I was at the top of the tree now, on that wobbly branch that always feels like it's going to snap even though I know that it won't. I gazed around me at the chipping valley. In one direction was the mansion, which is actually the moving castle. In the other direction was Abdullah and Flower's cottage with the thatched roof.

I smiled to myself, looking down at the crudely carved E and M in the branch I was balancing on. I remembered when I used to climb up here with Morgan; before he started being all quiet and I started spending hours reading. I can read in Welsh too and used to spend hours in the library before, well…if I told you now, there wouldn't be a story.

I clambered down from the tree and, walking strait past Sabrina and Kate, went and sat down with Morgan and Edward.

"Can we go find some more trees to climb?" I asked. They agreed, and we wandered away across the valley with Mum calling after us to not to go too far. After a few minutes we came across a tall oak tree. I leaped up and grabbed the nearest branch, which I swung myself up onto. I minutes I was sitting on a broad branch somewhere near the top and Morgan and Edward were nowhere near as high.

"Come on slow coaches!" I called down to them.

"We're coming!"

*HMC*

The day past pleasantly enough, but if I went into detail about it all here then this story would be unnecessarily long and boring. I will skip a head to about a week later, when Morgan and I returned to school.

"Ellie? Morgan?" Mum stuck her head round our door as we sat on the floor packing our school trunks.

"Yeah?" she came in, carrying a pile of white school stockings.

"Did Dad tell you about the weekend?"

"No!" I said, whilst trying to cram petticoats around the edges of my trunk. "What's happening at the weekend?"

"Ellie, don't do that – they'll get all creased! And it's nothing hugely exiting; it's just that your Dad's cousin Julie is getting married. In England. And we've been invited. So we're going to England."

"But how?" said Morgan, rummaging through his draw of shirts.

"We'll pick you up from school and go." Said Mum, folding the stockings into neat balls.

"Cool!" I said, grabbing the pile of my stockings and cramming them into my trunk. I slammed it shut and sat on it to make it close. The tag on it said:

Eleanor Lettie Jenkins,

Kingfisher House,

St. Peter's School,

New Hills Road,

Nonthengrey

Strangia,

It was (and still is, not that that's remotely important!) written in my Mum's elegant green handwriting. Unfortunately, I inherited my Dad's writing. Which is, like, awful.

Thank you for reading this! Hope you're enjoying it! I've written quite a lot more so I should upload it soon! In the meantime PLEASE check out my other story 'A Tale of Two Castles' as they go together and that will become much more evident once they get to the wedding. Thanks!

Impossible Hazelnut