The girl had heard her father talking to the man next door.
She was confused. It had never occurred to her before that he could be so wrong about anything. She had always looked on him as being perfectly sensible. At first, she thought it might be a case of simply mishearing what he had said. But that couldn’t be right because she was right there in the front garden when she heard him say it. He said, “Look here, you just can’t compare apples with oranges.” That is what he said, she was sure of it. She went to her room and sat for a long time thinking about it. She opened her school bag and took out her class dictionary. She looked up the word ‘compare’.
There it was, plain to see. It said it meant to examine something in order to note similarities and differences. She thought about apples and oranges. Of course they were different, but you could easily compare them. For a start, they are both very similar sizes. They are both fruits. Some say they are both good for you. Although, she didn’t know how true that was, on account of the fact that she had never liked oranges. But that wasn’t the point. They were both of a similar shape. They probably weighed much the same. They were both food. They both grew on trees!
She felt even more confused after thinking about it. She thought about how she’d been told off recently for arguing. Her mother had told her not to be so argumentative.
She’d keep quiet…