The orchard ladder

Source: an original fiction extract.

On Friday morning, Tomas went to his neighbour's orchard to help pick pears. Mrs Reed met him at the gate with two canvas bags and a short wooden ladder. She asked him to start with the tree beside the stone wall, where the fruit was ready first. Each bag held about ten pears without bruising them. Tomas set his water bottle beneath the ladder and climbed onto the second step. Beyond the wall, a tractor moved slowly across a field. Mrs Reed began sorting empty boxes under the shelter beside the shed.

Tomas had expected the fruit to fall into his hand as soon as he touched it. Instead, the first pear held firmly to its twig. He pulled harder. Mrs Reed called across that he should lift and turn it gently. When he did, it came away with such ease that he nearly dropped it. The skin was rougher than the pears in the supermarket, marked with small brown patches. He asked whether those should go into a separate box. She said they tasted the same, and took a bite to demonstrate.

By eleven he had filled several bags. Mrs Reed brought tea and a plate of bread, and they sat beneath the shelter. She told him that the trees had been planted by the previous owner, a man she had never met. Some produced more fruit than others, and one had barely flowered for years. She kept it because birds nested in its branches. Tomas looked at the uneven rows and wondered why nobody had planted them more neatly. Mrs Reed said the missing trees had died at different times. The gaps were not part of anyone's plan.

After lunch they reached a tree whose lowest branches almost touched the grass. Mrs Reed pointed out a small wooden label nailed to a stake. It carried the name of a pear Tomas had never heard of. The letters were fading. She asked him to copy them onto a new label while she fetched another box. He traced the unfamiliar word carefully, then wrote it once more on the back of a receipt in his pocket. He wanted to look it up later, partly to discover whether it was pronounced as strangely as it was spelt.

When he left, Mrs Reed gave him a bag of the rough-skinned pears. At home he put them in a bowl and found the receipt beneath his keys. The name belonged to a variety grown long before either he or Mrs Reed had been born. He read about its ripening season, then closed the page and examined one of the brown patches. The fruit still looked imperfect. Nothing he had learnt had made its surface smoother. But when his sister asked why he had brought home damaged pears, he cut one into four and passed her a piece.

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