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Joe snapped his gaze back to her, and his easy smile was back. A little too easy, perhaps; his niece was quite the actress—actor!—maybe acting skills ran in the family.
‘Nope. Why don’t I show you around?’
She followed him up the stairs to the wide-planked front verandah. The front door was smack-bang in the centre of the house, open to reveal a wide central corridor and lofty ceilings. Paint trestles lined one side, explaining the slash of fresh ivory on one wall, the murky mustard and maroon of the others.
‘Check this out,’ said Joe, and she realised he wasn’t looking into the house, but at a slim etched sign beside the front door.
WIRRAWAY.
‘The house is named after the plane,’ she murmured. ‘But …youcan’t have named it. You didn’t know about it.’
‘This nameplate was on the house when I bought it. And I needed a name for my farmstay business, so Wirraway Farmstay it is.’
‘That’s—’ She was about to sayserendipitousbut then she remembered she’d turned her back on all that fate/luck nonsense. ‘There’s a warbird website that says wirraway means challenge in the Woiwurrung language.’
‘Challenge,’ said Joe. ‘I like that. Let’s head on through to the farmstay paddock. We’re using the stables as a workshop area, which means we have to share the space with Dobbin and look out for piles of horse dung while we’re doing any woodwork, but it’s dry, and the power’s hooked up so there’s an old fridge there, and a microwave and kettle, in case you don’t want to make the trek up to the house kitchen.’
‘Thanks. That sounds great.’
He started down the hall but stopped at an open bedroom door. ‘That was fast. I hope you put that chook back in its pen and not under my doona.’
His niece was sprawled on a large bed, muddy gumboot prints making a track from the door to the middle of the room where she’d kicked them off. She had an iPad propped in front of her and barely spared her uncle a glance.
‘The chook’s safe, Uncle Joey, jeez.’
He didn’t get mad at the bossy tone, Kirsty noted. Instead, he grinned and walked over to tickle her (grubby) foot. ‘We’re heading out back to the cottages. Wanna give Steve Irwin a rest and come with us?’
Amy’s hands were now clasped over her mouth and her eyes were wide. ‘I can’t. There’s a python about to swallow a rat whole and now there’s freaky music going on and Steve is on his belly in the dirt peering in at them through a hole in an old log and there’s a lot of drama about to unfold, Uncle Joey.’
He shook his head. ‘You know, for a vegan, you’re pretty bloodthirsty, Amy.’
‘I know,’ she breathed, her eyes not breaking contact from the screen. ‘That’s why Mum never lets me watch this stuff.’
Joe turned to Kirsty and gave her a wink. ‘Daisy has made it so easy for me to be the cool uncle.’ He looked back at his niece. ‘You sure you’re going to be okay by yourself for half an hour? No cooking, no ironing, no welding.’
‘Yes, yes, go! OMG run, little rat, run!’
‘No knives, no licking the dishwasher tablets, no painting peace signs on the roof.’
‘Far out, Uncle Joey.’
‘In fact, stay here under my doona until I get back. Unless the house is on fire, in which case call triple zero.’
He must have felt he’d doled out sufficient warnings, because he headed on through a wide open-plan kitchen and out the back door.
‘That was an impressive list of rules,’ Kirsty said. ‘Is Amy in the habit of playing with knives and welders?’
He gave a chuckle. ‘Not that I know of, but you can never be too sure when the Miles gene pool is involved.’
‘Really?’
‘Put it this way. I have a lot of siblings, who were all totally naughty when they were little, and since I’m the oldest, I was the unlucky sucker who got to keep an eye on them.’
‘How many siblings is a lot?’
‘Me and five others.’
Six kids.Six.Joe’s childhood must have been as far removed from her one-mum-one-kid childhood as it was possible to be.
