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our ones only these
were in better order. He unlocked a padlock on one of
them and we followed him in. On one side were farm
tools leaning up against the wall – forks, shovels, rakes,
another axe and a pickaxe, sledgehammers, crowbars.
On the other side was a smart workbench with rows of
hand tools and a grinder, bolted on.
    'Fetch a bucket of water, Colman,' he said. And
then, to me, 'We used do it all by hand, you know, with
whetstones. Very slow.' He looked at the axe again and
laughed, just the way Coley did. 'This one would have
taken me half a day. We'll do it in half a minute, now.'
    He turned on the grinder and the wheel began to
spin. Coley came in with the water and his grandda
stood it on the bench beside the grinder.
    'You'd better stand back now,' he said. 'And I'll
have to find my goggles.' He laughed that little laugh
again. 'There'll be a lot of sparks flying around. I'm
blind enough already.'
    He put on his goggles, dipped the head of the axe in
the water and touched the side of the blade against the
wheel. He was right about the sparks. A huge shower of
them flew up from the steel, like a firework.
    He dipped the axe in the water again and returned
it to the wheel. Then again, and again, he dipped it and
ground it and dipped it and ground it, and he only
stopped when he took it over to the door to look at it in
the daylight. It took a lot more than half a minute. It was
at least ten minutes before he was happy with what he
done, and then he turned the axe over and began again
on the other side.
    ''Tisn't as easy as it looks,' Coley said. 'I tried it
once with a penknife. It turned pure blue. You wouldn't
cut mud with it now.'
    'We're getting there,' his grandda said. He took it
over to the door again. 'We just have to get the burr off
it now. See it there?'
    I looked closely and seen what he was pointing at –
a little rough ridge of metal running along the edge of
the blade.
    'We'll take that off with a small stone.' He clamped
the axe in a vice and dipped a square pink stone in the
bucket. It was smoother than the big round one on
the bench grinder. He ran it along one side of the blade
and then the other and he showed me the bits of the burr
coming off on it, like grey sludge.
    'That'll do it,' he said. He let the axe out of the vice
and handed it to me. 'Keep it turned away from you
now. We don't want any accidents.'
    'You could shave yourself with that,' Coley said.
    'You could,' his grandda said, 'if you had a very,
very steady hand.'
    They both laughed and this time I joined in.

14
    I was itching to try out the axe but Coley followed his
grandda back into the house and his grandma had tea
ready, all laid out on the table with cups and saucers and
cake and biscuits and milk in a jug, like something out
of an old film.
    Coley sat down but I didn't. I was thinking about a
quick getaway.
    'Sit down, sit down,' Grandma Dooley said. 'You'll
have a cup of tea.'
    And before I knew it I was at the table. There was
something about Coley and his grandda, like they were
going along with the flow instead of always against it all
the time, and somehow I had to go along as well. I
wasn't so sure about his grandma, though. She had
sharper edges.
    She said, 'Did you leave out the milk last night?'
    I looked at Coley. He was grinning up at the ceiling.
Sometimes I wondered if he was all there.
    'I don't know,' I said. 'My ma might have.' I knew
she hadn't.
    'I hope she did,' Mrs Dooley said. 'I hope she did.'
    'What would happen if she didn't?' I said.
    She shook her head, all serious. 'Bad luck to upset
the fairies. You wouldn't know what might happen.'
    'Like what?' I said.
    But she didn't answer that. She poured out the tea
and Coley reached for cake. I did, too.
    'Is the house all right for you?' she said.
    I said, 'It's fine. Very nice.'
    'Fierce wind last night,' she said.
    'Fierce,' Mr Dooley said. 'Very unusual for the time
of year.'
    'You didn't lose any slates?'
    'I don't think so,' I said.
    'Good.'
    We