The Good, the Bad, and the Emus

Chapter 1



“Be careful!” I said, looking up from the boxwood hedge I was pruning. “We don’t want another trip to the emergency room. We’ve used up our family quota for the week.”

My twin four-year-old sons paid no attention, of course. Josh, who was supposed to be collecting the fallen twigs and leaves into small piles, continued to battle an invisible opponent, now using a particularly large, sharp stick I’d just pruned off the hedge. Jamie had volunteered for the task of loading the small piles into the wheelbarrow and ferrying them to the large pile by the driveway that was awaiting the eventual arrival of a borrowed chipper/shredder, but his active imagination had transformed the bright red wheelbarrow into a high-powered race car, to judge by his repeated growls of “Vroom! Vroom!” And his racetrack was starting to inch near the street in front of our house, and while it was a little-traveled country road, cars did pass by often enough that I didn’t want the boys getting complacent about playing there.

Neither of them heard me. But I wasn’t really talking to the boys. My seventeen-year-old niece, Natalie, who would be serving as the boys’ babysitter this summer, snapped to attention.

“Josh!” she called out. “Drop that stick before you put someone’s eye out! Jamie! Out of the street! Inside the hedge!”

I returned to my snipping, satisfied that Natalie was on the case. And that she was beginning to get a handle on her job. She had taken care of the boys two summers ago, but apparently had forgotten how lively they could be. Then again, compared to two summers ago, their capacity for mischief and mayhem had grown exponentially. I’d gotten used to the change gradually, as they’d grown. Natalie was still catching up.

In a day or so, once she was really up to speed, I could retreat for hours each day to the barn where I had my blacksmith’s workshop. In fact, I could start retreating the day after tomorrow, when Michael’s spring semester ended, and he’d have several weeks off before the summer session began. I could delegate training Natalie to him while I hit the anvil. I hadn’t had much time for iron work since the boys were born, and had almost given up selling at craft shows. Hard enough to get routine household chores done safely with two increasingly active munchkins underfoot. No way did I want them in the same room when I was heating steel to 2000 degrees Fahrenheit and then whacking on it with a three-pound hammer. I managed to get in a little time at the anvil during Caerphilly College’s semester breaks, when Michael was not only willing but eager to spend time with the boys. But I never had enough time to stock my booth for even a modest-sized craft show. And while the higher salary Michael now earned as a tenured professor in the drama department meant we could manage without my crafting income, the money I’d earn would be helpful. Besides, I didn’t want to lose my hard-won skills.

So with Natalie around all summer, I was planning a frenzy of iron work. As soon as I was sure she really understood just how carefully she had to watch “Trouble” and “Danger,” as my brother, Rob, had nicknamed his nephews.

Today we were easing into what I hoped would become our routine, with her keeping an eye on the boys while I did neglected yard work and repairs and kept an eye on her. It was a beautiful mid-June day, sunny, but not hot—perfect weather for being outdoors and enjoying the wealth of flowers in our yard. The azaleas were past, but the mountain laurels, rhododendrons, and magnolias were in bloom, and the scent of the lilacs was almost overpowering. And daylilies were everywhere—not just the common orange and yellow ones, but daylilies in every possible shade of red, white, purple, lilac, and pink. A glorious day to be outside.

I was relieved to find that Natalie didn’t seem to mind being outside. I’d been a little worried when she’d showed up that first day in a Morticia Addams black dress with trailing, fluttery sleeves. Apparently, since the last time we’d seen her, she’d taken to dressing entirely in black except for the odd bit of skull- and spider-themed silver jewelry, and her skin was so pale I was afraid she’d blister if she stepped outside.

But I soon realized that her pallor was due to sunscreen and careful use of makeup, and in spite of looking like a refugee from a low-budget vampire film, she was still the same cheerful, organized, responsible kid she’d always been. And she’d put away the dress after the first night and was now wearing black jeans, a black T-shirt, black sneakers, and a black baseball cap. I anticipated that some of the more sedate citizens of Caerphilly would look askance at our choice of babysitters, but Michael and I were content. And we’d gladly complied with her request to take over a corner of the back yard for her own gardening project, which seemed to involve growing as many black plants as possible. Already, dark-flowered hellebores and nearly black pansies were blooming in her bed, surrounded by neatly raked black mulch, and she’d used black ribbons to tie her black tomato and pepper plants to their black iron stakes. I’d actually decided that it made a nice restful contrast with the multicolored profusion of the rest of the yard.