The seed envelopes

Source: an original fiction extract.

On Sunday afternoon, Ruth carried a biscuit tin into the community greenhouse. She had been asked to help prepare seed envelopes for the spring fair. The tin contained sunflower seeds, and a stack of twenty empty envelopes waited beside the weighing scales. Mr Bell, who managed the greenhouse, told her to put six seeds in each envelope. He gave her a blue pencil to write the names. Outside, two volunteers were washing plant pots with a hose. Ruth chose the stool nearest the open door, where a strip of sunlight fell across the wooden bench.

The seeds were larger than she expected, each one striped like a tiny closed umbrella. She counted them into groups and wrote carefully. On the sixth envelope the pencil point broke. While she searched the drawers for a sharpener, she found a photograph tucked beneath a bundle of string. It showed the greenhouse before the glass had been replaced. Grass grew waist-high inside it, and one door hung crookedly from its frame. A man stood in front holding a spade. He was laughing at something outside the picture.

Mr Bell took the photograph by its edges. The man was his brother, he said. They had cleared the site together during a summer when neither of them had much work. The spade had broken on the first morning, so they had borrowed another from the woman next door. Ruth asked whether the brother still helped. Mr Bell shook his head. He lived far away now. They spoke at Christmas, usually about the weather, and each said he would visit when things became less busy.

Ruth handed back the photograph, but Mr Bell left it on the bench. He found the sharpener in his jacket pocket. For a while they worked without speaking, interrupted only by the hose striking the outside glass. Ruth finished the twenty envelopes and arranged them in a shallow tray. There were seeds left in the tin. She asked what to do with them. Mr Bell looked at the photograph and fetched one more envelope from a cupboard. He wrote an address on it in large, uneven letters, leaving space in the corner for a stamp.

At the fair, Ruth saw the seed envelopes between a jar of wooden plant labels and a tray of small clay pots. Some people bought them; others shook them gently, listening to the dry rattle. Mr Bell was explaining to a child how tall a sunflower might grow. Ruth wondered whether an envelope could travel so far without being crushed. Months later, a new photograph appeared above the scales: a narrow balcony with three sunflowers rising beyond its rail. Nobody had written a height on the back. Beneath the picture was a short message about a train arriving on Friday.

Refer only to the first paragraph. Choose one answer for each item. Write the four letters in order, labelling them 1 to 4.