Daily Story

Clara and Tom had a wishing-well in their back garden, only there was no hole. It hadn't been filled in, either. It was never there. They got their handyman to come and build a wall and a roof and a crank, and they hung an old bucket from

All my life I have been frightened of the stars going out. I suppose I must have seen it on the television when I was small. But now there are a thousand more stars in the sky, and the night is more beautiful than ever. When I stand underneath it

In the dream I am in an exam I haven't prepared for. The usual thing, old anxieties standing in for new. I'm wise to it now, even asleep. At some point, I remember that my schooldays are over, and I fold the paper into an aeroplane,

By the time her postcard arrived, my house had already burned down. The postie left it on the ash pile where the front door used to be, along with the bills, and a note saying "We tried to deliver your parcel but you were out". A pint of

When they chained the sea-thing we all knew it wouldn't hold. A flick of its great winding limbs would break the chains, or else the foulness it exuded would slip it free or eat the links away. It would roar and drive men mad until they loosed it

It was just a snatch, overheard as he passed: "That guy Jamie really butters my crumpets." That had to be good, didn't it? It's the butter that makes the crumpet. But it hadn't sounded good. It had sounded like "that guy

The first day back at the factory was like any other, stamping out thousands of blank brass scoppets. But now I was wondering where all the brass came from, and where all those scoppets went, and how they were cut and what they were used for. I had never used

Carstone said that they could never try him, for he had not twelve peers in all of England. He was right, of course. They held him on remand while twenty-four boys (doubled up in case of accidents) could be raised up to his degree of privilege and sunk down to

Gracie bought me a hot air balloon ride, three hours in a little basket in the sky. I thought there would be other people there, but it was just me and the pilot, and he jumped out a few metres up. I saw him scamper away, getting smaller and smaller.

It starts with a careful scraping of spade against tarmac, lifting the flattened body from the road. Then a hiss, almost musical, as the special pump gets going. A few moments of silence. The unscrewing of lids. The striking of a match. A crackle like treading on glass. And then