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the ball, he picked up the footy and tossed it back. Frewen, Klay and Miffo cackled.
    I clenched my fists.
    ‘Ahh, there’s Jack,’ said Grandpa, winding down his window.
    How could Grandpa have missed what had just happened?
    ‘Gidday, Frew,’ called Grandpa.
    ‘Hi, Mr A,’ called Frewen, smiling.
    Like magic, his snarl had gone.
    Instead of Grandpa, it was Nan who picked me up after my third day at school. Apart from a hello when I climbed into the car, she didn’t speak all the way to Marrook. Not that I cared. If I had a choice between her barking at me and silence, I’d take silence every time.
    Nan parked beside the garage. ‘I thought he was fixing fences,’ she said, watching Grandpa clip one of the kelpie’s collars to a short chain attached to the back of the ute’s cabin.
    I left the Subaru without answering.
    ‘How was your day, Callum?’ asked Grandpa.
    ‘Okay.’ After three days of the same answer to the same question, you think he’d give up.
    ‘Finished with the fences?’ asked Nan.
    Grandpa patted the kelpie’s neck. ‘I’ve done all I can alone. Think I’ll move the last mob of ewes before lambing.’
    Nan pulled a face at him.
    Grandpa took a slow breath. ‘Like to give me a hand, Callum?’
    ‘Great idea,’ said Nan, before I could speak. She snatched my bag from me.
    ‘I need to change.’
    My grandmother grimaced at my ‘Make Poverty History’ hoodie. ‘No need.’
    ‘Let’s go,’ said Grandpa.
    I trudged around to the passenger door. The kelpie, Jilly, leant towards me, tongue hanging from her mouth. I stroked her ear.
    ‘Why don’t you come to training with me tonight?’ asked Grandpa, winding down his window.
    ‘I’ve got homework,’ I lied. As if I’d want to hang out with old bowling blokes.
    Something twitched in Grandpa’s jaw. Elbow sticking out the open window, he drove past the cypress trees where the other kelpie was barking and leaping on its kennel.
    ‘How come you haven’t let that one off?’ I asked, watching the dog rush forward, only to be wrenched backwards by the chain.
    ‘Star? He’s too energetic for pregnant ewes. Jilly won’t stress them as much.’
    Grandpa didn’t ask me to open the gate when we reached the gate past the woolshed. He just stepped out of the ute and did it himself. Instead of stands of cypress trees, the paddocks out here were dotted with massive gum trees. A mob of sheep was spread across a hilly paddock with hardly any trees.
    ‘Are they the ewes we’re moving?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Grandpa. ‘We’ll bring them up to the woolshed paddock, then down the side and behind the tractor shed.’
    ‘Why move them?’
    ‘The paddocks near the house are more sheltered. Better protection for the lambs.’
    ‘I don’t get why you lamb in winter if the cold’s a problem.’
    Grandpa glanced at me, his face hard to read. ‘Winter lambs are weaned in spring when there’s more feed in the paddocks. At least that’s how it used to be, before the drought. Now we have to feed out just about every day. Costs us a fortune.’
    Grandpa put the ute in neutral and opened the next gate, leaving this one open. He drove in a wide arc behind the ewes. They lifted their heads and watched, their thick fleece more grey than white.
    ‘See how their behinds are whiter than their fleece?’ Grandpa asked. ‘We crutched them a couple of weeks ago, so they’d be right for lambing.’
    I nodded, though it all seemed too weird.
    Once we were in the far corner of the paddock, and behind the sheep, Grandpa put the ute in neutral and let Jilly off. She glided across the ute tray and hit the ground on all fours like a cat.
    ‘Easy, now,’ he said, back in the cabin.
    Jilly trotted forward, tongue lolling out the side of her mouth. The sheep ran, joining into a tight bunch in the middle of the paddock.
    Grandpa followed, the speedo needle hovering below ten. ‘So this Christos, he’s an artist?’
    I rubbed my palms on my jeans. ‘Art