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‘Unnamed red hen!’ shouted Amy, running forward.
‘Wait!’ Kirsty said. ‘You might get pecked. Let me grab it since I’m the one who remembered to put clothes on this morning. You grab Gus and tell him how brave he’s been.’
The kid dropped to her knees beside the dog and Kirsty took a breath. There was a knack to chickens, wasn’t there? Hold them upside down? It had been a long time since she’d been in charge of a chook pen on one of her jillaroo stints. The hen looked at her with a beady eye. Now or never, she thought, and darted forward,wrapped both hands around the chicken’s back, and trapped its wings.
It was surprisingly docile. ‘What do we do with it?’ she said.
‘We get it back to the coop before Uncle Joey finds out.’
The thump of boots on timber made them both freeze.
‘Crikey,’ whispered Amy.
From the shadows of the verandah a deep voice rose: ‘Before Uncle Joey finds out about what?’
‘Busted,’ Kirsty whispered to the girl by her side. ‘Wanna make a run for it and hope he hasn’t recognised us?’
Amy giggled. ‘For a meat eater, you’re okay, Kirsty. Hi, Uncle Joey. Guess what! We rescued Gus from a chicken!’
‘Is that a fact?’ Joe’s voice drew closer as he stepped from the shadow of the front door to the verandah’s edge.
The farmer wasn’t wearing outrageous floral work gear today. Ancient jeans clung to a whole heap of manstuff that was currently at Kirsty’s eye level, and he wore a white t-shirt that fit like a second skin.
Well, well. Farmer Joe might not be able to pull-start a whipper-snipper, but he sure looked like he could. He looked like he could pull-start a combine harvester.
‘Um, hi,’ she said. ‘I have no idea what I’m doing with this thing.’
He grinned. ‘Hello again. Amy’s found a job for you already, I see.’
‘Kirsty’s pretty good at grabbing chooks, Uncle Joey. Look how happy the chook is. You know what? That’d make a great drawing. Can you stay like that—exactly like that, no twitching, no nothing—while I go get my textas?’
‘Um …’ Kirsty said, wondering how many ways she knew to say the word ‘no’.
‘No, Amy. Kirsty’s coming here to live at the farm for a bit—’ He raised his eyebrows in her direction, clearly checking what he was saying was true.
She nodded. ‘That’s right, I’m the new rouseabout.’
‘What’s a rouseabout?’ said Amy.
‘It’s—’
‘Oh, I get it. A rouseabout is a bloke who works on a farm.’ She eyed Kirsty up and down. ‘Or a girl. Because girls can do anything blokes can do, can’t they, Kirsty?’
She smiled down at her. ‘They sure can.’
Amy was holding a hand up for her to high-five, but since Kirsty’s hands were full of chicken she slapped it with her elbow. Not the grandest of gestures, but Amy’s delighted grin made it feel like they’d shared a moment.
The kid’s uncle cleared his throat. ‘If you’ve finished celebrating how amazeballs girls are, Amy, perhaps you can explain to me why you’re cruising around my farm in your undies?’
‘Are you body shaming me, Uncle Joey? Because that is sooooo yesterday.’
Joe rolled his eyes. ‘Take the chook, put her back in the coop, and find whatever you were wearing when your mother dropped you off and put it back on, will you?’
Amy didn’t look abashed. ‘Jeez. Living in Sydney really sucked the soul out of you, didn’t it?’ She gave a theatrical huff, grabbed the chook, then stormed off in her green froggy boots, with Gus trotting behind her.
Kirsty turned back to her new landlord, surprised to see the way his easygoing expression had been eradicated. Had it been the mention of Sydney, or his lack of a soul?
‘Something wrong?’
