The Gardening Teacher Who Was PERSEPHONE

Part One. The Car Park Was Growing

We should have known by the flowers.

They had been in the cracks round the dinner hall steps on Friday, tiny and white and open in November, and nobody had said what they were doing there. So when the car park started growing on Monday, we were not as surprised as we might have been.

A little yellow car came through the gate. It parked crooked. A lady got out, and as she walked across the tarmac, flowers popped up behind her, one after another, in all the cracks. There were daisies, and buttercups, and a very confused dandelion.

Mr Harris looked at the flowers. Then he looked at his shoes. Then he said, "Must be the weather."

It was November. It was FREEZING.

She had long brown hair, and a flower crown that she said she had "just thrown together", and she hummed when she walked. Her badge said MISS PERSEY, GARDENING CLUB. She also looked a little bit sad, like somebody who has had a lovely holiday and is thinking about the end of it.

Willow was sitting on the wall, as she does. She is the Bengal Reading Cat, and she is very dignified. She watched Miss Persey for a long moment. Then she jumped down, walked over, and sat on Miss Persey's foot.

"Oh," said Miss Persey, and she smiled. "Hello, you."

At the other end of the car park, a man in a long dark coat was standing by the boiler room door. He had a woolly hat pulled right down over his eyes and a red nose, like somebody with a cold. His badge said MR HAYDES, BOILER MAINTENANCE. The boiler had been making a long, low note since the weekend, like someone humming in a cellar, and he had come to mend it.

He did not say anything to anybody. He just stood and watched the flowers for a long time. Then he looked at his shoes and went down into the basement, and the long low note went quiet.

Part Two. The Lady at the Fence

On Tuesday, Felix noticed the lady at the fence.

She stood on the other side of the school field every morning, in a big green coat with huge pockets, watching Miss Persey through the bars. Every time Miss Persey went inside, she called out, "PERRRSY! COAT!"

Miss Persey called back, "MUM! I'M FINE!"

"That's the word," said Kenji, who is first to ask and first to notice a sound. "The one we heard on Friday, over the fence. That was her."

The lady's name was Mrs Demmer. She ran the allotments next door, where she grew the biggest marrows anyone had ever seen. She also never blinked, and Ollie said that was a bit scary.

"She just really loves her daughter," said Felix.

"She's watching her like a hawk," said Ollie.

"That's what loving somebody looks like, sometimes," said Felix.

Alex had been quietly eating an apple. He said, "And she's got seeds in every pocket, so she can look after the whole world, even when she's worried."

We all went quiet, because both of those were true, and also quite deep for a Tuesday.

As we went past, Mrs Demmer put her fist through the bars. She opened it, and in her hand there were two seeds, small and round and dark. She did not say a word. She just pressed one into Felix's palm and one into Alex's, and closed their fingers over them, and went back to staring.

"Keep it warm," she said at last, in a voice like gravel. "In case."

"In case of what?" said Alex.

But she had gone back to staring. Ollie got a peppermint, which he said made up for it a bit.

Part Three. Behind the Compost Bin

At break, Maya pulled us behind the compost bin. Maya is the one who read the whole book of Roman gods, and then the Greek one too, so we know to listen.

"Miss Persey," she said, "is PERSEPHONE."

"Is that a biscuit?" said Kenji.

"NO, Kenji."

Maya said that a very long time ago, in a country called Greece, people told stories about gods who lived on a mountain called Olympus, and that this is a religion from long ago, so she was going to say it carefully. She said Persephone is the goddess of spring. Wherever she walks, flowers grow. Her mum is called Demeter, goddess of the harvest, the one who makes wheat and apples and marrows come up. Demeter loves her more than anything in the world.

"So Mrs Demmer is Demeter," said Ollie.

"OBVIOUSLY," said Maya.

"What's the rest?" said Felix. He had noticed that she had stopped, in the way Maya stops when there is a bit coming that she would rather not say.

"There's a sad part," said Maya. "And there's a rule. But I'll tell it when we need it, because it's better in the right order."

Willow was sitting on the lid of the bin. She looked at the sky, and her tail twitched once. We took that as evidence.

Part Four. The List

Maya said that you cannot go around saying people are gods without a list. Alex held the pencil. Felix held Maya's notebook, because the twins always share the jobs, and then they swap.

"One," said Felix. "The flowers. They grow wherever she walks. On Wednesday she'll walk down the corridor, and the lino will grow a tulip."

"That is not evidence yet," said Maya. "That is a prediction."

"It is going to be a very good tulip," said Felix.

"Two," wrote Alex. "The humming. Whenever she hums, the weeds in the playground stand up straighter."

"Three," said Kenji. "The mum. And the seeds."

"Four," said Maya. "The sadness. Persephone has a secret, and it's the sort of secret that makes you look sad at the end of a nice day."

"Five," said Ollie. "She did not say what her favourite biscuit is. That is how I know she's hiding something."

"That's not on the list, Ollie."

"It is now," said Ollie.

We agreed it was the strongest list since Mr Thorley, which was the best list we have ever made, apart from item nine, which we do not talk about.

Part Five. Gardening Club

On Wednesday, we all went to Gardening Club, in the old greenhouse at the back of the field.

Miss Persey gave each of us a little pot, a trowel and a seed. The narrator's seed was a bean, Felix's was a sunflower, Alex's was a pumpkin, and Ollie's was something that looked a bit like gravel. She wrote our names on little labels in green ink, in a round, neat hand that was a bit sad at the ends.

Felix noticed that. He looked at the label for a long time. It looked just like the writing on the pot on the dinner hall step, the one that said Do not water until spring.

"Miss Persey," he said. "Did you leave a pot on the step?"

"Yes," said Miss Persey, very softly. "I'll tell you why. Later. Right now, we are planting."

Felix went first. He wanted his sunflower to be enormous, so he pushed the seed down with his whole fist, nearly to the bottom of the pot.

"Knuckle deep," said Miss Persey. "No further. It has to be able to find its way up."

Alex went next. He watered his pumpkin until the soil turned to soup and the seed floated to the top like a very small, unhappy boat.

"A little," said Miss Persey. "Then wait. Seeds don't like being rushed."

They both tried again. Felix put his seed in so shallowly that it was nearly on top, and Alex patted the soil so hard that it went flat as a pancake. We heard the pumpkin seed sigh. (We did not. But we thought it.)

Then Alex noticed what Miss Persey did with her finger. She made a hole, down to the first knuckle and no more. She dropped the seed in, and then she tucked the earth over it like a blanket.

"That's what the knuckle is for," said Alex. "It's a ruler."

"And the water's just a sprinkle," said Felix. "With your fingers. Like rain, only polite."

Alex made the hole. Felix did the sprinkle. They did it together, with one seed and then the next, and this time it looked right. Ollie's gravel went in with the others, and Ollie said it had better be worth it.

Miss Persey carried all the pots into a dark cupboard at the back and shut the door.

"Now they sit in the dark," she said. "For a long time. Nothing seems to happen."

"That sounds boring," said Ollie.

"I don't think it's boring," said Alex. "It's like when you're asleep. You look like nothing's happening, but you're growing."

"Or when you're learning to ride a bike," said Felix. "You keep falling off, but you're secretly getting better."

Miss Persey looked at them, and her whole face lit up. "Exactly," she said. "The dark isn't the end. It's where the beginning gets ready."

"Is it growing yet?" said Ollie.

"No."

"Is it now?"

"Ollie, it has been six seconds."

Part Six. The Flower

That's when it happened.

At the end of the club, Miss Persey wandered out across the field to put the watering cans away. We saw her stop. She bent down to pick a flower.

It was the most beautiful flower any of us had ever seen. It was a deep, shiny purple, with a hundred petals, and it glowed a little. It was growing right in the middle of the grass, and Felix, who notices what is odd as well as what is there, was certain that it had not been there a minute ago.

Maya said, quietly, "Don't pick it."

But Miss Persey was too far away to hear. She picked it.

And the ground cracked.

It began as a thin black line. Then it zigzagged across the grass, wider and wider, with a deep, rumbling GRRRRRRRR, and then, with a loud KRAK, the field split open like a biscuit. A cold wind came out that smelled of damp stones. And up out of the dark came a black chariot, pulled by four jet-black horses, with a man in the front.

We could not see his face. He wore a woolly hat pulled right down, and a long dark coat. He did not say anything. He reached down and picked up Miss Persey as gently as you would pick up a kitten, and set her in the seat beside him.

She dropped the flower. She said, "Oh!"

Then the horses leaped back down into the crack, and the earth SLAMMED shut behind them.

There was nothing left but a smooth patch of grass.

Willow had been closest to the crack, and she had not moved. Now she walked over and sat down very close to the smooth place, and looked at it for a long time, with her tail wrapped round her feet.

Part Seven. Half Past Two

We were still standing there with our mouths open when we heard the cry.

It was Mrs Demmer, coming through the gate at a run. She stared at the smooth patch. She stared at us. Her whole face crumpled, and she gave a great, deep, wobbling cry that sounded like a broken heart.

And the world went cold.

It began with the leaves. Every leaf on every tree turned brown at the same time and fell. The flowers curled up. The marrows in the allotment shrank, and wrinkled, and went black. The grass crunched, and then it was white with frost, and then it started to snow, in the middle of the afternoon.

In the dinner hall, the potatoes turned to stone. Mrs Ibbs wrote "HIGHLY UNUSUAL" on the menu board, in black ink.

"It can't be winter," said Mr Harris. "It's only half past two."

Mrs Demmer sat down in the middle of the playground with her arms round her knees. "I can't make anything grow," she said, in a voice with no gravel left in it. "Not until she's home."

Mrs Tibbs came across the playground with a blanket and a flask. She put the blanket round Mrs Demmer's shoulders and sat down in the snow beside her, and she said, "I'll stay with you. I'm not going anywhere." Every other grown-up was running about shouting, "Check the boiler!"

We stood in the snow in a small group, shivering. Felix's seed was still in his pocket, warm and round. He held it tight.

Part Eight. The Rest of the Story

"I know where she's gone," said Maya.

We went behind the compost bin, which was frozen solid. Elfine and Marion were there already, because they had seen everything from the big kids' window. Marion had a stopwatch round her neck. She had had it since her last birthday, and she said it was for emergencies.

"This is the sad part," said Maya. "And the rule." She took a deep breath. "In the old story, a god called Hades takes Persephone down to the Underworld. It's a deep, quiet place under the ground, where people go when they've died. He's the king of it. He is not evil. He is fair, and very rich, because everything shiny under the ground is his, like gold and diamonds. But he is very, very lonely. Nobody ever visits him."

"So he took her because he wanted company," said Kenji.

"Yes. But he didn't ASK her. And that's the whole problem."

"You have to ask," said Felix.

"And you have to listen to the answer," said Alex.

"And then there's the rule," said Maya. "If you eat the food of the Underworld, you belong there a little. A little time for each seed. And in the old tellings, she did eat some pomegranate seeds. Nobody agrees how many. Or how long she stays. People tell it all different ways."

"Pomegranates have hundreds of seeds," said Elfine, "so it's a good thing it's only a few."

Everyone looked at her.

"I'm just saying," said Elfine.

Felix had been quiet. He was looking at the smooth place on the field, where a chariot had gone into the ground and not left a mark.

"The man in the chariot wore a woolly hat," he said. "A big one. Pulled right down. Who wears a woolly hat inside a school?"

"The new boiler man," said Alex.

Felix said, "And where's the one place at school that's under the ground?"

"Oh," said Ollie.

And we all said it together: "THE BOILER ROOM."

Part Nine. The Stairs

The boiler room is in the basement. The door is heavy and grey, and it is always locked and always really cold.

That afternoon, it was open.

There was a gap, just wide enough for us. A cool, dark breeze drifted through. Far below, something glowed, faintly, like a lantern.

"I'll stay here," said Marion, holding up the stopwatch. "If you're not back in an hour, I'm telling Mr Harris everything. Every single bit. Even the bit about the dog."

"What dog?" said Ollie.

"I don't know yet," said Marion. "I'm being prepared."

Elfine stayed with her. Mrs Tibbs and Mrs Demmer were out in the snow where we could see them from the door, and Marion said she would shout if anything happened.

Felix stood at the top of the steps, and his knees would not do what he told them.

"What if I'm too scared?" he said.

"Then I'll hold your hand," said Alex. "And if I get scared, you can hold mine."

Felix thought about that. Then he put his hand in Alex's. Alex said, "Seeds sit in the dark and nothing seems to happen, remember? And then something does."

"Right," said Felix. He swallowed. "Right. Let's go and ask for it back."

It was Willow who went first. She did not look round. She walked down the first step, with her tail up, and then the next. We went after her.

It was a very long staircase. It felt like it went down much further than the school. The walls were black stone, and every few steps a small blue flame flickered in a hole in the wall. Our breath came out in clouds. Somewhere, a long way off, water was dripping.

Ollie held the back of my jumper. Kenji held the back of Ollie's. Alex and Felix went at the front, side by side, with their chins up, though both their knees were knocking.

At the bottom, there was a huge iron gate, with bars as thick as my arm. And in front of the gate, curled up asleep, was THE DOG.

Part Ten. The Dog

It was the size of a van. It was black, with fur like wet coal, and it had THREE HEADS.

All of them were asleep, and they were snoring in three different rhythms. Huff-huff. Wheeeeze. Snrrk.

"That's Cerberus," whispered Maya. "He guards the gate, so that nobody leaves."

"He's got three heads," said Kenji.

"I know."

"That's a LOT of teeth."

"I KNOW."

Just then the middle head opened one eye. The left head woke, and sniffed. Then the right. All three noses twitched, all three pairs of eyes found us, and one of the heads gave a growl so deep that the floor shook.

"Run?" whispered Ollie.

"Wait," said Felix, in a trembling voice.

Willow walked out in front of us. She walked right up to the middle of those three huge heads, and she sat down, in the space between two paws the size of dustbin lids. Then she lifted one back leg, and she washed it.

We could hardly breathe. It is not a thing you do in front of a dog the size of a van. It is a very dignified thing, though, and it is brave, because it says: I am not afraid of you, and I am not in a hurry.

The growl stopped, and the three heads leaned down and sniffed her, one at a time.

"He's hungry," said Alex quietly. "No. He's more than that. Listen." Under the growling, there was a thin, high whine, like a dog that has been left. "I think he's lonely," Alex said. "Like a dog that's been waiting for somebody for a long time."

"And hungry," said Felix. "Dogs are always hungry."

Felix took out his lunchbox, with his hand shaking so much that the cheese rattled, and held his cheese sandwich up to the middle head. Together, Alex took out his ham one, with his hand shaking just as much, and held it out to the left head.

"Maya," said Kenji. "Is this a good idea?"

"It is the only idea," said Maya. "But I would like it written down," "that this is an Underworld dog, and you must NEVER do this with a real one. You ask whoever owns it first."

Two heads leaned forward. Four nostrils sniffed. Two enormous mouths opened. GULP. GULP. Both sandwiches were gone.

The right head still had nothing, so it growled. Ollie, shaking so hard he could hardly stand, held out a packet of crisps. The right head ate the crisps, packet and all.

For a moment nothing happened. Then all three tails began to wag, together, so hard that the dungeon shook. The left head licked Alex's face. The middle head licked Felix's face. The right head licked Ollie's face and sneezed.

"They just wanted to be fed," said Kenji, in a very high voice.

"Everybody does," said Maya.

Part Eleven. The Whispers

The iron gate creaked open all by itself.

On the other side there was a long, dark hallway with no end. Shadows crawled along the walls and ceiling, and they did not look like the shadows of anything.

Then the shadows began to whisper.

"You're too small…"

"You'll never find her…"

"Go home…"

"You're not clever enough…"

"Just sit down, and rest…"

It was horrible. The voices crept into our ears and tugged at our thoughts. Ollie sat down on the floor with a bump, and he did not get up. Kenji went very quiet. I felt a heavy, cold feeling in my stomach. The shadows grew bigger, and louder, and they began to close in.

Alex had gone very pale. He opened his mouth, and for once he could not think of a thing to say.

"They're saying things we're already scared of," whispered Felix. He had both his hands clenched, and he was looking hard at the nearest shadow, the way you look at something to see how it works. "That's how it knows. It's using our own words. So what's the opposite? What's the opposite of too small?"

"True things," said Alex slowly.

"True things about each other," said Felix. He turned to Alex. "You noticed the dog was lonely, and nobody else did. That's why we're not eaten."

Alex swallowed. "And you went down the stairs first, when you were so scared your knees were knocking."

"Kenji asked the question that got us here," said Maya.

"Ollie remembered his crisps," said Kenji, very quietly. "Without them, we'd all be a snack."

Ollie looked up from the floor. His eyes were wet. "Maya read the whole book," he said. "Twice. She knew where to go."

"Kenji and Ollie kept hold of each other the whole way down," said Alex, "and they never let go once."

The shadows hissed. They flickered. One by one they dwindled, and slid back into the walls like water down a drain. The whispers faded to nothing, and the hallway was only a hallway, with a little blue lantern at the end.

Ollie stood up. He did not say anything. He brushed off his trousers and took hold of my jumper again.

Part Twelve. The Bench

At the end of the hallway there was a small room, and we stopped there, because our legs had gone wobbly.

It was the quietest room we had ever been in. There was a stone bench along one wall, and a long row of hooks with only one coat on them. In the middle was a little table with one plate, one spoon and one cup. There was a lot of dust on the other chairs, because nobody had pulled them out for a very long time.

"It's laid for one," said Alex, softly.

"I think this is where he has his tea," said Felix.

Nobody said anything for a bit. We sat on the bench in a row. Willow got into Kenji's lap, which she never does, and curled up, and Kenji put both hands on her back and stopped shaking. Maya let us each have a corner of the last biscuit in her pocket, and Ollie gave his back, and then took it again.

"Poor man," said Kenji.

"He still shouldn't have done it," said Alex.

"No," said Felix. "But you can feel sorry for someone and still tell them."

We sat there a minute longer. Then Willow got down, and shook her whiskers, and we went on.

Part Thirteen. The King

Beyond the little room was a high, wide hall with a ceiling full of glittering stones. There were diamonds the size of footballs, rubies the size of apples, and gold that shone like honey. In the middle was a long black table with two chairs.

In one chair sat Miss Persey. She was holding a small red fruit, with its skin split open to show hundreds of shiny seeds like tiny jewels.

In the other chair sat a man in a long dark coat, with a woolly hat pulled down over his eyes. He looked up as we came in. He took off the hat.

Underneath, he was quite ordinary. He had a pale, tired face, and kind grey eyes, and a nose a bit red from the cold. His badge said MR HAYDES, BOILER MAINTENANCE.

"Oh," he said, in a quiet, sad voice. "Visitors."

He looked genuinely surprised, as though he had not had visitors for a very long time. Willow walked up to him and sat on his boot, and he looked down at her, and did not seem to know what to do with his hands.

"Would you like some soup?" he said. "I have soup. It's only from a tin."

"Is it the kind that makes you stay?" said Ollie.

"It's tomato," said Mr Haydes.

Maya read the tin. It was tomato. Ollie had two bowls.

Part Fourteen. He Didn't Ask

Felix put down his spoon. Alex put down his. They stood up together, and for a moment we were all too nervous to speak.

"Excuse me, Mr Haydes," said Felix. "Did you ask Miss Persey if she wanted to come?"

Mr Haydes looked down at his hands. "No," he said.

"That wasn't very kind," said Alex.

"I know," said Mr Haydes. "I've been thinking about it all afternoon. I went to your car park on Monday, to say hello. I stood there for two days. I could not do it. I'm not very good at talking to people. I saw a girl who made flowers grow, and I thought, 'She must be wonderful,' and I thought, if I could only bring her here, she might stay." He sighed. "I didn't think what it would be like for her. That is the worst of it."

"It doesn't work like that," said Felix.

"But being lonely is really hard," said Alex. "If you want a friend, you can ask someone. Even if you're scared they'll say no."

Mr Haydes stared at him. "That sounds terrifying."

"It is," said Alex.

"Actually," said Miss Persey, "he's been very polite since I came. He made me a cup of tea. And he's said sorry about eight times."

Mr Haydes went pink.

"But I miss my mum," said Miss Persey. "And the sun. I can hear her crying all the way down here. The flowers are dying, and it's my fault."

"It's not your fault," said Felix.

"It's definitely his fault," said Alex.

"It's definitely my fault," said Mr Haydes.

Then Miss Persey looked down at the red fruit in her hand, and her face fell.

"There's another problem," she said. "I was so hungry. I ate six of the seeds before I remembered."

"The pomegranate," whispered Maya. "The rule."

"It's a very old rule," said Mr Haydes. He gave a helpless shrug. "If you eat the food down here, you belong a little. A little time for each seed. I didn't make it. Nobody can break it, not even me."

Miss Persey's eyes filled with tears. "So I'll have to stay six whole months, and everything up there will be winter, and Mum will be so sad, and the farmers, and the fields, and..."

She stopped.

Part Fifteen. Six Seeds

"Wait," said Alex. He had been counting on his fingers, the way he does when nobody has noticed. "Six seeds. Six months."

"But that's only half a year," said Felix.

"So the other half..." said Alex.

"She can go home," said Felix.

Everybody turned to look at them.

"Two homes," said Felix. "One down here, one up there."

"And she can be the queen of both," said Alex.

"In the old tellings, nobody can agree how many seeds there were," said Maya, very fast. "So you could say it's flexible."

There was a long silence. Mr Haydes slowly said, "I hadn't thought of that."

"I could be with you in the winter," said Miss Persey, "when everything's asleep and the world needs a quiet time. And I could be with Mum in spring and summer, when everything's growing." She looked round the glittering room. She looked at Mr Haydes, holding his woolly hat, looking a bit hopeful and a bit scared. "I think I can love two places at once."

She turned to him. "But I would like you to ask me properly. If I'm going to come back every winter, I want it to be because I want to, and not because I was taken."

Mr Haydes stood up very straight. He took a deep breath, the kind you take before jumping into a cold swimming pool.

"Persephone," he said. "Would you do me the honour of coming to stay with me for the winter? Every winter. And if you say no, I will understand."

She smiled, the first real smile we had seen all day.

"Yes," she said. "Thank you for asking."

Felix felt in his pocket for the seed Mrs Demmer had given him. Alex felt in his. They held them out together.

"These are for you," said Felix. "To look after, while she's away. You put it knuckle deep, in the dark, and a sprinkle of water, and then you wait."

"A seed," said Mr Haydes. He held it as if it might break. "I have never grown anything." Then he looked round at all that gold. "I have a great deal of earth, though. It is the one thing I have too much of."

Part Sixteen. The Way Up

"There's one more problem," said Maya. "It's nearly home time, and it's a very long way up."

Mr Haydes snapped his fingers. A gust of wind swirled through the hall. "I'll send word up to Mrs Demmer," he said, "so she does not have to wait one minute more. I know the fastest messenger there is. He never takes the stairs." There was a small, silvery noise, like somebody's shoes, far away, going very fast. "And there is the chariot, for you."

The chariot was black, with silver wheels, and the four horses were as gentle as great black cats. We all fitted, just. Ollie sat next to Miss Persey, and Willow sat on the front seat and looked ahead, like a very dignified figurehead. We went up through the gate (Cerberus barked three happy barks) and up, and up, through the dark, into a crack of grey light that widened, and widened, and opened out on the school field, in the snow.

Marion was standing by the smooth patch with the stopwatch. "Fifty-eight minutes," she said. "Thank goodness. I had a whole speech."

And then Mrs Demmer was running, with Mrs Tibbs's blanket coming off behind her, and Miss Persey was running, and they hugged for about six minutes.

And everything bloomed. The leaves burst back onto the trees, which are not supposed to be in leaf in November, and looked a bit embarrassed. Daffodils shot up through the snow. The marrows in the allotment swelled until they were the size of small cars. The potatoes in the dinner hall turned back into potatoes, and Mrs Ibbs crossed out HIGHLY UNUSUAL and wrote BACK TO NORMAL.

Mr Harris stood in the playground, wiping his glasses. "Well," he said. "That was a funny sort of afternoon."

Nobody told him.

Part Seventeen. A Pot on the Step

Later, when the snow had gone and the sun was out, Miss Persey knelt in front of us in the greenhouse.

"Thank you," she said. "Do you know what you did?"

We shook our heads.

"You were scared, and you went down anyway. You looked after a lonely dog, and a lonely king, and each other. And you found a kind answer when everybody else could only see a problem." She looked at Alex and Felix. "Especially you two. You held on to each other the whole way. That's the best thing there is."

"We have to go back, don't we?" said Felix. "Every winter."

"I do," said Miss Persey. "Next autumn, when the leaves come down, I'll go below for the cold months, and Mr Haydes has promised to ask nicely every year. Mum knows. She's learning to let me go, and I'm learning to come home. It's how the seasons work. Winter isn't a punishment. It's a long sleep, where seeds get ready."

She said it slowly, so we could say it back.

"I am a seed. The dark is where I grow."

"So when I'm scared," said Felix slowly, "I'm just in the dark part."

"And then something grows," said Alex.

"Mr Haydes is in the dark part too," said Kenji.

"And now he has two seeds," said Ollie. "So he's growing."

She laughed, a real laugh. Then she took a small brown pot from her bag, with a label in green ink. Do not water until spring.

"That's the one from the step," she said. "I left it there on Friday. I knew I'd be going away, and I wanted something at the school to be waiting for me. Will you look after it? Don't water it. It's asleep."

"We'll look after it," said Felix and Alex.

Then she opened the cupboard door. Our pots were all there, and they were all in flower. Felix's sunflower was taller than he was. Alex's pumpkin had a little yellow flower on it, and mine was a bean as high as my knee.

Ollie's pot was last. Out of the gravel, there was a small round grey thing, like a pebble, with a tiny white flower on top.

"That's a stone plant," said Miss Persey. "They are real. They are very, very patient."

Ollie said it was the best thing he had ever grown, and it was also the only thing.

Part Eighteen. The Wrong Way Round

We walked home across the car park in the long gold light. Mrs Demmer was at the fence, calling, "PERRRSY! COAT!" and Miss Persey was calling back, "MUM! I'M COMING!" She was happier than we had ever seen her.

Kenji was the first to notice the postman.

He came in through the gate, walking backwards. He did not look behind him once. He walked straight past the bin, and the bench, and the bike racks, and he did not bump into any of them. He had a red jacket, a big satchel, and white trainers, and something on his heels was flapping, though there was no wind.

"The gate didn't open," said Ollie.

"It's always open," said Maya.

"It didn't open for him," said Ollie, and he rubbed his eyes. "I had my eye on it. He was not there, and then he was."

The postman swung round, with a whistle and a big smile, as if he had known all along that we were looking. He tipped his cap. Then he turned the other way, and walked off backwards, whistling, round the corner of the dinner hall, and was gone.

Willow's ears went up. The little purple flowers by the gate leaned, all together, towards the corner where he had gone.

Alex looked at the corner. Felix looked at the gate.

"Monday," they said, at exactly the same time.

The End.