Jimbo headed straight toward the smell. We followed in a line behind him.
When the noise of chicken squawking was really loud and the chickens had us surrounded, he raised his arms in the air.
‘Girls, meet the boys,’ he said. He was still ignoring Charlie. Nobody said anything. Maybe he’d forgotten she was there and it would be rude to mention it. ‘Say hello, boys.’
‘Hello,’ we said.fn1
He showed us their feed and how to clean out their henhouse. He also showed us how to collect the eggs. Feeding was fine, cleaning was disgusting, but collecting the eggs was cool. Next he brought us to the cowshed. I’d never seen a real cow before. They were massive and loud and breathed really heavily, and if I hadn’t been so mesmerised by their massive eyes and huge wet noses, I would have run for my life.
‘Cows meet boys. Boys meet cows,’ he said.
Charlie was standing right beside him! She said nothing, so neither did I.
‘Ever milked a cow before?’
‘Ah we’re from Dublin,’ Walker said sarcastically.
‘Yeah, well, so is Premier Dairies. There are cows in Dublin, believe it or not, Smarty-pants.’ Jimbo couldn’t see but he was sharp as a tack. Walker was a smarty-pants. ‘Which one are you?’
‘I’m Simon,’ Walker said.
‘Well, from now on you’re Smarty-pants.’
We all laughed. That name suited him better than Simon.
‘Who else have I?’ Jimbo said.
‘Eh, Alvin and Brittany.’
‘Oh yes. You ever milked a cow, Alvin?’
‘No, sir,’ Johnny J said.
‘No, Jimbo,’ Jimbo said.
‘No, Jimbo.’
‘Right, let me show you how.’
Jimbo felt around for the stool. Charlie moved it closer to him with her foot. He found it and sat. He dropped his stick and grabbed on to the cow’s pink soft bits and I felt sick.
‘Good morning, Gloria,’ he said to the cow.
She mooed a bit, but I think that’s because he was kneading her pink bits like my mam kneaded dough.
‘I’m giving a little nudge, a push, a prod, just to relax the muscles here, boys. Old Gloria needs to relax and leave the milk down.’
The others moved forward, fascinated. I hung back, disgusted. Charlie looked around.
‘There’s room here,’ she said, and she pulled me closer. Thanks a lot, Charlie.
‘You ever seen a cow being milked on TV?’ Jimbo asked.
Sumo put up his arm. I nudged him. ‘What?’ Sumo said.
‘He can’t see, remember?’ Walker said.
‘Oh yeah, sorry. I did, Mr … Jimbo.’
Jimbo started making a pulling motion. ‘And they did this? Right?’
‘Right,’ Sumo said.
‘Wrong,’ he said. ‘To milk a cow you take your thumb and forefinger, you clip them around the top of the udder, then with the other hand you squeeze the milk out. It starts slow but speeds up as old Gloria here relaxes.’
He was doing it with his gnarly alien fingers. By now I felt faint. I didn’t say anything. Nobody else seemed bothered by the fact that we were in a barn with a weird old man, a large cow and milk being squeezed into a bucket.
When he finished his demonstration, he asked us, ‘Who wants to try?’ They all did.
I just hung back.
Johnny J looked back at me. ‘You’re after me? Yeah?’
‘Jeremy, I’ll do the cow for you if you do the chickens for me,’ Walker said.
I nodded enthusiastically.
‘But the cow is way cooler,’ Sumo said to me.
‘Yeah, but the chickens will set off my allergies and I’ll die,’ Walker said.
He was right. We were on a farm surrounded by straw, grass and all the other things that set Walker off. He was already looking a little puffy around the eyes.
‘Do you have your medicine?’ I asked.
‘A box of tabs and one inhaler,’ he said.
‘Is that enough?’
‘Hope so,’ he said.
After the chickens were fed and the cows were milked, Jimbo showed us the fence with the hole in it.
‘Ever fixed a fence?’
You would think by now he’d know the answer. Of course not!
‘No, Jimbo,’ Sumo, Charlie and Johnny J said. Walker and I stayed quiet.
Jimbo got out a hammer and nails and chicken wire, and when he put the first nail in the wood and hammered, it was like watching a daredevil do a trick. I was sure he was going to hammer his long bony alien finger into the wood, but he didn’t, and when he was done, he turned to us.fn2
‘Demonstration over. Any questions?’
Nobody spoke.
‘Right then, that’s for tomorrow. Now, which one of you can make an omelette?’
‘Me,’ Charlie said.
‘Others, collect the eggs. You –’ he pointed in Charlie’s direction – ‘come with me.’
We collected the eggs. There were a lot of eggs, but the hens were moodier second time around; a couple didn’t like us picking up their eggs. One snapped at me and another flew into Johnny J’s face! It wasn’t as cool as I’d first thought, but it was still better than milking a cow.
Earlier that day we were eating ice cream and now we were farm slaves in a place that smelled of every bad thing all at once. Walker sat on the fence, inhaling his inhaler, leaving Johnny J, Sumo and me to do all the hard work. Sumo was happy though – when he took over the egg hunting, he talked to the chickens as he took the eggs from beneath them.
‘Hello, lady, what have we here?’ Once he’d retrieved the egg or eggs he’d thank the chicken. ‘Thanks, lady.’
As we walked back to the caravan, Johnny J spun around, scanning the trees, the green fields, the animals sauntering around, the space and the pink sky. ‘It smells bad, but this is amazing,’ he said.
‘Yeah,’ I said, because it was.
Walker just sniffed and wiped his weeping eyes. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Dublin’s better though.’
Charlie loved the place too. She didn’t have to say it. There were enough trees to keep her climbing for years. In the short time we’d been there she’d already scaled two and was eyeing up a third.
‘You know what?’ Johnny J said as we walked back to the farmhouse. ‘We always talk about adventure. This is adventure.’
I was hoping for spaceships and superheroes, not a day on the farm! But I had to agree it was an adventure. I was just really scared about how the adventure would end.