Apple World

Years ago, we were giants – or so it seemed to me and my twin brother Jimmy – and we lived in a world of magical insects, fairies and various small creatures, who often seemed in awe of our presence. This world was known to others, who lived indoors and called themselves our parents, as a back garden. But then our parents appeared odd to us at that time, as they firmly refused to believe in magic of any kind. We didn’t even get the tooth fairy stuff or Santa Claus beliefs from them.

Perhaps, in retrospect we compensated for this.

The back garden was Wonder World and we strode the land, with mighty footsteps aided by our ten league boots that had been given to us by a wizard – known to our parents as Uncle Barney. We spoke to insects and fairies and every one of them had a tale to tell. We learnt a lot. In fact we knew it all then, to the extent that we rebelled at the thought of starting school and informed our parents that we had more knowledge than both of them and Uncle Barney combined. This didn’t go down too well. They imposed a ban on ice cream and jelly babies for several days, and said that we had to go to school as it was the law. They said things like this a lot.

Shortly before we were due to start school though, an exciting thing happened. We discovered a gap in the garden’s tall fence, big enough to squeeze through. So we both breathed in a little and made ourselves thinner with a magic spell, just in case we were likely to get stuck. And amazingly we found ourselves in a new world. Three trees dominated this world, eyeing us suspiciously as we walked around them, gazing up into their branches, but after a bit they realized we meant them no harm and welcomed us. Jimmy was encouraged by their welcome and hoisted himself up into their leafy boughs where he found an abundance of apples. Great joy! Many of them looked ripe enough to eat so he picked quite a few and brought them down – these were then stuffed up our jumpers and down our trousers, which added to their flavor when we ate them later!

Our second visit to Apple World, as we had named it, yielded an unforeseen danger in the form of Rusty, a dog of indeterminate breed. He bounded up to us and tried to lick us both to death. Not the worst death as deaths go but Rusty’s breath was rank! It smelled of dead things, mouse droppings, old sausages and wood-smoke! We patted him for a bit and persuaded him to chase after sticks. I threw loads of them as Jimmy grabbed the apples again.

Back in our house, we shared our spoils in Jimmy’s bedroom and found we had gained even more treasure than we realized. Namely, Wormley, not the most imaginative name for a worm, but it really suited him. I placed him on a bedside table and Wormley began to tell me a story which I was entranced by and all was well, until Jimmy lurched forward and sliced him in half with a pen knife, curious to see if both halves survived. They did. But the second worm was an evil worm. It reared up and wavered in a menacing manner. We called it Wormley 2 and waited expectantly to see if it would finish the story that Wormley 1 had begun, but it didn’t and Wormley 1 remained curiously silent and stared at us somewhat reproachfully, or at least it would have done if it had been blessed with eyes. It seemed to me that worms had quite a difficult life, no eyes, no faces and always the ever present threat of getting trodden on or cut in half by little boys like Jimmy.

Wormley 2 was silent for a bit, obviously recovering from being slashed through its vital organs then it said it was going to give us some important information. I nodded and waited. After a fairly long wait, which perhaps was a long time for me and Jimmy but no time at all in worm-time, he said that one day, all the insects, the fairies and other magical creatures would no longer be able to talk to us. He said it was the beginning of something. It sounded intriguing but something about the way he spoke struck fear in our hearts. Again we waited to hear what this beginning was, but then both Wormley 1 and 2 shrivelled and died and stuck firmly to the bedside table. Jimmy had to scrape them off, as we knew if our parents discovered them, there could well be another ice cream and jelly-baby ban.

After this, a further scrumping expedition was delayed because we thought we had heard an ogre stomping about next door and groaning a little as if in pain. We asked our mother who the ogre was and she said it was Mr Pickles our neighbor with the gammy leg, which he had sustained during some war or other. She said that Mr Pickles had so much pain that he usually had an afternoon nap, which was, of course, round about the time me and Jimmy entered Apple World. We felt sorry for Mr Pickles but it didn’t stop us from planning a third visit to steal his apples. And anyway we felt sure mother was mistaken about about him being in a war. Ogres didn’t go to war, as far as we knew. He had probably been attacked by that fearsome dog of his, no doubt it had licked his leg a lot and caused nasty sores.

And then came the fateful day when my brother and I went through the fence a third time. Jimmy climbed the middle tree this time, which had the biggest apples and immediately spied, a giant red one at the furthest point of the tree. I told him to leave it, but he ignored me and swung up to it somehow. I marvelled at his alacrity, but at the same time felt alarmed at the way he was groping towards the apple and not quite reaching it. Then he muttered something about the apple being a fake – it was a plastic one and had been tied to a branch with string. He flung it to the ground in disgust and then wobbled and fell to the ground just after. And he lay very still but screaming at the top of his lungs.

At this point the ogre emerged from his house and rushed up to us. He actually didn’t look like an ogre when viewed close up and looked most concerned. He dashed inside, as fast as his bad leg would allow, telling us not to move – easily done as Jimmy couldn't move anyway and I was frozen with shock. And after just a short while, I heard the sound of an ambulance and two men came out to the garden and took Jimmy away on a stretcher.

I went back through the fence, rushed into my bedroom and cried. Jimmy was gone for a long long time but he did come back, still alive thank goodness, but he was in a wheelchair.

This was the day Wormley 2 had spoken of, for just after that, the voices of fairies, insects and other small creatures ceased – and little by little, all other magic vanished too.

Jimmy has been in the wheelchair for ten years now and Mr Pickles is a friend who visits to see how he is and always maintains that he feels guilty for tying the plastic apple on the tree. He said he knew we were taking the apples and thought he’d play a joke on us. There was no intent to harm. In fact, he said if we’d knocked at his door and asked for apples he would have given them to us. Jimmy and I told him not to feel guilty – stealing is wrong – and had we resisted temptation, the apple would never have been a danger.

Apple world is now Mr Pickle’s garden and the other magical world is now called our garden, which our parents had known all along,

So Wormley 2, regardless of whether he was real or not, had told the truth. The day of Jimmy’s accident was a beginning. The beginning of growing up.