother was, and had been for most of my life, an alcoholic. You imagine you’d notice, wouldn’t you, something like that? You’re thinking, ‘That’s silly! I’d know if my mother drank.’

   I did know, deep down. Everyone likes a drink, I told myself, a little glass of wine while they’re preparing lunch, a small tot of whisky to relax with in the evenings. I sympathised by telephone with her poor health, her insomnia, how some mornings she was so weak she had to lie down with a hot water bottle while my father took the dog out alone. I understood when visits were cancelled: ‘Your poor Mummy, she’s a bit poorly at the moment. Maybe in a month or two…..’

   It was only after my father’s death, when I was faced with a furious, bitter, cruel old woman, who never shed a tear for her husband of sixty years, who fell down the stairs every night, refused to eat, and heaped hatred upon anyone who tried to help her, that I realised that she was a drunk!

***

I got up early, as birds shook themselves and chirped their first morning note, as foxes slunk back through dew-covered grasses to their lairs. I had a lot to do. I worked automaton-like as I completed my mental list. At last I had finished. I filled the kettle and stood looking around the kitchen: sandwiches piled on plates under tight shiny cling film, bright salads gleaming in glass bowls, purposeful cakes made by neighbours anxious to offer support, unsure how best to do it. I checked the trays, the array of unmatched cups and saucers hastily borrowed from friends, the higgledy-piggledy assortment of glasses lined up like Dad’s Army on parade. I looked in the mirror, checked my hair, saw the lines of pain etched into my face, wondered fleetingly if they would ever go.

   “Ready, Mum?” said my son, smartly suited and serious.

   “I’m ready,” I said.

   We walked out of the house and down the path to the line of waiting cars. Heading the procession in a black limousine, my mother was waiting, tucked snugly in a white satin bed under her duvet of yellow roses. I had dressed her in clothes she hadn’t worn for years, a dress I’d found at the back of her wardrobe, fresh white cotton sprinkled with blue cornflowers, blue crystal ear-rings and necklace to match, a white cardigan, all dressed up for a summer’s day in the garden, a day watching Wimbledon, a day from the childhood I would have liked, a half-memory that wasn’t there, a wish, a might-have-been.

***

   I felt my father’s hand upon my shoulder.

   “Thank you all for coming,” I began, looking down at the very few exhausted, loyal faces staring back at me from the pews. “It is difficult for me to describe the way I feel today, as we gather here to say 'Goodbye' to my mother.”

The End

Still musing on colour

The world is all colours

The world is all colours

exploding slowly,

spinning and swirling

around my head,

shards of reality

reflecting back at me

a million mirages,

fragmented.

The world is aroma

of every memory

layer upon layer

of complex smells,

zigzagging over

the time-space continuum,

concentric sensations

in bottomless wells.

The world is music,

softly surrendering

sounds of sensations

of sadness and joy,

each creature screaming,

its voice interweaving

expressing its presence

in loving alloy.

The world is a poem,

wordlessly spoken,

a caress of the voice,

of the call of creation,

a lyrical longing

to share in the symphony,

the anthem of

self-perpetuation.

The world is a cuddle,

a shaking awakening,

a challenge to battle,

to absorb and collate,

a spiralling hug

of tender sensation,

an infinite expression

of feelings innate.

The world is a riddle,

a cosmic conundrum,

a mosaic pavement

of mystical signs,

an unfathomable ocean

of mathematical equations,

a wonderful whirlpool

of fractal designs.

I see the world so brightly, my heart dances

Child of the Rainbow

I’m a child of the rainbow.

I was born in a storm,

as the sun and the rain met together.

I’m a creature of light.

I am made of bright colours

that glow in the stormy weather.

When the sun glows deep orange

In skies of dark blue,

as the heavy black thunderclouds form,

when I see silver flashes

and hear the sky roar,

I go out and run through the storm.

Down the soft violet hillsides

the rivers run red.

Green trees are washed clean by the rain.

When the golden sun breaks

through the indigo clouds,

I can dance in the rainbow again.

From my collection called "The Dishcloth."

The Dishcloth

Scurrying, hurrying,

running through the night,

hiding, crying, knowing

there’s nowhere to go but home,

nothing out here to fear,

nothing compared to you,

pacing the room,

fuming, waiting

for my return.

I didn’t mean to anger you.

I have added to my sin

the additional crime of flight,

of frightened flight.

I should have stayed

to face your rage.

I was afraid!

I understand how bad I am,

how slow to learn,

how worthless.

I try, I try, to do it right,

but tonight,

I wiped the working surface

with the wrong cloth.

I felt your wrath

behind me as you watched.

I knew I’d used

the wrong cloth.

My feet will not carry me

as I creep through sleeping streets.

I see the light shining

through my door.

I’m sorry I ran.

Please let me in.

Don’t hug me so hard.

It’s my fault, my fault.

I’ll stand here and listen.

I know I’ve done wrong.

Now you’re frowning, glowering,

towering over me.

I’m cowering and cringing.

But I’m listening, I’m listening,

as you explain once again,

as you go slowly over,

the system with the dishcloths.

In memory of winter

Dawn

On pre-dawn banks of frozen lake

the silver swans asleep.

The trees, all stark with icicles,

stark shelter for the sheep.

Now through the skeleton branches

an icy east wind blows

the frost from black lace tree tops,

disturbing rooks and crows.

Their strident cries declare the dawn

as silver turns to gold,

and red-gold fox slinks stealthily,

eyes screwed against the cold.

Across the chilly hillside

many other creatures pass,

betrayed by clear dark footprints

cut clean in frosty grass.

In the distance there, the village,

still in sleeping silhouette,

and in the cosy cottages

nobody stirring yet.

The valley stretches languidly,

as colours one by one

flow liquid o’er the landscape,

awakened by the sun.

An ode to bacon

To my heart’s desire

I dream of bacon,

‘tho I swore

to never more

dead flesh devour.

Resolve is shaken,

craving for

crispy bacon.

What strange power

can bacon have

that ever more,

when other meats

I once foreswore

don’t tempt me now,

but pain that grips

me, when I eat

my egg and chips

will drive me mad.

I long to savour

once more, that

tantalizing flavour

of bacon, crisp

and hot and greasy.

Who says not eating

meat is easy?

Oh, what a wicked person I am!

The Tooth Fairy Gets It

Ah-hahaha, I’ve done it

I’ve cast an evil spell.

The fairies that collect the teeth

will soon become unwell.

Now all the little children

won’t get money for their teeth.

They’ll lift their pillows up and find

dead fairies underneath.

Small Talk

                                     Small Talk

“I write poetry,” I said.  I could see his eyes glaze over.

“I live with my son, on a hill, just outside Dover.”

“Would you like a turkey roll?”  he asked, passing me a plate.

“No, thanks, I don’t eat meat,” I said.  I saw a flash of hate.

“My wife was vegetarian,” he muttered, through his teeth.

“She’s living with a plumber.  They’ve moved to Hampstead Heath.”

“Do you have any children?”  I asked him, while I ate.

He glared at the egg mayonnaise on my plate.

“Oh, yes,” he said, “Three girls we’ve got.  They took their mothers’ side.

They used to visit me a lot, until the parrot died.”

I sipped my gin and tonic, and wondered what to say.

“The C.S.A. has crippled me,” he said, and looked away.

He’d finished all the turkey rolls, and started on the ham.

“She was into all this “New Age” stuff.  Our marriage was a sham.

She used to spend a fortune at the health-food shop each week.”

“They sell some lovely oils,” I said.  A nerve twitched in his cheek.

“What about your work?” I asked him.  “What is it you do?”

“I buy and sell antiques,” he snapped.  “It wouldn’t interest you.

They’ve got a few nice pieces here.  He’s worth a bob or two!”

“I love this house,” I said.  “They’re really lucky with the view.”

He stared out of the window at the valleys and the hills.

He said, “This wretched heartburn!  I forgot to bring my pills.”

He had another glass of wine.  I got another gin.

He said “Don’t eat the chicken!  She’s put too much garlic in!”

He finished up the chicken, while I nibbled on a carrot.

I said, to fill the awkward pause, “What colour was the parrot?”

The Talking Frog

The Talking Frog

It was one of those sleepy afternoons, sunny and warm, and me wandering round the garden with my secateurs, cutting a twig here, pulling a weed there, not thinking about anything in particular.

The frog was on the path. There were always frogs, sitting about, waiting for me to dig out the pond that the previous owners had filled in. It was on my list of jobs to do, if ever I found myself with super-human energy, or twenty years younger without arthritis. This frog was different. For a start, it seemed to be sunning itself, something any normal frog wouldn’t consider sensible. Secondly, when my sleepy eyes focussed on it, it looked up at me with intelligent enquiry, summing me up in quite an unsettling way.

You’re going daft, I told myself, and went to walk past, but the frog took a few unhurried steps and blocked my path. Well, I could have stepped over it, but there was something about its air of assurance which made me hesitate to do so.

   “Hello,” it said.

   “Hello,” I said back, wondering if I had sunstroke or something much more serious. “Do you want me to kiss you, so you can turn into a handsome prince?”

Well, you never know your luck. I’d been on my own for ten years since my husband left me for a younger model, and a handsome prince would be one in the eye for that barstard, and a boost to my ego.

   “No,” it said. “Definitely not. Have you got a ratchet strap?”

Now, I’m not terribly useful when it comes to tools. The shed was my husband’s domain, but I had the key and could see no reason, as he’d left me everything, out of lack of interest rather than generosity, why I couldn’t give anything I wanted to any passing Tom, Dick or Frog.

I was by this time wondering what hallucinating a talking frog was a symptom of, but other than that, I seemed fine, all the bits that usually hurt, still hurt, so I was probably awake, and everything else seemed normal, keys in my shorts pocket and all.

I went over to the shed, unlocked it and rummaged around, spotted the ratchet strap, dragged it out and took it back to the path. I rested it down in front of the frog.

   “There you go,” I said.

   “Grab hold of that end will you?” said the frog, and dragged the strap over to a bulging sack which I hadn’t noticed lying behind the spirea, (just coming into flower, so pretty), slid it underneath with a few tugs, and flung the end over the bag, (which must have taken all its strength), and looked at me.

   “If you can just tighten the strap for me?” said the frog, “Thank you.”

   “What’s in the bag?” I asked. Well, it is my garden.

   “Slugs,” said the frog. “Cheers for the strap,” and he hooked the end of it onto the back of a very small (well, it would need to be) aeroplane which stood next to the hostas, jumped in, switched it on, and shot up into the air. The sack whooshed past my head close enough to stir my hair, and I jumped back. I stood and watched as the sack disappeared, like a lost balloon, over the apple trees and along the top of the hill.

Now I know what you’re going to say. I should have asked more questions, but as I said, it was one of those balmy afternoons, you know? But I certainly didn’t imagine it, because I had to get up in the night because the shed door was banging in the wind. I’d forgotten to lock it. Lucky nothing got nicked, wasn’t I?      

Dear Miss Brown

Dear Miss Brown,

You were my first teacher, big, soft and kind, smelling of face powder. You played the piano in assembly, and it was wonderful and sad, and made me dance. You said it was Beethoven’s Minuet in G and that Beethoven was not much older than me when he wrote it. When you sang the hymns in your rich Welsh voice, your mouth went over sideways and I tried to do it too. In class, when we recited our times tables for you, all together, it felt so safe. You told us what good children we were. I didn’t know I was good. Mummy said I was naughty. She tried to get rid of me when I was in her tummy, pushed the pram with my sister in it along the beach, trying to shake me loose, she said.

On Mondays, we could tell the class our News. The other children told about their weekends, family trips to Virginia Water. I didn’t understand. Mummy said it was because they’d got cars. When it was my turn I couldn’t think what to say so I said “my sister’s naughty sometimes.” At home, when mummy cross-examined me about my day, she was angry and told me I was the naughty one. I must never talk to anyone about what happened at home.

I kept falling asleep during lessons so you got a bed for the classroom, but I couldn’t lie on it with lots of children there. They might jump on me when I was asleep like my sister did, press the pillow over my face so I couldn’t breathe, kneel on my chest and whisper to me how they’d cut me with scissors, laugh when I cried. Mummy shouted at me when I cried: “Be quiet. Your sister will have a fit.” It was my fault she had fits, because she didn’t want me to be born.

You chose me to wear a sari in the Christmas play. I was so happy, but then I was ill. Mummy made me stay in bed. You sent me home a cake and some tinsel in a paper bag, so I knew you were thinking about me. I tied the tinsel round my bedpost. It was green and sparkly like the sari.

When we went back after Christmas, in the playground, mummy said you were dead. “You’ll have a new teacher. Stop crying. Don’t be such a baby.” The playground was very big. My sister danced around me singing, “Miss Brown has been cremated, Miss Brown has been cremated.” She was still singing it after school, all the way home.

At home, I couldn’t find Susan, my doll. Mummy said, “You don’t want that dirty old thing. I’ve thrown it away.” I begged her to get it out of the bin, but she said it was gone for ever. You can’t get things back once they’ve gone.

I miss you, Miss Brown. I never told you how much I loved you.

Wolf by Geraldine Aldridge

Wolf

I stroked a wolf.

following orders.

“Fist

not fingers.”

The wolf sniffed,

then licked my hand.

I heard a gasp.

I fell into those eyes,

 as gold as warm welsh gold

 from rugged mountains,

the colour of sunlit honey,

amber and rich.

I felt in that moment

more wolf more wolf

than ever I’ve felt human.

And something said, inside my head,

“I am Wolf.”

“Stroke his belly,

not his back,”

horsehair coarse,

tweed hacking-jacket hackles,

golden tufts woven with grey and sand.

Pinched face,

leaning, and lean,

an animal untameable.

I felt a longing, un-nameable,

a feeling I don’t get with my own kind,

to share his mind.

A Short Story

Away with the Fairies

by Geraldine Aldridge

“Candy,” called the woman. “Candy, come to mummy!”

I stopped beside her, looking down the slope to where a white Labrador frolicked in the pond far below.

“She’s having a wonderful time,” I said.

“She won’t come back,” said the woman, turning sightless eyes to me. “She’s my guide dog. I just got her. I thought she’d like a good run.”

“Surely,” I began, but, no, that conversation would take too long, and I had to think of my blood pressure, of the baby I carried inside me.

“I’ll get her for you,” I said. Well, I couldn’t leave her there, could I? Couldn’t leave a blind woman standing in the park?

I ran down the slope to the pond. I felt my baby let go! I felt the moment when she left me. I caught the dog, returned it to the woman, went home, and packed my case for the hospital.

***

She ran away from me, my Dotty, let go of my hand. She always did. This day, in the park, she ran, little dot, in her red gingham dress, hand-smocked by me, white sandals, chubby legs, plump pink starfish hands waving to keep her balance. Up the slope she ran, to the seat at the top, and fell at the feet of an elderly woman, huddled on the bench, bundled washer-woman-like against the cold.

“Uppadaisy,” she said, as she pulled herself up on the woman’s grimy skirts. I puffed up the slope, as the woman reached out a hand, black with the dirt of days, of ditches, of destitution.

“That’s my daughter,” I gasped, my eyes forbidding the woman to touch her.

Dotty reached out a soft rose-petal pink hand, and put it gently on the woman’s calloused grimy palm. As I arrived at the bench, I looked down at the woman, there on the park bench that was obviously her home, her living room, her bed chamber, for today at least. Our eyes met. In the woman’s eyes, where I expected to see dull-witted emptiness, I saw a fire, so pure an emotion, it made me shiver.

“Dirty,” said Dotty, touching with one tiny finger the woman’s blackened hand.

“I am the fairy queen,” said the woman. “I am invisible. If I didn’t cover myself with mud, nobody would be able to see me.”

“Big,” said Dotty, stretching her chubby arms wide as she tried to give the bundled-up woman a hug.

“I am big with years,” said the woman. “Every year, I get fainter and lighter. For every year, I put on another coat. Otherwise I’d disappear completely.”

“Lottsa coats,” said Dotty, and we both looked down at the top of that curly head, as she delicately folded back the edge of each coat, like the pages of an old book, of the many the woman wore.

“I’m the fairy queen,” said the woman again, her voice so soft, it jarred with her whole being. “I am as light as thistledown. If I didn’t wear a hundred coats, the breeze would blow me away.”

Dotty looked up into her eyes, and grinned. Who could resist that toothy grin?

“Dotty be fairy too,” said my little daughter, and I felt the longing in her words, saw the longing in the old woman’s eyes.

***

I remember the look in the woman’s eyes. She was mad, some would say, ‘Away with the fairies’, in a completely different world. And yet, she was in fairyland. I am here, in this world where fairies don’t exist, remembering, the day that my Dotty went there too. I still shiver, when I think of that day when my little girl let go of my hand.

***

Excerpt from Jenny and the Stone Egg by Geraldine Aldridge

Jenny and the Stone Egg

Geraldine Aldridge

                                             

Chapter 1

Eggs and Excursions

Sunday, 8^th April, 2001

   “The Stone Egg is dying,” rasped Chark, placing his tiny hand on the rough brown shell. Light from within the egg flickered as he touched it, illuminating Chark and his companions, casting shimmering shadows from their wings onto the wet walls.

   The cave smelled damp. Green slime dripped from a fang-like stalactite high in the roof and landed with a plop on Jenny’s shoulder. She flinched. Her hand clasped Sabre’s lead more tightly.

   “What laid it?” asked Mike.

Jenny heard the excitement in his voice. He’s not scared, she thought.

   “The Earth laid it,” said Chark. “Every thousand years the Earth lays a stone egg like this one, with molten lava at its heart.”

   “Up by the castle just now,” Jenny said, “you said you were looking for me. Why me?”

   “An ancient legend led us to you,” said Chark. “Only you can save the world from disaster. Something’s wrong with the egg. If it dies, life on Earth will end.”  

    “But how can Jenny help?” asked Mike. “Why Jenny?”

   He’s jealous, thought Jenny. Sabre whined and pressed against her leg.

   “Please take the egg,” said Chark, avoiding their eyes.

   “I’m not sure I want to,” said Jenny. “I’ll mess it up. Mike would love to. Why don’t you ask him? What would I do with it?”

   “Go on, Jen,” said Mike. “I’ll help you. Don’t be such a girl.”

   Just because I don’t climb every tree I pass, thought Jenny, or jump onto every wall. I hate caves. I want to get out of here. She shuddered. “Okay,” she said. “But if it dies, it won’t be my fault.”

   “We entrust it to you,” said Chark. “Guard it well. Take it.”

   The egg’s shell felt cold and rough. Chark and his companions flew to the mouth of the cave, beckoning Jenny, Mike and Sabre to follow. The two children blinked as they stepped out into the sunshine.

   Loud music blared out from Mike’s mobile. “Hi Mum,” he said into it. “Sorry, I forgot. We’re walking Sabre round the castle. Yeh, we’ll run.” He turned to Jenny. “We’re supposed to be at home, Jen,” he said. “You’re all having Sunday tea with us, remember?”

   Jenny saw the light inside the stone egg flicker and vanish, like a flame caught by a gust of wind.

   “I think the egg just died,” she whispered. “I didn’t do anything.”  It flared once more and she felt a tingling in her fingers. “Oh,” she gasped.

   “You may still save it,” said Chark.

   “I’ll try,” said Jenny, “You’ll have to tell me what to do.” She tucked the egg into her bag.

   “We’ve got to run,” said Mike. “We’ll come back tomorrow. What’s the egg going to hatch into?”

   “It isn’t going to hatch,” said Chark. “I’ll explain later.”  

   Jenny said, “We’ll have to sneak out very early in the morning. Mike’s coming to stay with us because his mum and dad are going on a geology trip, so we need to be home to see them off,” she explained to Chark. “We’re busy after that.”

   “We’ll be waiting on the bank,” said Chark, as Jenny, Mike and Sabre turned to go.

   “Well, I’ve never believed in fairies,” Jenny muttered to Mike.

   “We’re not fairies,” called Chark after her. “We’re Avielles.” As Jenny and Mike looked back, the Avielles flung cloaks around their shoulders, pulled on beaked hoods and became jackdaws again, just as they had been when the children had first met them.