The sun streamed its strip through the sky and across the land. A medium sized belt of grass soaked it through to it’s entirety and as a gentle breeze glided through the air, I not only saw it rustle rudely through the green pins but felt it separating my lovely long locks. I placed my hand with my fingers spread open into the mini field and patted the grass as if to let it know that all would be ok. I was sat with my knees bent and carefully observing my surroundings. Little faces like mine bopping about almost everywhere. Heads of various heights, some standing motionless where others ran round frantically. Balls of different shapes and sizes bounced along the concrete, some at a high velocity, others just simply vertically in slow motion. Tennis balls, bouncy balls, footballs, basketballs and even the odd cricket ball. I was surrounded by individual laughter and groups chanting away at each other. The big, stone, rocket wall marked the divide of the concrete and the grass. I call it a rocket wall but really I don’t know what it was supposed to be. It was a big, tall wall made of stone and had slight edges or legs, which came off from the sides. It wasn’t round, but square and flat and level. Maybe I called it a rocket wall because of the three round circles that were painted along the top. I guess the circles reminded me of windows on a cartoon rocket. Lee Bingham and Tom Ashforth were playing football on the green. They were the big boys and I didn’t like them.
I focused straight ahead of me at the very lush growth of Boxwood. I squinted my eyes and narrowed down my vision to one particular part of the bush. I caught sight of a tiny woodlouse crawling hurriedly along the bottom. It’s hard, shell-like exterior always reminded me of an armadillo, despite that they were both very different in size. I toppled my mini armadillo over with a stick and watched it attempt to run in the air, it’s white front exposed for all to see. Aside me was a little cardboard box, which the babysitter had cut out from a cereal box for me. She had folded it up along the dotted lines to form its shape and had carefully placed the plastic magnifier along the top. I affectionately named this object my Bug Catcher. With the thin stick in my right hand and the catcher in my left, I scooped up the woodlouse into it and quickly closed it. Looking through the top I could see my treasure though the plastic ten times magnified. I was incredibly pleased with myself. A shadow cast itself in front of me along the grass and using my hand as a visor I looked to see who it was. “What you doing?” asked the croaky, yet instantly recognizable voice. It was Daniel. He was stood there in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and I glanced up at him past his skinny legs. “Not much, looking for bugs. Look what I found” I replied, showing him my captive. He took the box from my hand and shook it round a little to get a better glimpse, all the while pushing his square-shaped glasses back up on the ridge of his nose. “Cooooool”. He knelt down beside me and started to fire fact after fact at me about the common woodlouse. I wasn’t really listening, though. There was only so much I could take in of Daniel’s documentaries. “There,” he said, “I got you these from our garden because I know you like to keep them.” He handed me a small, black cylinder. The lid had a ring running round the top, which appeared to be indented. It was, in fact, the little black pots camera films came in only when I opened it up, instead of finding a roll of film I found damp soil squashed and compacted inside. I topped it against the side of my palm until it started to crumble out onto my hand. Out came the soil making my skin light to the touch through its wet, clingy substance and with it popped out two earthworms. I prodded them and turned them over and smiled. Ever since I can remember I wanted to build my own worm farm but my parents weren’t keen on the idea and so I took to gathering them up in film pots from the garden and when Liam told me that worms regenerate, I took a handful and chopped them up to test the theory.
I woke up, stretching every limb as if they could go further than they really could. A bit like Reed Richards from the Fantastic 4. I wasn’t, however, in my room. Blue stripes on a cream background covered the walls instead of the usual multitude of coloured carebears. There were twin beds on opposite sides of the room separated by a car play mat on the floor. I was, in fact, in my brothers’ room. This was becoming quite the norm. I would fall asleep in my own bed in my own room staring at the three spotlights on my ceiling and my slumber would take me to a completely different world. A world where the characters from my favourite soap programme were somewhere where it was incredibly brilliantly white all around and they were all stood in a line queuing along a staircase in front of a large, white, circular entrance. It often reminded me of a polo mint. I didn’t know where the entrance led to but I did know that something unwelcoming awaited them at the bottom of the slide. And as each of them stepped forward to place themselves ready for a ride on the slide I knew they wouldn’t be coming back and I tried and tried to tell them not to go. But my attempts were futile. This dream happened again and again, over and over. To the point where I started to blame the spotlights for they were the last things I saw when I fell asleep. These night terrors resulted in my trying to console myself through the tears, often crying extensively loudly so that my parents would allow me to sleep in their tiny thing of a bed. But usually I snuck into the boys’ room and into Nick’s bed until the effects from the tears took its toll and I was well on my way to a nicer world.
I was officially eight and I smiled a big smile as I placed a dangerously thin headband on my head and tucked it right behind my ears so that my fringe loosely fell onto my forehead. As I hopped the last two steps of the staircase I noticed a figure gradually getting closer through the porch window. I stopped to see who it was. I noticed the knees and legs first which were predominantly bowed outwards. And the shorts, which stopped politely just before the knees. The ever so blonde kiss curl at the front at the top of the forehead and lastly, the squared glasses. It was, of course, Daniel. I opened the door to see what he was carrying in long, scraggy arms. It was some kind of plant or another. As he got to the door he pushed his glasses back up on the ridge of his nose and straightened out his face. “I got you this for your birthday, Mimi.” He stretched out his arms and held the plant as if to suggest I should take it from him. “What is it?” “It’s an orange tree.” I took it from him and looked at it more closely and curiously. It was buried in a small; chuck berry red pot, which curved inwards along the centre. It was small for a tree, only about ten or eleven inches but then I always considered trees to be ready-made as you see them in the forest. The leaves were all speckled with dirt and there were about fifteen oranges on it in total. They didn’t look like oranges, though. “They’re a bit small to be oranges aren’t they?” I asked dubiously. “They’re supposed to be like that. It’s still only a small tree which means the oranges won’t get very big.” “Does that mean they won’t grow as big as the ones in the fruit shop?” “No, at least I don’t think. Well not yet, anyway. I think when the tree gets big like all the others, the oranges will get bigger, too.” I poked my finger at soil and pushed it round. “What are these little white bits inside? Is it some kind of plant food?” “Well I thought that, too, but my mum says that it’s the soil. She said that you can get different soil for different plants and some plants need it with stones and gravel and other just have it without.” “Oh, ok. What’s gravel?” “Umm, I think it’s like a mixture of stones.” “You mean like what you sometimes find on the beach?” “No, I think those are shells.” “Oh, ok.” I turned the pot around to see the orange tree at different angles and though I felt unsure about it at first, it was starting to grow on me. I had something of my very own to look after. I placed my face within the leaves to try to smell the oranges but I couldn’t smell anything. They all seemed to be mainly growing on one side of the tree, but that didn’t matter. I was going to look after this tree and one day it was going to be like all the other trees in the forest and then I could eat oranges everyday if I wanted. It then occurred to me how significant oranges actually were to me and that Daniel had picked an orange tree and not a lemon or plum or a pear one.
I usually sat on my own during lunchtime at school. Daniel had sandwiches so he sat with the other children who also brought sandwiches in to eat. I had hot dinners and didn’t like the food. Ugly, fat, green peas were loaded on to my tray but they never stayed fat for long because I would crush them with my fork and push them to one side. I didn’t seem to like any of the main meals or especially the vegetables. In fact, Mrs Briggs picked up on this and felt it her duty to do something about the matter. She sat with me for the entire lunch hour, every lunch hour. She was not content that I only wanted to eat my desserts, which were nothing like the usual pudding and custard or treacle that everyone else had. I simply wanted oranges. And oranges I had. I sat down and would pick up a slice of orange and sucked it dry, placing it fully in my mouth at the same time so that when I smiled, I had an orange smile.
Our back garden was a world full of life and adventures behind the greenhouse. The most beautiful flowers you could ever imagine. In particular, a bush of purple flowers, which drooped downwards like bells but strayed outwards at the sides with their two antenna- like strands falling out from inside. And when you looked inside they had the most magnificent pink colour all around and smelt so sweet. Then there was the hidden corner at the back of the garden. That was where the best things were kept. A whole corner dedicated to the red, seeded, heart-shaped fruit, which I loved so much. Sometimes Daniel would stand there just looking at them and then my dad would lumber next to him and look down at him looking down at the strawberries. And he would say “They’re not ready to eat yet.” In his most jolly giant-like voice, and Daniel would look up at him and then back down at the yumberries.
I looked at Daniel and he looked at me. I placed the orange tree down on the porch and sat on the step. Daniel sat down next to me and as we both stared out at the street which was known as Gainsborough Road, his hand slid on top of mine which was laid flat against the cold slab. I smiled and sighed but I knew, which was the most important thing. We both did.