William by Adam Rutter

William                                                credit Adam Rutter

William is 75 years of age, and he is still quick-off-the-mark with his humour, as though he were a 20 year old. William bounces from one joke to another like a ping pong ball. When he tells the first joke, that’s what gets the ball rolling. His jokes snowball into a series of gags. Pub intended. William loves gardening. It is his usual plot. He spends most of his time by the box hedge, making sure I get box-ed in with the job. He grows potatoes, and everybody calls him Spud. William has grown a variety of flowers, including tulips, hydrangea, lupin, daffodils, not to mention a cordyline. He really has branched out with gardening. He spends a lot of time with the cats. Or the cats spend a lot of time with William. Lots of furry visitors go to his garden from around the neighbourhood. One has a thick coat and bushy tail. Its name is Millie. She loves having a lot of fuss, so much so that she follows William everywhere in the garden, putting him through the Mill-ie. William lived in a four-bedroom house, in the hamlet of Tythe Barn. Behind his house lay an empty barn. The barn had been empty for eight years. He decided to convert the barn into an annexe for his home, to accommodate his extensive collection of books on horticulture and horticultural related subjects. The barn conversion was also used as a makeshift shed, to store his pots, and plant flower bulbs. His furry friends wandered in and out. One of them knocked a pot off the table, smashing on the floor.

‘Oh Millie,’ cried William. ‘Oh well,’ he continued. ‘I won’t make a fuss-pot over it.

Grasping the Moon by Irena Szirtes

    We heard little of child abduction in1957, but I recall June and Brenda Gill disappeared while skipping in a London street, because my parents’ horror – and disbelief -  struck me hard. I was seven years old, and rural Yorkshire seemed a universe away from London. Even when I turned thirteen in Spring ’63, the moors murders were yet to shock and shake us. In my world, significant crime was rare. Everyone knew the village bobby drank with his pals at The Railway Inn well after closing time: the landlord simply locked the door. In my world, young men appeared before magistrates for something as trivial as spouting rude words at policemen. Molly, who, along with her husband Thomas, owned the Welsh pony stud I visited at weekends, was a magistrate herself, and told me how she struggled to keep a suitably grave face when offending words were passed round the bench on pieces of paper.

    I had a dedicated bodyguard, should danger dare lurk in our dale. Jess, a red terrier who kept rats from our pigeon lofts, could read ill-intent at forty paces and kept herself well primed for throat-ripping. Once turned eleven, I had permission to roam freely in her company, even attend trotting and whippet races, though Mum drew the line at Appleby Fair. It was simple: any pervert who somehow got near enough to lay a finger on me, would most definitely suffer more violence than I.

Payback Barn by Elizabeth Obadina

Torn and twisted the woman lay broken on the earth floor. Old hay bales and black pellets scattered about her body and Employment Tribunal summons fluttered from an open case whilst an Apple Mac flickered out its last charge. Shafts of morning sunlight cut between broken rafters illuminating ancient oak columns dribbled white. An upside-down chest, missing its bottom drawer hung from the barn wall and a brand-new Tesla was wedged in mud after the woman’s attempts to reverse it into the open barn door the previous evening had failed. She had misread the satnav guidance to the country hotel that was her temporary home, failed to U-turn and had been stuck in the middle of nowhere.

The woman moaned and rolled on to her good arm. The not-so good one hung limply in the ripped Versace jacket. She pushed herself to sitting and fumbled for her mobile phone – still no signal. Last night she had tried climbing higher in search of a signal – and rescue - but had been attacked.

She felt yesterday’s escape from shrieking banshees with terrifying flat white faces was yet another sign that she was one of humanity’s chosen ones, a super special being meant for higher things. A lesser mortal would have died.

Someone would find her soon. The Tesla would be sending out emergency signals and there must be search parties out looking for her. Meanwhile she could work on the reasons she’d fired half of the long-standing staff members she found lazing in the latest school she’d had to save. With her one good arm she stretched for the laptop, gathered the papers she could reach and started reading.

Watching from their nesting chest above her, a mother barn owl and four large owlets eyed the terrifying being who’d attacked their home the previous evening with a silent tractor and who’d then scrambled high holding a glittering stone aloft – aiming for their nesting chest. They’d escaped with a great deal of fluttering and shrieking and the beast had fallen – but not for long. In the morning light the monster was stirring and the owls were on high alert.

Twenty miles away, the staff of High Ridge Academy breathed a sigh of relief as it became apparent that their new principal was not going to attend the morning briefing. The sun was shining brightly and for the first time in months and months teachers began their day’s work with smiles, cheerful chatter and a profound sense of release.

The Barn by Jennie Hart

It was from their old East Yorkshire farmhouse that Lois disappeared. The house needed some repairs but was envied by all the mums and dads who brought their children to Rachel’s kindergarten. Across the farmyard were outbuildings including a fine old barn, fully weather-proof with a solid oak frame, mainly used for storing Tom’s bikes. It also housed a few bits of furniture cleared from the house when Rachel set up the nursery; a handy chest of drawers where Tom kept all things bicycle-related; a pretty wooden cot, painted in pale yellow and decorated with tiny flower fairy motifs, and a couple of kitchen chairs. It was Rachel’s daughter’s cot when she and Tom moved to the farm twenty years ago. Lois was not Tom’s daughter and five years ago she simply left in the night.

It had been a magical house but lost its charm after Lois left.

Diagnosis for Madame La Grange By Ruth Broome

 

Now!

Madame La Grange.

You are ageing, you are raging.

How the cold winds whistle through you

now,

that you are empty.

 

Now!

Madame La Grange.

You are creaking, you are leaking.

How the cobwebs collect upon you

now,

that you are useless.

 

Now!

Madame La Grange.

You are sicker, you are bitter.

How the sunlight avoids your eyes

now,

that you are haunted.

 

Now!

Madame La Grange.

You are aching, you are shaking.

How the weeds wrap up around you

now,

that you are forgotten. Now.

for more of Ruth's writing visit:  Instagram @ruthie_be_