It was my tenth year at the egg boiling championship, and I was determined to take home the golden saucepan. I had focused on the basics, of course: estimating weight by feel and volume by eye, and finding ways to count time that didn't depend on keeping a

The days began to grow shorter, but the nights refused to fill the gap. In those in-between times that were not for sleep nor wakefulness, we stayed quietly together, and found a new kind of rest. There were more hours for living, then. Soon the next solstice will come.

Stories about mysterious games, kissing frogs, apples, chambers, and a walk to the impossible whale skeleton on the hill.

I was certain I had forgotten something. Sleeping bag, ground mat, water bottle, pants. I went through the kit list in my head, but by the time I reached the end of it, I was no longer sure about the things at the start. Waterproofs, wash kit, spare socks, sleeping

When flowers began turning to fruit, I clipped off every setting apple I could find except for one. Into that one apple would go all of the sunshine of all of the days from now until the autumn. Into that one apple would go every drop of rain that fell.

One hundred days of kissing frogs for nothing but chapped lips and and upset stomach, and I feel fantastic. Why? Because the secret nobody wants to hear is: you were never going to find a prince in 100 days. This first stretch is all about building habits, refining techniques, and

The invitation said, 'Dr Quick will meet you in his chambers'. It had all seemed very friendly, but Carys thought that nothing good had ever happened in a chamber. Chambers were for tests and torture and bullets. She wondered which she was in for. It didn't

When she went round to Marnie's house they played a game where you twisted sections of a crystal tower to make gems fall down into a treasure chest. There were rules, but Marnie wouldn't let her see them. They always had to play just twisting and

They spent the lesson looking up rude words in the dictionary. But something was wrong. A small agricultural holding. The part of the leg that extends from the knee to the ankle. Sticky or claggy dirt. Not one of them was rude at all. They had been tricked. They would

I was still wearing the daisy chain, and somehow I knew that when it broke I would too. But days in the sun had dried the stems until they were stiff and brittle. We did not have long left. Unless I lay down in the mud to be preserved, we

Stories about bollards, an audit of unused possessions, a key under the mat, and a school trip to the cranking factory.

The playground is the best place to go. You sit on a swing and look at the empty climbing frame and you can't forget the way things are. In the cafés and the streets it is not so strange that you don't see children. We made

A year after it happened, I saw they had put bollards in where the car hit him. I stopped to give them a shove, a shake, a kick. I wanted them to break loose. I wanted them to crumble into powder. If they stayed standing under my bloody knuckles it

We spray-painted empty ice cream black and strapped them partway up lamp posts. That is, Tom painted them and Lou shimmied up the streetlights. It was my job to start the rumours, but I never had to. By the end of the week I'd heard they were

We were almost done with the morning shift when the kids from the school trip arrived. They lined up along the wall and numbered off, well practiced but distracted. We kept turning the cranks. The teacher explained that they were in the main cranking room, and said a few words

Halfway to the exit, a man she half-recognised put a hand up to stop her. "Hilary, perfect," he said. "Do you think you can help me with something?" While the answer was still softening in her mouth, he led her into a meeting room, the

Once the tube was down his throat, Frank tried not to look at the screen. He knew it would make him faint or retch or both. But curiosity overcame him: how many chances do you get to see inside yourself? He tilted his eyes down until the picture came into

I'll leave a key under the mat for you, and one with the neighbours. I'll send you one in the post. I'll wait in, if I can, and if I can't I'll put a note on the door saying just

Stories about being a fly, adopting a cat, buying a fruit machine, and doing karaoke in a town where nobody knows you.

Kev got the fruit machine at auction, with fourteen pounds still in the cash drawer, which made for a nice little discount. When he had fixed it up and changed the lock he persuaded Maeve to have it in the corner of the lounge bar, with a fifty-fifty split

There wasn't much left at the yard sale by the time I arrived. A kid's bike helmet. A dog bowl. I bought the single walkie-talkie, price one pound. Somehow its being completely useless didn't make that feel any less of a bargain. At

I never slept more than an hour at a time. Every sound was a burglar. Every silence was someone hiding in the dark. My hair was greying. My hands were swollen. One morning Jackie knocked on my door carrying a cardboard box with holes punched in it. Inside was a

Nobody was looking at the crack. A few hadn't noticed, but most had chosen to look away. Of those, some were afraid they would see it get bigger and some were afraid it would become theirs to attend to. I had been of all three types in my

When I was a fly I was often waved away from picnics and al-fresco tables, from all the places where the good food was. Now I am a man it is much the same, though once in a while I am invited to sit and have my glass filled.

Outside, people were hurrying along beneath newspapers. This confused Graham, since few people take a newspaper these days, and since it wasn't raining. He waited impatiently for the lift to arrive, and to carry him down, and to open its doors on the ground floor. Then he stepped

Everyone is jealous of my little teal Mini. I see it when I'm driving, when I'm parking up, when I'm out washing it. One day someone's going to put a key down that beautiful paintwork. One day someone in the oncoming lane

Stories about tides, nesting, a fantasy world come to life, and being locked in a portable toilet by your so-called friends.

They left the hotel with a little stack of leaflets. The UK's funnest day out. The World-Famous Old Boot Inn. Kit wanted to go to all of them. He was already plotting a route. But Alex was pulling scraps off the corners, tearing them into smaller and

Down on the beach a boy in green swimmers was building a sundial. He had stuck a long driftwood branch into the wet sand and set seashells round it as the shadow moved, a different one each hour. As he pushed a crab claw into place I asked him, "

The tide forgot to come in. I waved the tide tables at it, pointed to my watch and the sands and the mud. I looked up at the moon, pale and whole in the blue sky, still pulling at us. I can wait, I shouted at the sea. I'