Chapter 2

Three people and a dog stood around the garden pond. Morgan had telephoned his friend Arthur, who worked at the local garden centre. He said he would pop in on his way to work.

Arthur had examined the log and the new growth. 'It beats me' he said, slowly shaking his head from side to side. 'Would you mind if I took a cutting and showed it to my boss?' He took a penknife from his pocket, opened the blade and reached towards one of the tall waving stems that now ended in soft, green, triangular buds. As he leaned towards the log the stems suddenly stiffened and shook, setting Arthur back on his heels.

Grandma gasped. "Did you see the sparks?" she asked, turning aghast towards Morgan and Arthur who looked a little pale themselves. Arthur ran towards his bike. "This needs a real expert" he muttered and cycled off to work. "I'll be back" he called over his shoulder, and they heard his bicycle bell ringing frantically as he rounded the comer.

At lunchtime four people stood around the pond. Grandma had made some sandwiches and lemonade and with their hands and mouths full, they gazed steadily at the log and its shoots. These now appeared to have stiffened and had not grown since earlier in the day. Mr. Pennywort, Arthur's boss, looked over his half-glasses, and thoughtfully munched at his egg and cress sandwich. "It's not a native plant" he stated quietly between bites.

They stood around the pond

"But it came from the log pile - and the logs are all from local trees" Morgan said.

"Mmmmh. 1 shall have to do some research."

Grandma said firmly "I want to get rid of it. 1 don't want a tree alongside my pond, especially one that grows so fast."

Mr. Pennywort sympathized. "I can understand that. If you can give me till tomorrow, I'll have a look through my books. They've never let me down yet." Then he added, "It may have been growing fast at the beginning, just to get itself established. The oaks we grow from acorns seem to do that. Then they stop for a while, as if they are gathering strength for their next burst of growth."

"Exactly" said Grandma.

"Same time tomorrow then" said Mr. Pennywort. He and Arthur returned to Mr. Pennywort's ramshackle car and drove off.

Before she went to bed, Grandma checked out the log. The shoots had not grown any more. Even Amber seemed to have lost interest and went to sleep in her basket.

Unlike Amber, Grandma took a long time to drop off that night and hardly seemed to have slept at all when she woke with a start to find Amber at the bedside, her paw resting on Grandma's arm. Amber gave a low growl and, looking over her shoulder to check Grandma was following, padded into the kitchen. Grandma struggled into her dressing gown, taking care not to wake Morgan. She pressed her face to the glass in the kitchen door and drew back in astonishment. A soft glow emanated from the log, casting a gentle light onto the stones surrounding the pond. Grandma could see insects skittering across its surface.

"I know I'm dreaming" Grandma said to herself. "So I might as well keep calm. I just hope this isn't going turn into a nightmare."

She walked across the terrace in her slippers, down the two steps to the lawn, and moved slowly towards the mesmerizing light. As she approached she noticed a low hum. Amber's ears stood to attention and she slinked behind Grandma. "Hey!" Grandma sounded indignant. "You're supposed to be looking after me, remember?"

At the sound of her voice, all the shoots on the log gathered together and swiveled to face them. They looked like a great twist of barley-sugar. The hum ceased, the light went out, and everything was still. Grandma hardly dared to breathe and became aware of the faint aura coming from the moon and stars above. There was sufficient light for her to see a slight movement among the shoots and as she leaned forward she saw two of them were rising well above the others.

Two green heads appeared

Their green triangular ends were luminous and began swelling until each was big enough to fit into one of Grandma's hands.

"I wonder why I'm not scared" Grandma said to herself. "I hope those green thingies don't explode." The thingies began to crinkle up and flatten a bit. "Well what do you know," Grandma said to Amber. "They've got little faces."

The faces smiled at Grandma and Amber and their glistening mouths moved.

"Hi" they chorused.

"Hi" Grandma replied.

.........................................................................

Mr. Pennywort was in his library. It was housed in a small stone building, which consisted of one room with a deep window that revealed how thick the walls were. Every inch of wall space was covered with books. The only furniture was a large table, a chair and a desk lamp, a computer, and some rugs on the floor 'to give it a warm look' Mr. Pennywort had explained to Arthur.

When Mr. Pennywort had bought the smallholding, the building had been used to store fuel for the farmhouse but Mr. Pennywort knew at once what he intended to do with it. So while the ground floor of the farmhouse was turned into a shop for selling gardening materials, the rooms above were renovated to make a home for Mr. Pennywort. At the same time the smallholding was developed to provide plants to sell, and Mr. Pennywort worked quietly on the little outhouse.

Over the years Mr. Pennywort had collected books about plants. He could never resist buying one he didn't have, especially from second hand bookshops. He had found the most amazing bargains this way and wondered how people could bear to part with some of them. He had books that were extremely old, and books with beautiful illustrations, and books from various parts of the world. Although they seemed to be arranged in an entirely haphazard way, Mr. Pennywort knew exactly where each volume was placed. 'They're in chronological order' he explained to Arthur, who was one of the very few people who had ever been allowed into the library.

"Do you mean the order in which they were published?" Arthur had asked.

''No - the order in which I bought them" Mr. Pennywort said, as if this was the most obvious way of arranging books.

Now it was evening and a reddish light shone through the window. Mr. Pennywort was sitting at the table with a book open in front of him. He shook his head in an exasperated fashion and returned it to the black oblong space on one of the shelves. He ran his finger along the spines and removed another volume, which he took to the table, switching on the desk lamp as he sat down. The lamp was still on many hours later.