“I bet. Is he okay though?”
“Yeah, not bad,” he replies with a shrug, wandering around the side of the barn with me. He stops short at the sight of Bambi. “No way.” He glances at me with amazement. “This is Bill and Eileen’s old Airstream.”
“Were they the last owners of this place?”
“No, the owners before that. I always wondered what happened to it.” He runs his fingers over the badge. “It’s original, right? Must be, what, early sixties?”
“Yes, Airstream made this model between ’61 and ’63. They do a modern version now.”
“I can’t believe it’s been here all this time,” he says with awe, absentmindedly rubbing his thumb and fingers together to dislodge the dirt. “What a waste.”
“It was under a cover. It’s not in great shape, but I’m keen to renovate it.”
“And then what? Sell it?” He shoots me a look.
“No. Keep it! I’ve always wanted an Airstream.”
“Me too.” He walks round to the back, his eyes roving over every inch of the bodywork.
The amber flaw in his eye is even more startling in the sunlight. He rarely meets my eyes long enough for me to get a proper look at it.
“I was thinking of you earlier,” I admit. “I want to give this a good clean and was imagining you laughing at me trying to climb up onto the roof.”
“Like a little bird,” he says with a chuckle, knowing where I’m going with that thought. “We should take it down to our place. We have a pressure washer. I could help you tomorrow, if you like?”
“Really? That would be amazing. The only thing is, the tires are flat,” I point out.
“Jonas will be able to order new ones, if they don’t already have them at the garage.”
“Garage?”
“He works at a garage in town.”
“As well as being a farmer?”
“Yeah, there’s not really enough work to keep him going full-time, not on a farm our size. Except at harvest, then it’s all hands on deck.” He nods at Bambi. “This thing is so small, I bet we could take it to our place on a tractor.”
“Would Jonas mind helping?”
“No, but I can bring the tractor up myself. It’s no trouble.”
“That would be awesome, thank you! Actually, Dad and Sheryl wondered if you might have a use for any of this old farm equipment?”
He walks around the caravan, surveying it dubiously. “Notreally, but if you want to get rid of it, I can probably stick it behind the shed.”
“Oh yeah, I noticed when I went for a walk that you have a bit of a junkyard down there.”
“Junkyard? It’s a motocross trail!”
I laugh at his mock indignant tone. “Awhat?”
“A dirt-bike trail, you know, a track to ride motorbikes around on, do jumps and tricks.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
“Well, it’s notsafe,” he replies with a smirk. “Jonas and I used to ride a lot when we were younger, but it’s been a while. I thought about getting him back out there, see if it cheers him up.”
“Is it fun?”
