Birds. Lots of birds.The people of the world are puzzled. Their feathered friends are trying to tell them something, and they're not sure what it is. Then a boy and his pet budgie discover the secret.
The stories I like best - as a reader and a writer - are stories that make us curious about the lives of characters and the world they live in. Particularly the problems they're facing. Stories that get our imaginations involved. Stories that have us wondering what we'd do if those problems were in our lives.
Because sometimes they are.
I've tried to make Tweet that kind of story. Jay and Clyde, the two main characters, have both got problems they wish they could solve. Jay, who's about to start year six, wishes his parents were there to drop him off at school instead of being lost in the jungles of Africa.
Clyde, Jay's best friend, wishes they could both go to Africa, now, straight to the deepest and scariest jungle, and come to a sensible agreement with the vicious wild animals there, and rescue Mum and Dad. But they can't, not at first, because Jay is only eleven and Clyde is a budgie.
That's the great thing about problems in stories. We don't need to actually experience them ourselves to imagine what they'd feel like. Even when they're quite unusual problems. Like Jay secretly wishing he was a bird, given the price of air tickets to Africa. And Clyde secretly wishing he was a human, given how hard it is to rescue people when you haven't got a helicopter, or thumbs.
There's an even more unusual problem in Tweet, which Jay and Clyde discover just as they're beginning their journey. It involves the birds of the world, who are doing something extremely unusual. They're standing around in very large groups, gently but firmly getting in the way of humans. Stopping them rushing around and being so busy. Hoping they'll take a break and think about a few things.
Which, Jay and Clyde see, is turning into a very dangerous problem for the birds.
But it doesn't end there. You'll notice that, as well as all these other problems, Tweet contains one other problem that's so big, none of the characters know how to solve it. Not even Jay and Clyde's friends Maxine and Dora, who are super-smart.
Please don't fret. Not every problem in a story has to be solved by the last page. Sometimes just discovering new ways to think about problems is the biggest adventure of all.
This is where you come in. Because Tweet is your story too. OK, the words come from Jay and Clyde, and me, but only until you take them into your imagination. Then they're your words, and you get to decide what you do with them.
I wish you a wonderful reading journey, with always-curious wings, and a beak that keeps on pecking as long as there are good ideas waiting to be dug up.
Tweet will be available from April 3 in bookshops and libraries in Australia and New Zealand, and online. Buy it here: