Tilly's Moonlight Garden by Julia Green

Author:Julia Green
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Published: 2012-08-16T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Tilly woke up, late, to a different sound: music. Granny was singing along to the radio. By the time she’d got dressed and gone downstairs, Granny had already flung open all the windows to let in the fresh air. Light flooded the house, but it was so cold!

“You’ll need at least two extra thick sweaters on today, Tilly!” Granny said. “Inside and out!”

The house already seemed different with Granny sorting things out. The washing machine was whirring in the kitchen, and sheets and blanket covers were hung out on a line across the lawn.

Tilly looked at the clock. It was half past nine already! She’d forgotten all about school and so had Granny. Neither of them mentioned it. It was as if they both agreed that there was something more important to be done today. The horrible feeling in her stomach she got when it was a school day began to ebb away.

“Your dad’s already gone back to the hospital. He sent his love. Your mom’s doing fine. We’ll go and see her later,” Granny said.

After breakfast, Granny put on her coat. “Right. Now you can show me the garden.”

Tilly took the crusts from her toast with them. She showed Granny how the birds flew down from the tree to be fed. The robin perched on the bench again. Granny followed behind while Tilly took the route down the path next to the raspberry bushes, down to the apple trees and along past the prickly bushes (gooseberries, Granny said) to the clump of funny nobbly pink stumps (rhubarb) and the hedge with leaves on it (beech). Granny kept stopping to look closer at dried up bits of plants.

“Look, Tilly!” Granny was smoothing away dead leaves to show her something hidden underneath.

Tilly saw tiny pink flowers with petals like folded-back ears, and gray-green heart-shaped leaves.

“They’re called cyclamen,” Granny said.

Granny showed her the tiny, pale green tips of snowdrops already poking up through the earth, ready for spring. “It looks like everything’s dead in the winter garden, but it’s all just there, waiting under the earth, already alive and growing.”

They found a twiggy tree with pink sweet-scented flowers growing out of the tips of the bare branches. Granny broke off some twigs to take inside. “Viburnum: that’ll look nice on the kitchen table.” She picked some ivy to go with it.

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