Jack and Poppy came running into the kitchen making so much noise they sounded like a tractor. Or a dump truck. They stamped and stomped and hustled and bustled through the door beaming and smiling and Jack said, “Mum, see who’s with us!” And Poppy said, “It’s our cousins!” And so it was. Both the cousins. Poppy said, “We met after school and they want to go up the hill with us.”
Mum smiled and said “Well, going up the hill is fine but … does your mum know?” The two cousins nodded. “Oh, yes, Aunty. We texted her.”
So mum reached around and said what they should do before they raced away was sit down, and she’d bring all four of them a glass of milk or some yummy hot chocolate. Jack sneaked a cheeky little grin and asked if mum could also find some biscuits. Well, mum was very good at finding biscuits! Especially delicious ones.
As soon as they’d eaten, Jack and Poppy and their two cousins were up and off! Out the door they tumbled, and laughed and shrieked into the garden. Poppy looked around. “Right,” she said, “for our project what we need is a stick.” Jack said, “A long stick.” Poppy thought there was one behind the shed. “Dad doesn’t use it,” she said and they all went around and sure enough there it was. It was long and smooth and white with a bend at the top that made a sort of hook. The cousins said it would be just right for their project and they grabbed it and waved it around their heads. “See!” they said. They carried it with them and everyone set off through the gate.
And who should be coming out of her gate at exactly the same time but their kind old neighbour, Mrs Threadbare. There she was, holding her big handbag, standing by her letter box; the one with the weeds growing underneath. “Hello kids!” she said with a big, broad smile. She pushed her funny round glasses back on her nose and said, “These must be your two cousins.” Jack and Poppy said Yes they were, and the cousins smiled shyly up at this strange old lady with her floppy pink hat.
Then she reached down into her large handbag and said, “I wonder if they like lollipops as much as you two do.” Jack nudged his cousin. “Get ready,” he whispered. And out came four carefully wrapped enormous lollipops. One for everyone! So Jack and Poppy said a big ‘Thank you” and the two cousins nodded and the four of them reached up for the lollipops and began to unwrap the crackly plastic stuff.
Mrs Threadbare zipped up her big handbag and said it looked like Jack and Poppy and the cousins were heading up the hill. Jack said, “Yes. We’ve got a project.” He didn’t say exactly what their project was, though. So Mrs Threadbare pushed her funny glasses up her nose again and looked quizzically at the cousins. She asked, “A secret project? One that the grownups don’t need to know about?” And Jack and Poppy smiled and looked down at their shoes. Poppy said it was somewhat secret, but they’d tell everyone when they came back down. Jack said, “And of course we’ll be telling you, Mrs Threadbare.”
The kind old neighbour smiled her wrinkly smile and said, “That’s all good. You kids keep your secret project to yourselves. I certainly won’t ask any questions, but …” and she scratched her chin. “But I can see you need a long stick for your project. If you need two, I have a really good one I can give you.” Poppy’s eyes went wide. “Oh,” she said, “do you, Mrs Threadbare? If we had two sticks then we could all work on our secret project together.”
So Mrs Threadbare laughed and opened her gate and they all trooped around the back of her house and there, behind the lemon tree, in the corner of her section, was a most interesting stick. It was as tall as Poppy, and crooked and had knobby, prickly things along it. And because it had been near the lemon tree for a long time it was also a bit wet and gooey. Jack’s eyes were wide now. He said, “Oh, Mrs Threadbare, that’s the most perfect stick for our project!”
But his cousin wasn’t smiling. He ran his fingers along the smooth, white stick from behind Jack and Poppy’s shed and muttered, “Really? No!” He gripped his stick and shook it a bit. But Jack was holding Mrs Threadbare’s stick now and moving it around like a butterfly catching net and he said, “See! My hand gets a firm grip because of the nobly, prickly things. It’s a perfect stick!” And Poppy said, “It’s a bit longer than dad’s too.” And she and Jack carried the old stick out Mrs Threadbare’s gate along the footpath and up the hill.
Up and up the hill they climbed. Munching and sucking their lollipops and trying to not get their hands covered in sweet sticky lolly. After some time Jack’s cousin said, “You didn’t say we’d have to climb this much, Jack. I’m pooped!” But Poppy laughed and said he needed to get more fit and anyway they were almost there. And that was right. A few minutes later they came to a flatter place and stopped.
It was grassy with some trees further ahead. But right where they were standing there was a wall. An old, low wiggly wall made from big old stones with grass growing in cracks. The cousins said they thought the hill was only trees and prickly grass and stuff. But Poppy told them, No, in some places, a very long time ago, people had tried to grow things and this wall was a garden boundary. The cousins said they didn’t know about that, but the wall was probably built to show where the field ended.
The four of them clambered over the low wall and carefully lifted the two long sticks with them. Jack bent over and gave a wink and whispered, “Someone used to live here, you know.” When his cousins heard that they turned and looked behind them, just to make sure some angry old farmer wasn’t puffing and panting up the hill to his wall, waving at them and saying, ‘Go away you naughty kids!’ But Poppy said, “Jack!” And she told her cousins no-one had ever lived up here, but someone once planted trees. “Apple trees, to be exact,” she said and pointed to a big old tree to one side.
Now the cousins could see. “Ah,” they said. “So this is where we do our project!” Jack and Poppy nodded. Jack said, “Yes. That’s the apple tree I told you about. And you’re about to pick some of the best apples you will ever eat!” His cousins’ eyes went wide. They asked, “Will they be big, scrunchy, juicy, red, delicious apples?” Poppy nodded. “Scrunchier and juicier than anything you’ve ever had!” And she and Jack led the way across to the old apple tree.
Of course apple trees don’t talk. But the cousins stood underneath this one and as they peered up they felt something strange. The tree seemed to be leaning down towards them. “Is there wind making it move?” they asked. Jack looked around and shook his head and said there wasn’t any wind. Then big bunches of leaves shook slightly. The cousins saw this and felt strange again. They took a couple of steps back.
But Jack and Poppy were squinting and peering into the bunches of leaves. “Look for apples!” Jack called. So his cousins said to themselves they were imagining things and they stepped under the tree and started looking.
Poppy saw it first. “There’s one!” She pointed and then they all saw it. The perfect apple. It sat nestled into the leaves at the end of a branch, red and bulging and plump and delicious. Jack’s cousins asked, “How are we going to get it, Jack?” And Jack said they’d use their long sticks. “Watch me,” he said and carefully reached up and up with his stick and moved it so the end of the stick was resting on the side of the scrumptious apple. “Get ready to catch it,” he muttered and niggled and jiggled the apple. It didn’t move. He jiggled again. Again, the apple just sat there.
Poppy said, “Let me try.” She squiggled and diggled their long stick against the amazing apple. But it didn’t move. She said, “Bother!” Then her cousins said they could do it. “Our stick’s better than yours,” they said and they slowly pushed dad’s smooth white stick up and up towards the apple.
Just then a couple of big branches rubbed together. ‘Grooooan.’ The cousins nearly jumped out of their skin. “What was that?” they gasped. Jack said it was nothing. “Keep going,” he added. “We want that apple.”
The cousins peered up with eyes wide, but the tree wasn’t making any noises now so they moved their stick higher. And then it was resting against the apple and they jiggled it. No luck. They wiggled it. Nothing. They prodded and sodded. Again, the apple didn’t move. They said, “This isn’t working! How are we ever going to get the apple down?”
Poppy said there must be a way and she rubbed her chin between her fingers like she’d seen old Mrs Threadbare sometimes doing. Her cousins said, “The tree might be, you know, holding it.” Jack frowned at them and shook his head.
The cousins said, if their stick couldn’t budge the apple nothing could. “Your old stick isn’t good enough for the job,” they said. Jack said it was. It was long and the nobly parts made it easy to hold and turn. And he waved Mrs Threadbare’s old stick like a butterfly catching net. “See?” he said.
His cousins were just going to say something unkind about the old stick when Poppy jerked her head up. “I’ve got it!” she said. Everyone turned. “Together!” Poppy said, “We’ll reach up with both sticks at the same time and together shake the apple out of this old tree.”
So she and her cousin stood right underneath the apple and the two boys stood close and moved their two sticks up into the tree. Jack’s cousin noticed the big bunch of leaves around the apple began to shake and quiver. Slightly. Just a little. And he felt a strange cold feeling in his arms. He was going to ask Jack about those leaves, but by then the ends of the two sticks were right up at the apple and he just hoped everything was going to be Okay and gave the apple a gentle hoggle and joggle. So did Jack. Nothing happened. They paused. Again they moved their sticks. Still nothing. But once more they tried and … it popped off!
“Watch!” Poppy yelled. “Catch it!” Jack called. The girls held out their hands and squinted up. Down tumbled the juicy red apple and plonk! It landed in Poppy’s hands! She’d caught it!
Everyone was jumping and shrieking and yelling and laughing and tumbling on the grass and rolling around and waving the sticks and … so much fun. They had their apple! Project finished!
Only there were more apples up there. And the cousins got up and had a great time finding three more delicious apples and using both sticks to bring them tumbling and plopping down into the hands of the girls.
Then it was time to see who had big pockets to carry the apples down. (Jack and his cousin had the biggest pockets.) And off they went waving their sticks and talking about how delicious the apples were going to be. Down, down, along the footpath, through the gate and into the kitchen where mum and dad were sitting having a coffee with freshly cooked biscuits.
“How was your secret project?” dad asked, grinning. Jack and his cousin laughed and pulled the apples out of their pockets. Jack’s cousin said, “Our project’s been one hundred percent successful!” Mum said she’d never seen apples that big and red. Dad wanted to know where they’d found them. Jack’s cousin almost said they’d come from a haunted tree, but Poppy got in first and said they’d found them in the old garden. “That deserted orchard?” mum asked. And the four cousins nodded.
Dad said those old trees were very big, so how did they actually get the apples. Jack’s cousin explained what they’d done and then he said, “One of the sticks looked like it was no good, but in the end …” And Poppy said, “You have to try the sticks or use them together. You can’t say how good a stick is until you use it.”
Dad nodded, then said that reminded him of something that happened to Jesus. People he grew up with said Jesus couldn’t possibly be any good at teaching. But in the end he was! Poppy said, “Obviously he was!” because she and Jack had listened to lots of Bible stories about that at bedtime. “And we’re still reading what he said, all these years afterwards,” Jack added.
Mum nodded and asked if the four cousins would like to taste her biscuits and decide if they were any good. Or not. Jack smiled and said he already knew!