Beekeeper and odd job man Mart May is befriended by a curious and lonely boy whilst tending to errands around the prestigious home of Lady Burnett. As the two begin to bond, the boy, James, discovers the secret of Mart's illiteracy and - startled and concerned - takes on the task of teaching his reluctant subject to read and write. Yet when the summer holidays end, the isolated world in which the characters have grown close is broken by a return to the normality of routine and convention.

Part of the Storycuts series, this short story was previously published in the collectionThe Boy Who Taught the Beekeeper to Read.

Susan Hill's novels and short stories have won the Whitbread, Somerset Maugham and John Llewellyn Rhys awards and been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. She is the author of over fifty books, including the five previous Serrailler crime novels,The Various Haunts of Men,The Pure in Heart,The Risk of Darkness,The Vows of SilenceandThe Shadows in the Street. The play adapted from her famous ghost story, The Woman in Black, has been running in the West End since 1989; it has also recently been made into a film starring Daniel Radcliffe.

Susan Hill was born in Scarborough and educated at King's College London. She is married to the Shakespeare scholar, Stanley Wells, and they have two daughters. She lives in Gloucestershire, where she runs her own small publishing firm, Long Barn Books.