Turning the long rope

Text 1: The Apple Tree Rhyme, by Kirsty Pembridge

An original short story extract.

Every lunchtime the Year Five girls skipped by the drainpipe, two turning the long rope and the rest waiting in a line, chanting the rhyme about the apple tree. Hana had watched them for a fortnight from the bench. She knew every word of the rhyme now, and she practised it under her breath in the dinner queue. On the Thursday, one of the turners, Bethany, tripped over her own lace and grazed her knee, and was taken inside by a dinner lady, crying. The rope lay on the tarmac like a dead snake. The other turner, Jess, looked round at the line, then at the bench. ‘You,’ she said. ‘Can you turn?’ Hana stood up so fast she dropped her apple. She took the end of the rope, and turned it, and sang every word of the rhyme without a single mistake.

Explain why Hana is finally invited to join the skipping game.