Chapter 1

The ticking apple

The first apple that ticked fell on a Tuesday, which Zuri remembered because Tuesday was bins day and she was dragging the green one down the drive when something went clonk on the roof of it.

She looked up. Grandpa Ezra's apple tree hung over the fence the way it always did, a big untidy cloud of leaves with its arms out. Nothing unusual. Then she looked down, and there on the lid of the bin was an apple, and the apple was going tick, tick, tick.

The Clockwork Orchard

There was a long pause, and then the sound of a shed door, and then Grandpa Ezra's face appeared over the fence with sawdust in his eyebrows. He looked at the apple in her hand. He looked at the tree. He said a word Zuri was not allowed to say, and then he said, "How many?"

"How many what?"

"Apples. How many have fallen."

Zuri looked at the ground under the tree. Dotted through the grass, catching the light like dropped coins, were six more.

"Seven," she said.

Grandpa Ezra closed his eyes. "Then we have a week," he said.