Apple Turnover

Daisy awoke to the sound of a rooster crowing.  She stretched her arms, legs and yawned. She wondered how early it actually was and jumped out of bed. She peeked through the crack in the door; there was no sign of life. It was so quiet in the house that she could hear the grandfather clock ticking away in the hallway downstairs. Daisy twitched her nose and sniffed deeply and she was disappointed that there was no smell of char grilled toast in the air. She tiptoed back to bed and sat thinking what could she do without making a single sound. She had already finished reading her fairytale book. Daisy’s eyes scanned the room. It was a lovely breezy sunny summer morning. Everything in the room had a warm yellow glow. She imagined that she was a very rich princess living in a huge golden castle and everything around her, her clothes, and all that she ate was gold in colour.

All at once a gust of wind blew the bedroom curtains wide open. A sheet of paper from Daisy’s desk took flight and landed on her bed. Daisy smiled, her eyes widened and sparkled as a clever idea just popped into her head. She sat at her desk and quietly drew a castle. In the castle tower stood a beautiful princess with hair as long as to the ground. The castle was surrounded by a moat with ten swans and far away as the princess could see were many apple and pear trees. Daisy’s drawing was now complete and she carefully folded the picture and wrote “To Grandma, with lots of love, Daisy”. Daisy heard her mother from downstairs shout breakfast and she quickly got washed and dressed in her Sunday best. She put the drawing in the pouch of her purple and white checked summer dress and headed downstairs.

Daisy sat at the kitchen table hoping it was really Sunday. She asked her mother just to be sure and was pleased with the reply. Daisy picked the thick slice of toast from her plate and gazed at the blob of butter melting and drifting aimlessly. She imagined that she was a big white polar bear standing on the smallest iceberg. Daisy’s mother asked her to stop daydreaming and to eat her breakfast before it got cold. Daisy gulped down the fresh orange juice, gobbled down her toast and then asked if she could go to grandmas now. Daisy’s mum reminded her to take the warm homemade bread.

Daisy left the house skipping and humming while clenching the bread bag close to her chest. Her mother shouted down the footpath, ‘tell grandma that you need to be home at 12 noon for lunch’, and Daisy nodded while checking out all the colourful gardens, smelling the flowers on her way to grandmas, and especially keeping her eye out for ‘butterflies’. Daisy was old enough to visit grandma safely on her own as she lived close by. Daisy lived in the middle of Apple Street and at the end of Apple Street to the left was Apple Terrace where Grandma’s house stood about halfway along.

As Daisy approached the end of Apple Street, she did not see the little boy hiding behind the hedge on the wall. The boy shouted ‘apple turnover’ and Daisy dropped the bread bag with fright. The boy swung round on the street poll landing on the loaf of bread and sped off without even saying sorry. Daisy bent down and picked up the crumpled bread bag. As Daisy stood up she could not believe her eyes. All the garden flowers had no petals, the trees had no leaves and there was garbage everywhere. Every house window was bare and she thought this was rather strange.

Daisy finally reached grandma’s front door. She reached for the door handle but it was not in its normal place. It sat high above on the opposite side. She also noticed that the house number had changed from 69 to 96. She thought this must be grandma’s house as it was the only house on the street that had a purple front door. She knocked on the door and entered shouting hallo grandma and she recognised the voice from the back of the house saying ‘ollah’. Daisy headed towards the kitchen and handed over the crumpled bread bag and apologised for the state of it and spoke of her journey.

Daisy asked her Grandma why all the gardens and trees were bare. Grandma replied, ‘not long before you arrived there was some hard wind but no worries my dear everything will soon grow back’. Daisy remembered about the drawing in her pouch and handed it over. Grandma was delighted with the drawing and Daisy stuck it on the fridge door. Grandma noticed that the drawing was stuck upside down and asked Daisy to correct it but Daisy was certain it was already the right way up. Grandma then asked Daisy to go upstairs and fetch an apron from the top drawer of the dresser as they were going to do some baking. Daisy opened the drawer and the aprons fell in a heap on the floor. Daisy flipped the drawer over and packed everything in as neatly as she could. She put the white apron on and glanced in the full length mirror. Grandma’s ‘black’ apron was so long that Daisy could not see her feet. She lifted the apron as if she was wearing a ballroom dress and headed back to the kitchen. Grandma then asked her to get two eggs from the basket but when Daisy looked there sat a hen on the basket. Daisy pointed while looking at grandma and shrieked, ‘there is a hen on the basket’. ‘No there isn’t’, grandma replied and Daisy looked to the basket and sure enough there was no hen. Daisy picked the egg basket and placed it on the kitchen table. Grandma then asked Daisy to fetch butter and milk from the fridge. Daisy opened the fridge door and picked up the butter dish and milk carton but they were both empty. Daisy looked down at her feet and there was a puddle of milk with a block of butter floating in it. Grandma said, ‘never mind I have plenty more, go and fetch the flour from the cupboard while I clean this little accident up’. Daisy stood on the stool and opened the cupboard door. She carefully picked up the bag of flour and placed it on the worktop. Daisy could not believe her luck and thought nothing could go wrong this time. As Daisy stepped of the stool, picked up the flour bag and turned around there was a cloud of white smoke. There stood a ghostly figure. Poor Daisy was covered from head to toe in flour. Grandma told Daisy to go into the back garden to remove the apron and shake off the flour. Daisy then returned to the kitchen but Grandma was still busy cleaning. Grandma asked Daisy to place the crumpled bread on the bird table in the back garden while she finished and then she would bring out some lemonade and cookies. Piece by piece Daisy placed the bread on the bird table. She noticed a black tail curling around the post of the bird table, and then a head appeared with long whiskers and bright green eyes. Daisy turned round and shouted to grandma there is a cat on the bird table. Grandma stood at the kitchen door and looked and said, ‘there is nothing there’ and Daisy looked back and sure enough Grandma was right again. Daisy continued to put pieces of bread on the bird table.

Not long after grandma came into the back garden with a tray of cookies and two glasses of fizzy lemonade. Grandma smiled and said, ‘you are such a dozy Daisy daydreamer. You are so much like me when I was a little girl living in this house’. Daisy was so proud to be like her grandma. They both sat drinking lemonade in the heat of the sun and Daisy listened to stories of grandma’s childhood.

Grandma was interrupted by the church bells. It was time for Daisy to head back home for lunch. Daisy kissed, hugged and waved her grandma goodbye. She ran to the end of Apple Terrace. She looked out for the little boy but he was nowhere to be seen. A butterfly landed on her summer dress only for a few seconds and fluttered high into the sky. Daisy watched with excitement and noticed that the street sign was upside down. Daisy climbed onto the wall and stretched up and fixed the sign and slid down the street pole. She heard grandma’s voice in the distance, ‘see you next week Daisy’. Daisy looked back and waved to Grandma. Daisy was surprised to see that all the gardens were bursting with colourful flowers again, all the trees were thick with leaves. On every house window hung curtains. All the garbage disappeared from the street. Daisy remembered the boy shouting ‘apple turnover’. She also remembered about all the strange things that happened at grandma’s house earlier that day. Could it mean that the street sign had magical powers turning everything upside-down and back-to-front? Daisy did not dare tell her mother how her day really went as she thought no one would actually believe her and any way it was a special adventurous secret of her own to keep.