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“Yeah.” Usually, we’d be planning where we would head for our next contract. But tonight, we were parting ways.
“First night here, hey?”
“Alone, yeah.” I cleared my throat. “Where are you headed?”
“Armidale, and then Inverell if Armidale doesn’t come good.” Blake shifted his feet. “Theo asked me to be a mentor at shearing school for their next session.”
I looked up. “He asked me, too.”
We burst out laughing. “Sneaky bugger. Asking us separately.”
“Knowing we’d talk about it with each other eventually.”
We chuckled again, watching the sunset over the distant hills. Ballydoon and the Turner’s homestead were just beyond that view.
“You going to do it?” Blake asked, his voice suspiciously casual.
“Maybe. Depends on this place. You are, aren’t you?”
Blake nodded slowly. “Yeah, I am. Wouldn’t mind giving it a go.” He shifted in his seat. “Do you ever think about what would have happened to us if we hadn’t gone to shearing school?”
“Oh yeah,” I murmured. “I reckon we would have stolen cars until we were serving prison sentences. Or dead.”
Simply named, “The Shearing School”, the training initiative was run by the Department of Justice and New South Wales Police to give country kids a fresh start and work skills after a conviction as a juvenile.
And Blake and I, bored teens, drunk at fourteen years old after experimenting with the liquor in my parents’ liquor cabinet, stole a car, took it for a joyride and crashed it into a fence.
The look on my parents’ faces at the police station. The shame I had carried, and still did.
Theo was a former cop who volunteered at the shearing school and inspired us to get our shit together and stay out of trouble. And we had.
“Do you ever tell people about what we did?”
“Nah.” Blake stretched. “Gotta leave that shit behind.”
“True. But still, can’t believe my grandfather left me his place, along with my brother.”
“You’re not fourteen anymore, mate.”
“I know.”
“Everyone does dumb shit when they are fourteen. We just did it all in one night and got caught.”
The bonfire was low in the metal drum, and the dew was settling, bringing an icy chill.
“We should go inside. Hungry? Can cook up some snags.”
“I miss Leonie Turner’s cooking already. The spread at the Turner’s was impressive.” Blake put on a fake sniff and whimper. “Guess I’ll suffer through your burnt sausages.”
We downed our beers, and I let the bonfire burnt itself out, safe in the drum.
Finding cooking gear was a challenge. My grandfather just shoved anything anywhere into a cupboard at will.
“So, pouring beers,” Blake said, finding a frypan in the Tupperware drawer. “You going to be happy with that?”
“I’m happy it pays my bills and puts food in my belly.”
“Makes you wonder about that Ryan Turner.”
