14 February to 11 March
Jasper continues to leave Bee’s packages for Lucas in the allocated drawer of the science lab. As well as letters, the parcels often contain money, cigarettes, or Xbox games. Although uncomfortable with the arrangement, Jasper goes along with it, desperate to see the first baby parakeets from Bee’s window. On his visits to Bee’s house, Jasper notices further ‘sweet wrappers’ on the bedside table and a white rabbit notebook. He also notes that Bee’s china lady collection is shrinking as she knocks them out of the window one by one.
12 March
Jasper knows that the parakeets are feeding their babies in the eaves of Bee’s house but has not yet caught sight of one. His deepest fear is that he will stop being useful to Bee before this happens. When he sees someone wearing a navy baseball cap entering Bee’s back garden, Jasper dashes over to find Lucas retrieving Bee’s key from under the stone flamingo. Lucas tells Jasper that he is paying Bee a surprise visit.
24 March
Jasper hears the parakeets screeching in Bee’s garden. He goes to investigate and finds a dead baby parakeet on the ground. Unable to rouse Bee by knocking on her door, Jasper lets himself into the house. He bursts into the bedroom to see Bee bouncing on top of a naked Lucas. Horrified, Jasper runs back home with the dead parakeet and buries it. Later that day Bee calls round to the house and Jasper overhears her tell his father that he was a ‘one-night stand’.
Friday, 15 April
Ed breaks the news to Jasper that a woman’s body has been found in woodland and the police suspect that it may be Bee. Jasper asks his father why he doesn’t know for certain that it is Bee’s body when he was the one who disposed of her. Annoyed, Ed grabs his son but Jasper runs away and locks himself in the bathroom. Despite Ed’s profuse apologies, Jasper calls the police and claims that his father is trying to kill him.
31 March
From his bedroom, Jasper sees the first baby parakeets emerging from their nest but cannot hear them clearly. He knows he could hear them properly from Bee’s bedroom but has been avoiding her since the day of the baby parakeet’s death.
2 April
On the day of Mrs Watkins’ funeral, Jasper and his father watch as a hearse pulls up outside Number 18. At the same time, Bee opens her windows and begins to play loud music. Jasper believes the gesture is intended for him and interprets it as an apology. He decides to go over to Bee’s while his father attends the funeral.
Bee apologises to Jasper for being unavailable when he called round to break the news of the baby parakeet’s death. They go over to Jasper’s house to see the parakeet’s grave and Bee reads a passage from Alice in Wonderland from her white rabbit notebook. Bee asks to see Jasper’s notebooks and then claims that she is feeling nauseous. Jasper goes to fetch her a glass of water and, when he returns, notices that Bee is no longer holding her white rabbit notebook. As they watch the parakeets, Bee reminds Jasper that the view is much better from her bedroom. She gives him an envelope to deliver to Lucas and he takes it.
Friday, 15 April
Jasper has been sent to stay with emergency foster carers. Meanwhile, his father has been arrested for assaulting the police officer who attended Jasper’s removal from the family home. Overwhelmed, Jasper barricades himself inside his new bedroom.
5 April
Jasper delivers another envelope to the science lab and notices that Lucas has failed to pick up the last one. Bee asks him to deliver another letter promising that, in return, he can watch the parakeets from her bedroom four times a week. As Jasper delivers the new note, he is confronted by Lucas who orders him to stop delivering Bee’s messages. Lucas asks Jasper to tell Bee that he is ‘too young’ and that their relationship is over. When Jasper later repeats this message to Bee she is distraught. Jasper fears that he will not get to see the parakeets again.
6 April
Bee asks Jasper over to watch the parakeets. In her bedroom, he notices that there is only one china lady remaining. Bee then begs Jasper to deliver one last letter to Lucas and, when he refuses, threatens to stop allowing Jasper to visit.
Jasper goes to Lucas Drury’s house, as Bee has instructed, but is overwhelmed by fear when the door opens and a barking dog leaps out at him. He shoves the letter into the boy’s hand and runs off, realising, as he does so, that he has given the envelope to the wrong brother.
The next day, at school, Lucas tells Jasper that his father read the note but fortunately did not know who it was from. He instructs Jasper to tell Bee that they will get into terrible trouble if she contacts him again. Jasper does not want to tell Bee about the mistake he made in delivering the letter, as he wants to protect the parakeets. He decides not to pass on the message from Lucas.
Saturday, 16 April
Jasper is taken to the police station by a social worker. Here, free of his father’s restraining influence, Jasper confesses to everything he remembers. He tells Richard Chamberlain that he stabbed Bee to death with the same kitchen knife that she used to cut up a pie. He then took his paintings and the knife and ran home. When his father came home from work and discovered what had happened, he disposed of the knife and Bee’s body.
8 April
Despite Jasper’s attempts to avoid Bee, she intercepts him, claiming that the parakeets are in real danger because David Gilbert has reported them as a pest to the council. Telling him they need to come up with a plan, she invites Jasper over for tea. Jasper explains that he always eats chicken pie on a Friday and Bee promises to make him her own home-made version.
When Jasper goes to Bee’s house that evening, she is clearly in an agitated state. Although she asked Jasper to bring his paintings over, she shows no interest in seeing them. Jasper also becomes agitated as he wants to lay his canvases out on the kitchen table, but it is too dirty. Bee attempts to clean the table but accidentally splashes water on one of Jasper’s paintings, upsetting him further. Bee becomes quarrelsome when Jasper insists that the painting is ruined. She says she cannot understand why Lucas has not replied to her and asks if Jasper made a mistake when he delivered the note to Lucas’s house. Jasper reluctantly admits that he might have given the note to Lee by accident.
Bee presents Jasper with a large slice of home-made chicken pie and says she would like to keep the water-damaged painting. She then asks Jasper to deliver another note to Lucas’s house the next day. When Jasper refuses and announces that he is going home, Bee becomes furious. She tells Jasper that she had sex with his father on the night of her party and that Ed told her how difficult it was to have a son like Jasper. She threatens to tell the police that Ed raped her, warning Jasper that, if she does so, he will be taken away by social services. As Jasper tries to leave, Bee tells him that he has just eaten parakeet pie. To prove it, she shows him a recipe for a pie containing one dozen parakeets. Jasper vomits but feels as if the parakeets are trapped in his body. He grabs the kitchen knife and slashes his stomach. Bee apologises and tells him that she was lying about the pie. She grapples with Jasper, trying to grab the knife and they both fall over. Bee hits her head on the floor as Jasper lands on top of her.
Saturday, 16 April
In the police interview room, DC Chamberlain presents Jasper with the parakeet paintings that he took to Bee’s