SALLY

Sally lay on her back and stared at the cracks in her bedroom ceiling, the one that she liked best was the long crack that snaked from the wall towards the bare light fitting in the middle of the ceiling, it reminded her of the outline of a mountain range. Off in the distance Sally heard the church bell strike seven o’clock and already it was too hot be comfortable. Sally had been awake for almost an hour wondering, yet again, what the muffled noises from downstairs had been during the early hours of the morning. She knew it had been her mum and dad, it was never anyone else. She had slept very hazily through most of the noise, then the silence, until the morning sun had pierced the curtainless window, arched across the pop star postered wall and bathed Sally’s bed in a warm orange glow, which she ignored as long as she could.
Sally sat upright, swung her legs over the edge of the bed and got dressed from the pile of crumpled clothes that had spent the night on the floor. She picked up a small box from underneath her pillow, crept out onto the landing and tiptoed down the stairs, being careful to avoid the creaking treads. She hurried along the hallway, avoiding going into the front room for fear of what she might find. She carried on through the kitchen, past the piles of dirty plates and stale food. She gently pulled on the back door, and then slipping out into the garden like a cat leaving through a cat flap, she was free. Sally ran across the unkept garden through a hole in the hedge and into the acres of field behind the row of houses. As she ran up the hill she could smell the grass beneath her feet, the perfume lifted her spirit, unconsciously leaving her with a smile on her face .A minute later she was at the old oak tree, a tree was at least a hundred years older Sally and the house she lived in. Its knurled exposed roots spread from its wide trunk several feet in every direction, like some petrified pre-historic monster. This was Sally’s tree, her fortress, her castle.
A long time ago, Sally had worked out the best route for her to climb the near vertical trunk the fifteen feet it took to get to the lower branches. She scrambled, slipped and scraped her way to the place that is her favourite spot, on the lowest and thickest branch, where there is just enough room for Sally to sit comfortably. To Sally, this is the best place in the world; no one could get to her here. She would sit for uncounted hours and listen to the swaying branches creak and the leaves rustle like the sound of summer rain. She could see back down the hill towards the estate she lived on, and if she looked the other way she could see to the top of the hill and into the hazy blue sky. Usually a small heard of black and white cattle grazed the field, but the summer had scorched the grass this far up the hill and had left it dry and yellow. Even the Oak tree’s parched leaves had lost their rich green colour.
Sally removes the small octagonal box from beneath her matted cardigan; the lid is secured to the base with a perished and knotted rubber band. The material covering the box and the lid is fade and worn, little tufts of the material sprout from each of the corners. Sally gently prises away the rubber band and lifts the lid to reveal the hidden treasure within. Three small brass curtain rings. some plastic curtain hooks,, a couple of pink pills that were found on the floor of the front room, one tarnished silver coloured earring, a hair clip and half a dozen acorns from beneath Sally’s castle in the soft barked Oak. All these things collected like a proud Magpie, all with no real use or value, except to the little girl in the tree.