The Story / Scene Summary

Scene One — Derry enters the garden

The play opens in Mr Lamb's garden, with the occasional sound of birdsong and rustling leaves. Derry, a withdrawn and bitter fourteen-year-old, climbs over the wall and moves tentatively through the long grass, believing the house and garden are empty. One side of his face has been badly disfigured by an acid burn, and he has come to believe that everyone who looks at him is either frightened or disgusted. He is startled and immediately defensive when a voice warns him, "Mind the apples!" — the garden is not empty after all.

The voice belongs to Mr Lamb, a cheerful old man who owns the garden and has an artificial tin leg. He does not drive the suspicious boy away; instead he tells him the gate is always open and that he is welcome. At first Derry is prickly and expects to be pitied or rejected. He bluntly refers to his own burnt face, testing whether the old man will recoil, and tells him people are afraid of him. Mr Lamb refuses to be shocked or to treat him as an object of pity, remarking only that he too has a difference — a tin leg — and that neither is "important."

The conversation that changes Derry

As they talk, Mr Lamb gently draws the boy out. He speaks about his weeds (which he values as much as flowers — "It's all life.... growing"), his crab apples, and the bees he claims to hear "singing." He tells Derry the story of a man who locked himself in a room out of fear of everything, only to be killed by a picture falling off the wall — showing that hiding from life is no safety at all. He warns that nursing hatred would harm Derry more than the acid ever did: "Acid only burns your face.... You can burn yourself away inside." He insists that what matters is not appearance but what a person thinks, feels and chooses, and that Derry can "get on the way you want, like all the rest." Slowly the boy's hard shell begins to crack; he starts to listen, laughs, and admits, "I like it here." He runs off, but promises, "I'll come back. You see. You wait."

Scene Two — Derry and his mother

At home, Derry's mother has heard things about the old man and forbids her son to go back. Derry defends Mr Lamb — "an old man with a tin leg" who lives in a big curtainless house — and insists he wants to sit, listen to the bees singing and to Mr Lamb talking about "things that matter." He declares that his face and looks are not important; what matters is "what I think and feel and what I want to see and find out and hear." He refuses to be kept back, saying that if he does not go back there, "I'll never go anywhere in this world again," and runs off crying, "I want the world."

Scene Three — The tragic ending …