‘Yuk!’ I went again, and started gathering up the ones she’d picked. I held them between finger and thumb in case there were any caterpillars. I wasn’t scared. I just didn’t want to hurt the caterpillars.

Flap-FLAP! One of the magpies thwacked past, just a metre away. ‘Vanish!’ I yelled, and chucked a wormy pear after it. I called up to my mother, where she was nearly hidden by the branches. ‘We’ve got enough, eh?’

‘There’s a couple of good ones just further up,’ she said. Branches shook as she began pulling herself up past the clump of twigs and leaves. I bent to put another pear in the bag. And then the magpies went crazy.

FLA-FLAP! SKAAARK-SKRAAAARK! They came crashing into the tree at my mother, both of them, wings thumping and smacking. Black beaks gaped; yellow eyes stared. Next second, they were storming and clawing around her head. I glimpsed her arms go up to protect her face; heard her yell.

Suddenly, I realised what the clump of twigs must be. ‘A nest!’ I shouted. ‘That’s their nest up there. Get down!’

I started towards the trunk. Up in the branches, Mum yelled and punched at the furious birds with one hand. Their wings struck at her face as they shrieked. One had its claws in her hair, stabbing at her neck with its big, dagger-shaped beak.

I seized a pear from the bag, and flung it up into the tree. ‘Get off! Get away!’ I hurled another. It ricocheted off a branch; the magpie on Mum’s head squawked and let go. She came sliding and falling down the trunk, landed in the long grass on all fours. Her hair was a mess; her eyes stared. ‘Get out — of here!’ she panted.

Flap-FLAP! The maddened birds came at us again. A claw raked across my cheek; a feathered body whacked the top of my head. I screamed. ‘Gerroff!’

Mum grabbed me with one hand, and the bag of pears with her other. Typical mother: even at a time like that, she was thinking about dessert. ‘Keep your head down!’ We stumbled towards the sunlight, out of the orchard. Wings tore past us once more.

Then we were clear of the trees. Behind us, two black and white maniacs dived back into the trees where their nest was. ‘Beat them!’ one squawked. ‘Thrashed them!’ went the second.

Mum and I stood among the round, grey stones of the riverbed, gasping and staring at each other. ‘Maggie, your face is bleeding.’ She put a finger on my cheek, and it came away wet and red. That claw flicking across my face. Lucky it hadn’t got my eye.

‘I’m fine.’ And I did feel fine. I’d had an adventure. Now I had something to tell the kids at school about.