Megan didn’t see Buttercup House until the day they moved in.

‘We want it to be a surprise,’ her mum said.

And it was a surprise! The house was huge, and looked . . . well, tumbledown, as her grandma would have said.

As she walked through the front door, the first thing Megan saw was a wooden floor and she wondered where the carpet was. Then she noticed a small pile of fresh mouse droppings. Of course, Megan didn’t know they were mouse droppings because she had never seen mouse droppings before. Megan saw small, round, brown blobs and wondered what they were. If Megan had looked a few seconds earlier, she would have seen a small brown mouse watching her very carefully.

Then Megan looked up and saw that she was in a long, narrow hallway with a big stairway climbing up the right-hand side. Megan thought that, if it wasn’t for the wall holding it up, it would have definitely tumbled down. It was like an old person that needed propping up. Megan looked at her mum, and her mum smiled one of her I know what you’re thinking smiles.

‘It’s not that bad, Meggy,’ she said.

‘Nothing a hammer and a few nails can’t fix,’ her dad said.

They walked through a door that was barely hanging on by its hinges and into the kitchen. Megan stared at the door. Tumbledown, she thought. Definitely tumbledown.

‘Just look at those views,’ her mum called to her. ‘This is what we came for.’

Megan was still staring at the door, wondering how a hammer and a few nails could fix it.

‘Meggy,’ her dad said. ‘Come here.’

He guided her through the large square kitchen to a stable door that opened on to the back garden. It was a beautiful spring day. Megan stared out of the door. She felt her feet fix to the spot and couldn’t move.

Through the doorway she saw a garden bigger than any garden she had ever seen. It stretched out before her, rolling downwards, dotted with trees whose arms reached towards the clouds. Then Megan’s mouth fell open. To one side was an enormous tree, and in it was a treehouse.

‘A treehouse!’ Megan screamed. Emily and Beth would love it, she thought. Especially Beth. She loves dens.

‘It’s great, isn’t it?’ said Megan’s mum.

‘It hasn’t been used for years,’ her dad added. ‘We can fix it up though.’

At the bottom of the garden were more trees, then more grass that seemed to go on forever.

‘Is all that ours?’ Megan asked.

‘There’s a small stream at the bottom, just beyond those trees,’ Megan’s dad told her. ‘Then just beyond that there’s a fence. Up to the fence is ours.’

‘And whose is the rest?’ Megan asked, wondering who owned the field and wood beyond.

‘It all belongs to the people next door,’ said Megan’s mum.

‘Who are the people next door?’ asked Megan.

‘There are a mum and dad, just like us, a little girl about your age and her granny.’

Megan was beginning to feel a whole lot better about Buttercup House. The garden which went on and on forever was definitely something to feel pleased about, and the treehouse was something to feel very excited about. There was the little girl next door too. They could play hide and seek for ages in this garden, and as her dad had said, a hammer and a few nails could fix the rest.