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‘Robbo lit the gas oven and a python shot out from behind the old kitchen dresser like it had a terrier on its tail.’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘Yep. He rehoused it in your outside dunny.’
‘Um … why the heck would he rehouse a snake in my outhouse? There’s forty acres of overgrown paddocks and two creeks right on the doorstep.’
‘He took a shine to him. Thought Bruce might come in handy keeping the mice population down.’
‘He named the snake.’
Daisy grinned. ‘Yeah, you know, in case you need to introduce yourself sometime.’
‘A guy likes a bit of privacy when he’s using an outdoor dunny.’
His sister gave him a light thump in the arm. ‘Now, now, I’m the overly emotional snarky one and you’re the responsible brainy one, remember? Speaking of brains … did you mean to nail this into the wall of the dunny?’
He flicked a glance at the book in her hand. Yeah, right; as if anyone would be taking his investment advice again. ‘I’m recycling, Daisy. Yesterday’s bestseller becomes today’s loo paper and saves world resources.’ He’d crumpled the water bottle in his hand into crunchy splintered pulp before he remembered paper wasn’t the only thing his family were nuts about recycling. Crap.
‘Okaaaaaay,’ said Daisy. ‘You want to talk about something, Joey? I’m feeling some rage vibes.’
‘Don’t pull that crap on me, Daise. I get enough of that from Mum.’
‘What-ev-er,’ she said. ‘If you don’t want to talk, fine. Let’s see if we can get this baby running. You prime the fuel?’
‘If that’s what podging the black button does, then yes. It’s primed.’
‘Switch is on, fuel tank’s full, everything looks good to me. Put those beefcake muscles to use and give it a pull, brother.’
‘I’ve tried that.’
‘Yeah, but you probably flooded the engine. So now we’ve given it a rest with all our snake talk, it’ll be happy to start. Trust me, I’m always right.’
He raised an eyebrow and she frowned at him. ‘Okay, so I’m often wrong, but never about power tools or the colour wheel. Give it a go.’
He hauled on the cord and the ancient beast in his hands roared into action. Hah! Take that, old life!
Daisy grinned at him. ‘Attaboy,’ she yelled over the whine of the motor. ‘We’re about done inside for the day. Dad says to come over to Bangadoon for dinner tomorrow night. Six o’clock; all your idiot brothers will be there, even Wombat, and Mum’s asked half the muster committee so you might even find a meat dish on the table. Don’t be late—you know what the boys are like around the table.’
Crows, that’s what his brothers—and sisters—were like. They could pick a buffet down to gravy-stained platters faster than crows could pick a cow to bone.
He supposed they deserved it. Not every family would drop everything the way his family did. The farmhouse he’d bought years before, when his star was burning a little brighter, had been a mouldy dust-trap when he’d moved up from Sydney last month. Now, courtesy of the Miles family working bees, it had painted walls in one of the bedrooms and the living room off the kitchen. Along with the mishmash of high-end furniture he’d had trucked up from Sydney, it had side-of-the-road gems his sister Daisy had rescued and given him. The chimney had been emptied of possum nests, the hot water had been restored, and the dodgy front step was no longer an insurance claim waiting to happen.
He cast his mind over the chores-to-do list he kept in his head. ‘I’ve got to fix some fencing down on the flat so the cattle can’t get down to the road. If I get everything done, I’ll be there. If you don’t see me, feel free to bring me and Gus a doggy bag.’
His sister leaned in close. ‘No doggy bags. You’d better be there, big brother; everyone’s expecting you to front up a lot more often now you’ve moved back home. We’ve given you space to get settled; now it’s time to get involved.’
He revved the whipper-snipper as his sister disappeared in the direction of the house, then brought it down on the foot-high snarlof weeds. Getting involved. Ha! Like he’d be making that mistake again in a town like Clarence.
An hour later he was in the old orchard respooling the whipper-snipper when his phone blipped. He pulled it out of his pocket.Received two contractsran the subject line of the email.
Well, wackadoo. Maybe his list of problems had just shrunk. He clicked in to read the body of the email from the real estate agent.
One’s a lowball offer from some joker hoping you’re too dumb to know what your place is worth. The other’s good. Ten k over asking price, and no reason we can’t negotiate them upwards.
That was excellent!
Virginia, who was handling the sale of his Sydney place, had attached both contracts, and he held his phone in under the shade of his hat so he could read them. The first one, yeah, totally dreaming—screw that. He clicked on the second one. Finally. He was tempted to not even bother negotiating. Sign the contract as it was, and the clock would start ticking … in thirty days, he’d be out of trouble.
