Chapter 1: The Garden
The garden at number 44 Orchard Drive was a perfectly ordinary little garden. There was a small bumpy lawn with its fair share of dandelions and clover. There was an old rickety shed that leaned precariously among the stinging nettles. And then there were the trees: two apple trees, a cherry tree and a magnificent old oak with an enormous gnarled trunk and knobbly limbs that stretched skyward. It may not have seemed like a particularly special garden to the casual onlooker, but to Roy Nuttersley it was the perfect place. The perfect place at least to while away a few hours each day, to forget his troubles and escape the hurly-burly of everyday life.
This morning he’d woken up early and was peering through his bedroom window that looked out onto the little patch of tranquillity at the back of the house. He held the plastic binoculars that his granny had given him for his eleventh birthday to his eyes and brought the view into focus. His newly constructed bird feeders were still there swaying gently in the morning breeze. There were eight in total hanging from the branches of the two apple trees. He had designed and built them all himself and taken much time to paint them with the leftover paints his dad had stored in the shed. The birds had obviously appreciated his efforts, as they could now be seen darting here, there and everywhere, twittering in delight as they went.
Why, thought Roy, couldn’t human beings go about their lives twittering joyfully like the little birds, rather than being grumpy all the time? Although he wasn’t so sure that all parents were quite as nasty to each other as his were.
After all, he did see Samantha Bradbury’s parents smiling at each other at the school gates last Wednesday. And he could have sworn he saw two grown-ups kissing on a bus once, and he was pretty sure they were married.
As a little blue tit popped his head out of a bright orange bird feeder, Roy could hear stirring noises coming from that other habitat nearby: his parents’ bedroom. Roy’s dad was a large man in every sense of the word. Stanley Nuttersley had a large balding head, a large bulbous nose and an incredibly large tummy. His overall shape resembled a larger than life skittle. This, thought Roy, was probably down to his dad’s fondness for all things sugary and creamy; iced cream buns and liberally sugared doughnuts especially.
So it was hardly surprising that the bed should creak and groan as Stanley rolled over onto his side.
Angela Nuttersley, a rather small woman by comparison, with a turned up nose and squirrel-like features, woke up with a jolt.
“You’ve woken me up again you loathsome waste of skin,” she bellowed at her husband.
Monday morning, it seemed, was about to begin.
