What a good year it was for olives! There was just enough rain in spring and just enough sunshine in summer. The olives ripened perfectly in the warm autumn sun.1 Osman knew, when he went to check his olive trees, that he was going to have the best crop of olives ever. Sitting in her chair in the corner, Osman's daughter Zeynep knew, from the way her father winked at her, that the olive crop would be a good one. She knew that there would be enough money to buy her a white silk dress for her twelfth birthday party, after the harvest.

Zeynep looked at herself in every mirror. It was a beautiful dress, and she studied herself from every angle.2 In the front garden, family, friends and neighbours were sitting round, chatting and sipping cool drinks while they waited for the party to begin. The tables in the garden were heaped with good food.3 All that was missing was the Birthday Girl. At the back of the house, Zeynep, the Birthday Girl, wanted to be alone for a while. She wanted to believe she looked beautiful in her dress, before she went into the garden. One moment she felt like a filmstar, and the next she worried that the people might not take any notice of her at all.

Meanwhile, the guests chatted on about this and that.4 Of course, the most important topic of conversation was the excellent olive harvest, the best that anyone in Altinoluk could remember.
"Hamd olsun! 5 We have had olives the size of peaches this year!" 6

"The first pressing produced the best olive oil I have ever seen!"7

"Thick and beautiful, like liquid gold!"

"Elhamdulillah!8 Praise be to God!"9

"So, Osman bey,10 what about the soap?"

Osman grinned. "We shall make enough soap to wash all the feet in Altinoluk a thousand times over."

"Waste not, want not,11 eh, Osman bey?"

Round at the back of the house was the huge container in which the soap was made from the last pressings of the olives, skins and stones and all.12 The container itself was about half the size of a football pitch. It had a low wooden wall all round it to keep in the liquid. The children loved to walk along the top of the narrow wall, pretending they were walking a circus tightrope.13 They loved to skip or to hop. They liked the feeling of danger. They might slip or fall into the horrible soup at any moment.

Everyone stopped talking when they heard the scream. For a moment, nobody reacted. When they heard a second scream, they all rushed round to the back of the house. Osman jumped into the container and pulled his daughter out. She was soaked: her hair and face and arms and legs were streaked with the oily liquid.14 Her white party dress was ruined. She was, in a word, a mess.

"What on earth were you thinking of, child?"

How could Zeynep explain to them why she had walked along the slippery wall? Today of all days, when she wanted everyone to admire her white dress? They wouldn't understand that she had skipped along the wall because she was wearing her new dress. She didn't really understand it herself. But, then, people often do silly things without really knowing why they do them.