Free Scrap Metal by Harper Fox

be around. I’ll keep you straight.”
    He gave me a sidelong look. The wind was blowing his black hair across his eyes. I wanted to brush it back, to get a better view of the burnished lights the sunset was calling from their violet.
    “Thanks,” he said softly. “But I think straight is the last thing you’ll be…” He winced and came to a halt. “Ouch.”
    “What’s the matter?”
    “Think I burst a blister.”
    I looked at his feet. He’d dispensed with his trainers and was wearing a pair of new green wellingtons.
    “Did you walk down from the bus in those?”
    “Yeah. Like I said, I didn’t want to stand out. So I took off my city-boy shoes, and I put on these. I thought they’d be comfortable.”
    “So they are, with two layers of thick socks.”
    “Oh. No, I’m barefoot.”
    I hissed in sympathy. “You’ll be cut to shreds. Come on in. We’ll get some plasters on you and some antiseptic, and—”
    “Nichol, no. At least…not while your granddad’s around.”
    “He’s all right. He won’t eat you.”
    “Okay, but I just don’t want to look like an arse in front of him. Any worse of an arse, anyway. I’ll patch myself up later.”
    I nodded. I let go the steadying grasp I hadn’t realised I’d fastened on his arm, and he hobbled on, visibly swallowing the pain to make a decent stride of it. I didn’t quite get his anxiety about the old man, though Harry was enough to make anyone nervous. Then I could only think about the sight of him from behind, skinny but head held high, nice firm backside making the borrowed sweatpants look good.
    I ran to get the door for him. “Well, you know two agricultural secrets now,” I said, ushering him in. “Where to find the Quick Start for the lambs, and not to go commando in your wellies.”
    He gave me a luminous smile, and I thought about adding a third—that Harry’s sheepdogs only cornered a beast like that if they wanted to bring it safe home—then decided not to push my luck.
     
     
    We had a peaceful meal. Harry confined himself to extracting a short genealogy from Cameron, who responded with what I thought might be mostly the truth—that he was town born and bred, and a Beale of the Larkhall Beales, who’d never distinguished themselves in any way he knew of. To my surprise, the old man at that point gave him a look of something near approval—I barely recognised it—and told him he could be the first, if he carried on his studies and settled himself on a farm. Something better for your own bairns, laddie. I bit back a groan, but Cameron didn’t seem fazed by him. We sat around the rickety table even after the casserole was eaten and the remains of it wiped up with bread. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d hung around for one second longer than we had to.
    Cameron thanked me nicely for the food, and I shot him a smiling glance. He’d certainly done a quietly passionate justice to it. Already he looked a bit more solid.
    “Can I get you any more?”
    “Better not. I’m meant to work for my keep, remember?”
    “Yes, but—”
    “The lad’s right. Take him out on your late rounds, Nichol. If you set off now, you can check the cliff-top fences before dark.”
    I looked up. Harry was scanning both of us with a kind of grim satisfaction, probably at the idea of packing me out into the cold night. Something more to it than that, though. I tried to read it. His eyes were glittering oddly. Maybe it was even more fun to have a weary, underweight town boy to kick around.
    My temper stirred. “Is it all right with you,” I said, “if I show him to where he’ll be sleeping first?”
    “ B’e sin a’chuirt, mas e gura bi fàg mise ’am aonar. ”
    I care not, as long as thou art gone. I raised my eyebrows. Almost impossible to translate the old language into bright modern English, particularly when it came to Harry’s thunderous pronouncements.
    “Fior mhath,” I responded involuntarily. Very well. As it pleases you.
    I