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Chapter 1
Chapter One: The Mill That Never Turned
Whistlecombe was a town of steep lanes, crooked chimneys and apple orchards, and it sat on a hill the way a cat sits on a cushion — comfortably, and as if it had always been there.
At the very top of the hill stood the windmill. It was a smock mill, white-painted and round-shouldered, with four great sails that had not moved for forty years. Somebody had nailed them still long before anyone in town could remember why, and the nails had gone rusty and the sails had gone grey, and now the mill just stood there looking out over the orchards like an old man who had forgotten what he came upstairs for.
Oscar Tibb liked the mill because it did not talk.
Oscar was eight. He was the smallest person in his class and, quite possibly, the quietest person in the whole town. He lived above the family bakery on Butter Lane with his mother, Sally, and his sister, Rosie. His father, Ned, drove a delivery lorry all week and came home on Fridays smelling of diesel and mint humbugs.
Oscar's talent was counting.
He counted the bricks in the bakery wall (four hundred and twelve, not including the chipped one). He counted buns going into the oven and buns coming out. He counted the seventeen steps from the shop door up to the flat, and the eleven seconds it took Hugo Rummage to say something unkind about the way Oscar's words got stuck.
Because they did get stuck. Not always. Not at home, mostly, and not when he was talking to Custard, the bakery cat, who was fat and orange and a very good listener. But put Oscar in front of a group of people, ask him a question, and his words would gather at the top of his throat like sheep at a gate — all shoving, none going through.
That autumn, Whistlecombe had two large troubles and Oscar had one private one.
The first trouble was the weather. It had not rained since spring. Not properly. There had been one grey Tuesday in June when everyone stood in their doorways hoping, and three drops fell on the war memorial, and that was that. The wells were low. The stream behind the church had shrunk to a brown ribbon. The apples in the orchards, which ought to have been swelling fat and red for the Apple Fair, were hard little marbles you could have fired from a catapult.
And the Apple Fair was the one week of the year when the bakery made real money.
The second trouble was Mr. Rummage, the town clerk, who was Hugo's father and had a moustache like a scrubbing brush. Mr. Rummage had a Plan. His Plan was to knock down the useless windmill and put a coach park in its place, so that visitors could come and spend money in Whistlecombe instead of driving straight past it. There would be a vote about it on the day of the fair, and Mr. Rummage had already had leaflets printed, which showed a drawing of forty coaches parked in neat rows where the mill was. In the drawing, everyone was smiling.
And Oscar's private trouble — the worst one, in his private opinion — was this: he had been chosen as Apple Herald.
The Apple Herald climbed onto the platform in the square on fair day, in front of the entire town, and announced the fair out loud.
"It's an honour," Mrs. Damson had said, beaming, when she drew his name out of the hat. Mrs. Damson lived in the flat below the Tibbs and had kept the school's weather charts for thirty years before she retired.
"It's an honour," his mother had said, hugging him with floury hands.
"It's an honour," Rosie had said, and then, seeing his face, "and if you're sick on anyone, aim at Hugo."
Oscar had counted the days until fair day every night since. There were nineteen of them left, and each one felt like a step towards the edge of a very high diving board.
