45 original exam-style questions - 13 pages of questions with a full mark scheme - free printable PDF.
Original fiction written for Revision Library; no external source reproduced.
Jaydon Mensah had dug more holes in Mrs Abara's garden that summer than he could count, but none of them had ever produced anything more interesting than a chewed tennis ball and a rusted spoon. So when his trowel struck something solid and metallic just beneath the oak tree's roots, he almost didn't bother clearing away the soil.
"Probably another spoon," he muttered, brushing away the dark earth with the back of his glove. But as more of the object came into view, he realised it was too large and too square to be cutlery. It was a biscuit tin, its lid rusted a deep orange-brown, wedged firmly between two thick roots as though the tree itself had grown around it to keep it safe.
He called across the garden to his cousin Freya, who was supposed to be weeding the flower bed but had instead been lying on the grass reading. She dropped her book at once and hurried over, kneeling beside him in the damp soil.
"Do you think it's been here long?" Freya asked, watching as Jaydon worked the lid loose with the edge of his trowel.
"Long enough for the tree to grow round it," he replied. "Ages, probably."
The lid gave way with a soft, gritty creak, releasing a smell of damp paper and old metal. Inside, carefully wrapped in a sheet of brittle newspaper, lay a small collection of objects: a black-and-white photograph of three children standing proudly beside a much smaller version of the same oak tree, a folded certificate for a long-forgotten school sports day, and a handwritten letter, its ink faded to a pale grey-brown.
Freya unfolded the letter with great care, terrified it might tear apart in her hands. The handwriting was neat and old-fashioned, dated 14/07/1974. It read: "To whoever digs beneath this tree, we buried this on the last day of Year 6, the summer we left Oakfield Primary forever. If you have found this, our tree has grown tall, and we hope it has watched over the school just as we asked it to. Look after it for us."
Jaydon turned the photograph over. On the back, in the same handwriting, were three names: Deborah, Kenneth and Winifred. He stared at the middle name for a long moment before realising, with a jolt, that Kenneth was his own grandad's name.
"Freya," he said slowly, "I think this might be Grandad's."
Freya's eyes widened. She snatched the photograph back and studied the boy in the middle more closely, the same stubborn set of the jaw, the same gap between his front teeth that Jaydon had inherited without ever noticing the resemblance before.
Neither of them spoke for a moment. The oak tree above them rustled gently in the breeze, its branches spreading wide over the very spot where three ten-year-olds had once knelt, more than fifty years earlier, to bury something they hoped would one day be found.
"We have to find Grandad and show him," Freya said at last, already scrambling to her feet, the tin held carefully against her chest. "Let's catch him before he gets back from his walk, so we can watch his face when he sees it."
Jaydon nodded, gathering the letter and certificate before following her across the lawn, the newly disturbed soil still dark and damp beneath the old oak tree's watching branches.