Thor's Child ©
by K Pelle
Chapter 4
It took Tor almost half an hour to convince Uncle Nils that he wasn't hurt. He could just imagine the story his uncle was going to tell Aunt Hanna, but Tor hoped she'd dismiss the account as a tall tale meant to glorify him in some way. After all he'd seen her smile and roll her eyes as Uncle Nils would tell a tale or two about his sons, so he imagined she took many of the stories he told with a grain of salt. He really hoped that would happen this time.
After Uncle Nils left to go home it took him almost another hour to calm Lillan down and get her to act more sedately. It was probably going to take him several days to get her back to the point she had been before he fell off though. Over half of training a horse not to buck is in convincing the horse that you will never fall off, no matter what happens. Now she knew he could fall off though and if she got into an uncooperative mood he could be in for a rather wild ride. Finally she seemed to be relatively calm, so he spent a few minutes with Fancy, just so she wouldn't feel totally left out.
Then he decided he needed to do something physical. He went to the chicken coop with an egg carton, gathered a dozen eggs and put them in the carrier of the ten-speed bike, along with an empty gallon milk jug, then peddled off down the road as fast as he could go.
Just over three miles down the road he turned into the driveway next to the sign for the Craigmiller's Dairy Farm. As he peddled toward the farm buildings he waved to Emily, who was sitting on the front steps, but rode down toward the barns because he thought he could see a friend working there. As he got closer, he grinned, because he grew certain it was Kevin, the oldest of the Craigmillers, who was only a year or so older than Tor. Besides being his friend, Kevin was the person he normally dealt with when he was trading for milk.
"Hey Kev. I know it's too early for the evening milking, and too late for the morning shipment, but I had to go to town with my aunt today, so I missed my normal time. I thought I'd leave a dozen eggs today and pick up the milk in the morning."
"Ha, I knew darn well there was a reason you weren't here earlier today, since you're our most regular customer. I had Emily put a gallon of milk in the fridge for you this morning, but she took it up to the house."
"Hey, thanks guy," Tor grinned. "Want me to take the eggs up there too?"
"You'd better. Both Emily and Mom want to talk to you anyway. I think they're going to be grilling you about your folks and the other family who are moving into the neighbourhood. Emily was telling me some wild rumours about you too, something about an arranged marriage at thirteen."
Tor broke into laughter at that, then grinned at him. "That yarn is courtesy of another of your neighbours. I imagine you know Sami Clemens don't you?"
"Yeah, so?"
"Well, Samuel Clemens was the real name of Mark Twain and he made his fortune writing tall tales. Sami is named after him and she was trying to live up to her namesake, so you can blame that fable on her. The truth is Sunny Enright and I are almost the same age. We've been buddies since we were four years old, and we grew up as next door neighbours near Gopher Creek, Saskatchewan. My father and her father are quite close friends as well, so when a mining company bought out both of our farms, they went looking for neighbouring farms and both ended up buying farms here. Everything else that was in the story is pure unadulterated BS."
"The only part of that I find hard to believe is that you're thirteen. Heck, you're taller than me and have a lot more muscle than I do, but I'm fifteen," Kevin grinned.
"Well, the farm we were on in Saskatchewan has a huge potash deposit right under it. I guess I just got an extra dose of fertilizer and probably absorbed it when I was running around with bare feet as a little kid," he teased.
"I think you should leave the tall tales to Sami. Her stories may be far fetched, but at least they sound somewhat believable. Your tall tales are just that, definitely nothing more than tall tales," Kev laughed. "Now you'd better head up to the house, or you'll have Emily coming down here on the warpath and there's no way you want to go through that."
"Hey, I've got a sister too, you know. I know exactly what you mean, but I'll see you another time," Tor grinned, then headed for the house.
Emily was standing on the steps when he pulled up with his bike.
"Hi Tor. I thought I could wave you down when you went past, but you just waved back and kept on going. Were you trying to ignore me?"
"Sorry, Em. I saw Kevin down at the barns and wanted to talk to him since he's usually the guy who deals with me. I hear you brought a gallon of milk up here for me today though."
"Well, Mom and I wanted to talk to you too."
"I'll bet someone told you about our budding young author's latest tall tale."
"What do you mean? Who are you talking about?"
"Sami Clemens, who was named after Mark Twain, the guy who wrote 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,' and 'Huckleberry Finn' as well as a bunch of other tall tales. Samuel Clemens was Mark Twain's real name and Sami seems to be trying to live up to her namesake by making up stories," he then repeated the true story. "Let's just say she got creative and has a very active imagination. I've already told her I really didn't like what she did. At least she didn't actively spread the rumour other than telling the one person who she shouldn't have spoken to about it."
"Mrs Bergman, I'll bet."
"I think that was the name."
"Well, just for your information, Amelia Bergman is the biggest gossip around and she probably blew Sami's story even further out of proportion," then Emily turned and called inside, through the screen door. "Mom? Are you there? You told me to call if Tor came by and he's here."
"Okay Emily, I'm coming," Mrs. Craigmiller answered just before she appeared in the doorway. "Hello Tor. We've been hearing stories about you."
Tor just rolled his eyes while Emily repeated his slightly modified version of the true story to her mother and Mrs. Craigmiller laughed.
"See, Emily, what did I tell you?" she winked at him over Emily's head. "Here you were mooning about how romantic the rumour was and how neat it was that you knew one of the people in the story and . . ."
"Mom, stop it," Emily demanded, blushing as she spoke.
"I'll tell you what, I'll introduce you to Sunny as soon as I can, then you'll know both of the main characters of the rumour, but I'm afraid we're not quite as romantic as the fictional characters in the tall tale."
"Oh, I don't know. You're rather good looking and you're certainly a jolly blonde giant like the story made you out to be," Mrs. Craigmiller winked. "You don't look like you're thirteen years old though."
"Everyone tells me that, but as I tell everyone, the farm we were on in Saskatchewan has a huge potash deposit right under it and I probably absorbed it through my bare feet as a little kid. You know how fertilizer makes things grow," he winked back at her. "Now I hate to rush away, but Kevin said the milk I was going to trade these eggs for had been brought up to the house. I should really get back to the farm just in case anything happens that needs someone to handle it."
"I'll get that milk for you Tor," Mrs. Craigmiller smiled, taking the egg carton and going back inside.
"So, when is your family coming, Tor?" Emily asked.
"The guys should be leaving home tomorrow, so everyone should be here inside of two or three days. The furniture from both our house and the Enrights was supposed to be loaded into the moving vans this morning and should already be on the way. Mom and my sister are leading the furniture vans in two cars and should be travelling in convoy with Mrs. Enright and Sunny in their car, so they should be here sometime tomorrow – in the late afternoon maybe. Then for the next few days you might be seeing semi-trailers and moving vans going past here as if this was a main highway. Both farms are bringing in cattle, horses, dogs, cats and I don't know what all else. In addition we've got all sorts of farming tools, tractors and equipment coming on flatbed trailers. I know the folks had an auction sale, but what they kept and what they sold is a big surprise as far as I'm concerned. To be honest with you, I can hardly wait for everyone and everything to get here. I miss my friends and family."
"Well, Mom and I had better go over to the Dupré house tonight and give it a last dusting then. Marcel hired us to keep it up until the new people came," Em sighed.
"Oh, so you're the people I can thank for keeping up the Enright's new place," Tor smiled. "I went over there last week to look it over, but the house was all locked up. I looked through the windows though and the inside of the house looked spotless. The yard looked just as good and all the buildings had been cleaned out, so I knew someone must be looking after the place, I just didn't know who it was. Thanks for doing a great job because you sure made my life easier."
"Oh, Marcel wanted it to be perfect for your friends. He said they came along and rescued his family from a huge problem and he wanted to make sure they were moving into a clean house," Emily smiled then. "How is your house by the way? Need help to do a final cleanup?"
"No, it passed the Aunt Hanna test today," he grinned.
"Are you referring to Hanna Eklund? I thought I saw her car drive by a couple of times today," Mrs. Craigmiller asked, coming out of the house with his jug of milk and an empty egg carton.
"Yep, that's her. She gave me a ride to town to get some new clothes, since my old ones were a bit tight on me. I grew a bit this summer."
"You grew a lot this summer," Emily laughed. "Dad and the hired man have been betting about it, with everyone wondering how big you'll be by the time school starts."
"Well, it's just that time, I guess," Tor laughed. "Every guy seems to go through a growth spurt or two and I seem to have hit a big one, but we talked about that before and I'd better get home. I want to bake a few loaves of bread and maybe a cake to welcome the folks home."
"Darn it, that's just my luck. Not only is he a tall, handsome, blonde who can cook, but he's taken," Emily teased. "Mom, my life is becoming a hard row to hoe."
"Oh yes, you are so hard done by," Mrs. Craigmiller laughed.
"Yeah, and I think it's time for me to leave. You and Sami Clemens should get together though, Em. Between the two of you, I think you'd make a great pair of fiction writers, because you've both got great imaginations."
"See ya," Tor waved one hand in the air as he peddled away, thinking that he'd wasted enough time. He peddled home, mixed enough dough for a half dozen loaves of bread and set it aside to rise, then went out to the barn and wore himself out by teleporting the length of the barn several times. After resting for a few minutes he walked back to the house and had a couple of sandwiches along with a glass of milk. Then he went back out to look after all the animals before going back inside, cleaning up, kneading the bread, and putting it in the pans to rise again. Actually he was so impatient to see his family again that he was feeling somewhat lost, especially since he'd become accustomed to working hard all day long. Now that the house was spotless and he had cleaned up any problems he could see around the farm, so he felt it was in good shape and he didn't know what to do with himself.
Finally Tor made a cup of coffee and sat out on the front porch, virtually twiddling his thumbs and watching the scenery for a while. When the bread had risen, he slipped it in the oven and while it was baking, he made and ate a meal, then washed his dishes. By the time he was done cleaning up, the bread was baked, so he set it out to cool. Since the oven was hot, he mixed up a white cake batter, dumped a can of crushed pineapple in the bottom of the baking pan, then added the batter. After his quicky pineapple-upside-down cake was baked, he went for a run up the valley to the farm's furthest pasture, then ran back home again. That tired him enough that once he'd had a shower, he went to bed, but he was thinking to himself that he was going to have to find something to keep himself busier the next day or he'd go completely nuts.
The next morning he'd finished the chores, eaten breakfast and had just stepped out on the front porch, wondering how he'd keep busy when Aunt Hanna and Uncle Nils arrived in her car.
"Hi there, you timed that well, I was just wondering what I could do to pass the time today," he greeted them.
"We came right over, because Olga and Alva just called, saying that they should be here by noon. We thought we'd help clear out the Armstrong's old furniture," Aunt Hanna announced. "Olga asked us to clear out the furniture in the upstairs bedrooms and the same with the things in the living room. We can store everything in the basement for now."
"Okay, that might take an hour or so," Tor nodded. "Mom and I are going to have a chat about my bedroom though. I like the furniture I've been using since the Armstrongs left since the bed is longer and the mattress is firmer."
"Well, I suppose we can leave that bedroom then," Aunt Hanna rolled her eyes. "Anyway, your mom wants the old washer and drier out of the utility room, but after I told her about the condition they're in, she doesn't want them put in the basement. She said just to put them on the back porch so they can be taken away and disposed of somewhere, probably the dump. While you two are doing that, I'll clean out the main bathroom and put all the old towels and out of date bath products into boxes. I'll get you to take the boxes to the basement later."
So Tor and Uncle Nils had their marching orders and they went to work. Tor had a great time because he was actually working along with someone for a change.
Besides, his family was coming and he had really missed everyone, talking on the telephone to a voice in the distance just wasn't the same as sitting across the table from a real live person. He hadn't wanted to admit it before, but there had been times when he'd been on the point of tears because he was so homesick. Instead of giving in to homesickness though, he'd forced himself to keep busy and had literally worked his way through it. In fact as he thought about it, he realized he could use that as an excuse to explain his new muscle growth. Besides, he was really proud of what he'd accomplished and he was fairly certain that his mom and dad were going to be just as proud.
"Vell, pojke, ya can holdt yer head high for a yob vell done here dis sommer," Uncle Nils surprised him as they were shifting the old washer out onto the back porch. "You haf da place lookin like a million an' yer pappa vill be proud uf you. Hellevetus, efen Aye am proud uf you. You did' a good yob fer a pojke yer age."
"Hey, thanks. I'm kinda proud of what I've done too," he grinned.
'Yer Aunt Hanna vas all vound up about da vay ya bin growin' 'til Aye tol her bout me ven Aye vas fourteen. Aye grew from vun an a half meters ta two meters tall in vun year, so vhat is happenin to you iss no sooprise fer a pojke in dis famly. Me mudder vent near to crazy dat year vit sewin, alvays makin' me new pants an shirts. Aye tolt Hanna dat yust because our pojkes did not grow dat vay does not mean eferyvun should grow da vay dey didt." He laughed. "Aye vas shure happy ven Aye slowed down growin' dough, but at sixteen year, Aye vas as tall as Aye am now."
"Well, I can understand that," Tor grinned. "I've been starting to worry that I'll soon be ducking my head when I go through doorways, just like you and Dad do."
His uncle just laughed and dropped a huge hand to Tor's shoulder as they went back inside to see if Aunt Hanna had anything more for them to do, but she was busy in the kitchen making a huge pot of coffee. She even smiled at them when they came inside, but he didn't even pause to talk to her because he heard a car drive in the yard. Tor literally ran through the house and burst out the door, across the porch, down the steps and was hugging his mom as soon as she got out of the car.
"Hello, Tor," she said after hugging him tight and kissing him on the cheek. "Hanna warned me you'd grown a lot, but I hardly recognised you."
"Tor, just look at you! You've grown about six inches and look at your arms. You've got the muscles of a bear," his sister, Alva said as she got out of her car, which was parked behind the trailer his mom's car had been towing.
Actually he was as tall as Alva, which surprised him for some reason, but her hug felt almost as good as his mom's had. The next while was a complete circus, because his mom and Alva had to hug Aunt Hanna and Uncle Nils too. After that they were busy looking around at the yard and admiring the scenery, then they were both hugging him again. Of course everyone was talking at once, but then it was a small version of a family reunion. It wasn't long before Aunt Hanna insisted that they had to see the house, as if anything could have held his mom and Alva back from doing that.
Olga was very happy about the layout of her new house and she patted Tor on the back for the work he'd done when he'd cleaned it up. She did question his desire to use the old furniture the Armstrongs had left behind, but when she saw it in the bedroom he'd been using, she agreed that it suited the room. She even agreed that he could keep that bedroom, even though it was in the opposite corner of the house from the main floor bedroom. Actually she suggested to Alva that the bedroom directly above the master should be hers and to his surprise Alva didn't argue. As soon as his mom had a quick tour of the house they headed out to unload the two cars and the two trailers they had towed behind them.
Alva just pointed at the trailer behind hers and said, "That one's yours, your clothes, your stuff, your dog, anything else in there belongs to Björn and Dagny, so everything except your dog needs to go upstairs."
Tor didn't waste any time going to the trailer and opening the tailgate. Ghost, his long-haired Weimaraner glanced up, then almost burst out of the plastic carrier he was in. Tor flipped open the door and was almost knocked off his feet as Ghost went completely wild, jumping, barking and leaping up against him to lick his face. Seconds later Ghost found a fencepost and left his sign, claiming the new farm as his territory, then he was back at Tor's side. When Tor took a load of clothing inside, Ghost followed him up the steps and onto the front porch, but knew better than to take one step into the house.
"Mom, which of the bedrooms upstairs is going to be Björn's and which will be Dag's?" he called.
"Björn is a morning person, like you, so put his things in the other bedroom down at that end of the hall. Dagny can have the room opposite Alva." She answered, sweeping past him on her way to the car. "Dog, get out of my way. I knew you were going to be in the way when we were unloading and I told Alva we should have left you to come out with the cattle dogs. Now move, ya mutt! I'll take the time to pet you later."
Tor just grinned and hurried upstairs with his burden. He was happy because hearing his mom complain about Ghost sounded so familiar and made the place feel a lot more like home. In the past he'd noticed his mom always seemed to be shouting at Ghost, but numerous times he'd caught her feeding him tidbits and scraps from the table or quietly patting his head as the dog snuggled at her side. In actual fact, Ghost seemed to consider Tor's mom to be his number two master, right after Tor, but he minded them both just as well.
Anyway, they all rushed with unpacking, but hadn't finished emptying the cars and the trailers before the big moving van arrived. Tor suggested they back across the lawn and right up to the porch steps, then use their ramp to make unloading easy and his mom didn't argue. In minutes they were all madly shifting furniture into various rooms all through the house. Since they all pitched in and worked like bees, just over an hour after it had arrived, the moving van was driving away.
"Tor, where are you?" his mom hollered.
"Just on my way up from the basement," he answered instantly.
"Well hop on your bicycle and hurry over to the Enright farm. See if they need any help, but be back here by six. Oh, and be sure to invite Mabel and Sunny to eat with us this evening. Now scoot." She waved both hands at him as if shooing him out the door as soon as he entered the kitchen, but she was grinning as she did it.
Needless to say he didn't argue. In only seconds he was on his bike and racing down the gravel road, following in the dust stirred up by the moving van, with Ghost racing at his side. Tor abandoned his bike on the front lawn of the Enright's house and was just approaching the porch steps when Sunny came though the front door. She gave a high-pitched squeal and dove into his arms from the top step, knocking Tor onto his back as she hugged and kissed him.
"Sunny! Is that any way for a young lady to act?" Mrs. Enright tried to sound stern, but couldn't help laughing. "Hi Tor. You're looking good, but somewhat flattened right now."
"Yeah, I just got bowled over by a wild woman," he laughed. "It's nice to know she missed me though, 'cause I sure missed her."
"Well, stand up and let me look at you. Your aunt said you were becoming a giant." Sunny ordered as she rolled to the side, then got to her feet, all the while fighting off Ghost's attempts to wash her face with his tongue.
She looked up from the dog as Tor got to his feet and her eyes grew larger, then she giggled. "Look at this guy, Mom. He got huge!"
"Yep, he could put you in his pocket, and keep you as a good luck charm now," Mrs Enright winked at Tor. "Since he's so big he can help us shift furniture, right Tor?"
"I think that's one of the reasons Mom sent me over here," he grinned at her. "That and she thought she'd have a mutiny on her hands if I didn't get to come over and see my bestest buddy."
"Bestest buddy, heck." Sunny jabbed a finger into his chest. "I'm claiming you, right here, right now. You're my boyfriend and all the other girls in the neighbourhood can go look somewhere else."
She turned toward the porch then and hollered, "Did you hear that, Emily? You better keep your hands off and you can tell your friend Sami what I said too. This one's mine!"
"Emily is over here?" Tor asked.
"Yep, and Sami is supposed to be coming over in a little while to apologise personally," Sunny giggled, then her face changed and she looked serious. "You did tell her that I thought her story was cute, didn't you?"
"Yeah, I told her I had to forgive her because you thought she was an incurable romantic with tendencies of exaggeration," then he turned his head and winked at Mrs. Enright. "That was just after she had a bath at our house and had to wear my old clothes while hers were in the wash."
"What?" Both Sunny and Emily squawked, Sunny from beside him and Emily as she came out the door.
"It's all Aunt Hanna and Sami's dad's fault. So you should really ask them about it, not me." Tor threw his hands in the air and tried to act completely innocent.
"Tor, do you want to live to see the sunset today?" Sunny shifted in front of him and tried her best to look threatening.
"I don't think you're big enough to threaten me much any longer," he grinned while leaning over and slowly inching forward, making her back away.
"Mom, he's threatening me," Sunny giggled and backed away quickly.
"Tough, you brought that one on yourself by threatening him first," Mrs. Enright winked at him. "By the way, Tor, that young lady who just threatened you is legally my daughter now."
"You found him!" he stepped back and pumped an arm in celebration.
"Charlie did, by working through the RCMP. We were on his trail even before we sold the farm, but the clincher came when Charlie visited him in prison the week you came out to BC. The conniving fool thought it was funny that someone else had raised his daughter, until Charlie hauled out papers that would have sent him to jail for about ten extra years. Our lawyer wanted us to file child abandonment charges, falsification of legal documents and I don't know what all else, but several other charges. On top of that the lawyer said we had a good case to ask for nine years of child support. Eventually Charlie left the jail with the signature we needed and last week a magistrate in Regina did the rest. Sunny is legally an Enright now."
Tor just grinned as he looked down at Sunny, but her grin matched his. He bent over and kissed her on the forehead, then scooped her into a hug and spun around while she squealed in surprise.
"Okay, Tor, if you have that much energy, I have a use for it. I want to get all of the furniture in this house arranged to suit the rooms today," Mrs. Enright laughed at their celebration.
So for a few hours they all worked at moving furniture back and forth until they had it just where she wanted it. Sami had arrived after an hour and immediately Sunny and Emily had demanded to know why she'd had a bath and worn his clothes while she was at his house. He told Sami that he was just getting even and she blushed, then giggled and told the other girls what had actually happened. Even Mrs. Enright thought he was a tease, but since he hadn't spread a rumour about what had happened, Sami said he was forgiven for teasing her.
"I suppose when you think about it and only tell half of the truth, like Tor did with Sunny, it would make a good story." Sami admitted with another blush. "Don't expect me to ever tell another story like I did though. I've learned my lesson."
"Good, then I forgive you." Sunny declared.
With that she wrapped Sami in a hug, then since Emily looked a bit left out, Sunny reached an arm out and included her too. That just might have been the birth of the Tomlin Triple Threat, because all three girls, who had been born in the same year and all lived on Tomlin Road became buddies, but more on that later.
Once Sami's story had been told and the girls had hugged each other, Mrs. Enright put them all back to work. By five that evening the house looked great to Tor, but Sunny and Mrs. Enright were still fiddling with details. He had chores to do, but before he left he included Emily and Sami in the invitation to eat at their house in about an hour, then peddled home. Of course he was being led home by Ghost, whose long-haired tail flew like a flag as he led the way. It sure hadn't taken Ghost long to decide where his new home was, or how to get back there.
Once Tor was back home, he warned his mom they might have a couple of extra guests, then put on a pair of work boots and head out to look after the animals. He was surprised when Uncle Nils came along with him instead of going home to do his own chores, but he told Tor that his sons had come home from working on the fishboats the night before. They'd be doing the chores at Uncle Nils' place, so he was taking the night off. It was rather interesting to have someone to talk to as he fed animals, all the while pointing out things he'd noticed, but it wasn't until he was feeding the horses that his Uncle Nils said much.
"Dat young mare, she didt not cause you any trouble after da fall you took de udder day?"
"No, but then I worked with her right away, and you have to remember, she's nowhere near as flighty as she was before. I think she was just slower to develop than normal, possibly because she was premature, then too, she wasn't fully trained when she was younger."
"Dat could vell be," Nils nodded. "Dat takes nottin' avay from da good yob you haf done vit her dhough. Aye could sell her now for much more dan she vas vurt before. Iss der much more you vant to do vit her?"
"Well, to be honest she needs about another month's work to have all she's been taught permanently locked into her memory. On the other hand, I can't do much more with Fancy, so you could take her away at any time, other than the fact that Lillan would be a bit lonely if she had no company."
"Does Fancy do dat fancy valk too?"
"Oh yeah. Actually I taught her first, so she's really good at it and she already had that fancy swing to her butt. So when she does her thing it looks like she's strutting on a catwalk, almost like one of those fancy models in Paris, the ones who flop their hind end around like a harpooned whale. Actually Fancy's butt looks better because her feet don't cross and threaten to trip her at every step. Some of those models look like they're trying to flag down a taxi with their hind end. Either that or they've just farted and they suspect a lump slipped out and got caught between their butt cheeks, so they're trying to get rid of it."
That made Uncle Nils snort.
"Oh, poy you haf a vay vit vords," he snickered. "Aye vil haf to tel yer pappa dat vun."
"Oh I think he already knows how I feel about women who advertise too blatantly," Tor snorted. "Actually though, you left me wondering, are you going take Fancy away soon?"
"Vell, maybe, but I talk to your pappa first. Vhat I vas tinkin is dat I haf two geldings vhat I tink you could train some too. How much do you tink you und your pappa vould charge for me to rent dis little pasture and vhat vould you charge to train a horse fer me."
"I really wouldn't know," Tor frowned slightly. "I think that would only work in the summer months and even then Dad might not go for the idea. I need to go to school and I do some work around the farm as well, you know."
"Vit vhat you haf done here in da last mont, you tink I couldt forget dat?" Uncle Nils snorted. "Da place vas run down an messy be-fore, but now you vould tink an Englandter Duke lifedt here. Dat does not come vitout hardt vork. Next veek, after yer pappa hass seen vat you haf done here, I talk to him and to you, maybe vee make a deal, hah? Ass it iss now, I owe you vun colt for da vork you didt on that little mare, but for da older vun, I gif you some extra."
"Well, we can talk about that then, but right now I can see company coming up the road and I think the girls are cuter then either you or the horses," Tor teased. "Besides, I'm hungry enough to want something to eat."
Uncle Nils just laughed and rested a hand on Tor's shoulder as they walked back toward the house.
Sami and Emily were peddling rapidly up the driveway, followed at a safe distance by Mrs. Enright and Sunny in Mrs. Enright's car.
"Vhat do you do, collect girls too?"
"Nope, but Sunny collects friends," Tor grinned. "I'll be honest though, I kinda like the scenery she gathers."
That brought another chuckle.
"Hey, why did you come to the house so soon?" Sami asked when they met up. "We were going to come see you. Well, really I wanted to see the horses."
"After we've eaten," Tor snorted. "I'm starved. All these women around us have worked Uncle Nils and me to the bone. We're both so hungry we can hardly stand."
"Oh yeah, I can see that you're both starving," Mrs. Enright chuckled. "Hello Nils, I haven't seen you in years."
"Yaw, Aye tink yer little girl vas aboudt fife year old," Uncle Nils said, then the two of them walked away, quietly talking.
Sunny was looking around and so was Emily.
"This doesn't look much like the pictures that Dad and Uncle Ollie took of this place, at least not the ones I saw," Sunny said quietly. "It looks much neater somehow."
"It didn't look like this when Tor came either," Sami giggled. "Dad thinks Tor is a one man army on a cleanup mission. In the few weeks that he's lived here he's done an awful lot of work."
"Well, if I wasn't busy, I got homesick, so I kept plugging away at things. If I wasn't working, I was either eating or sleeping."
"Or peddling down to our place at high speed to buy another gallon of milk," Emily added, with a giggle. "We saw him about every two days and he'd trade eggs for milk. He got so much milk from us that Mom thinks he must have bathed in it."
"I like to drink a lot of milk," he shrugged. "Now, let's go eat, huh?"
So they went inside to eat and Tor got teased the whole time they were at the table. Of course he got complimented for baking the bread and for the desert, the cake he'd made the night before. Then Aunt Hanna had to brag about how he'd spent his evenings cleaning up the house and Uncle Nils was talking about how well he had trained the two horses. Finally Tor decided it was just too much and excused himself to go outside, which was where Sunny and the other two girls caught up to him.
"Everyone's laying it on pretty thick, huh?" Sunny flopped down at his side.
"Yeah, it got to be a bit too much," he sighed.
"Well, if Kev was living here for that amount of time, he wouldn't have done much more than he absolutely had to do," Emily snorted. "I don't know if I would have either. For one thing I'd have been a bit worried that I'd do something that might make my parents annoyed."
"That would almost have been certain if it was me who did anything extra around our place. My dad is so fussy lately that I ask before I try to do anything around the yard or even in the house," Sami snorted.
"Hey, you were going to show us the horses," Sunny jumped to her feet and grabbed his hand. "Come on, let's go see what Uncle Nils was bragging about."
"Oh I didn't do anything special with them, just spent time and fiddled around. Your dad trains horses, you know it just takes patience and persistence to teach a horse."
"Yeah, but he said you taught these horses tricks and we want to see them," Sami grabbed his other hand.
So with Sunny yanking on one hand, Sami on the other and Emily shoving from behind, they got him moving. Of course Tor decided that if they were going to fiddle around, he would too. He quickly got his hands free, bent low, wrapped one arm around Sunny's waist and the other around Sami 's, then pressed forward and stood up, flipping them into a dual fireman's carry. Of course both of them were laughing and squealing while Emily thought it was so funny that she was giggling like mad and could hardly walk. He only carried the two of girls for a few feet, but from the fuss they made you would have thought he'd carried them a mile.
After setting them down he turned to Emily and winked. "Next time I do that, you have to paddle them, okay? I can't do it because it takes both hands to hold them up there."
"No way am I getting into anything like that," She giggled as she shook her head. "Instead you promised to show us horses, so go! Take us to see these fancy trained horses."
So he took them down to see the horses. After being dumped off Lillan the day before though, he now had two pieces of rope hanging on the fence that he could use on their halters to act as reins. He'd found four small snaps that allowed him to clip both ends of a rope to the ring on the halter nosepiece and then he'd flip the loop that the rope formed back over the horses' neck. It made staying on the horse much easier and it helped with neck-reining too.
Tor grabbed a rope and whistled the two mares over, then had Sami hold Fancy by her halter while he put his ersatz reins on Lillan's halter. He flipped on her back and made certain she wasn't going to be too frisky as he rode her in a slow circle, but didn't do anything fancy. When he was positive she was okay, he asked Emily to come over and helped her get on Lillan's back.
"Now to steer her, you just press the rope against her neck. It's called neck-reining and you press the rope against the right side of her neck to turn left and then the other side to turn right. Just remember to steer her as if you were pushing her head in the direction you want to go. If you lean forward just a little bit and tighten your heels against her ribs very lightly, then cluck your tongue, she'll move forward slowly. The more you lean and the more your heels tighten, the faster she'll go though. Whatever you do, don't lean forward really far at the same time as digging your heels into her ribs hard, because to her that means to go real fast. In fact if you did that, she might take off so fast that you could fly right off her back end. When you want to stop, lean back and holler 'whoa,' okay? Have you got that all straight?"
"I think so. It sounds pretty simple." Emily said quietly as if she wasn't certain.
Then she grinned, leaned forward a bit and clucked her tongue. To his surprise he heard another tongue click from behind him and swung to see Sami on the back of Fancy, with Sunny grinning at him as Sami rode away.
"You said it, I've seen Dad train horses too, so I thought I'd help Sami up on the older mare," Sunny grinned, then she stared at the two horses and spun toward him. "How did you get both horses to do that?!"
"You mean swing their bums like showgirl's do?" Tor snickered.
"No, that gait. The way they seem to be prancing, well, maybe a rhumba step or something. That is so neat!"
"Trade secret," he grinned and dropped a hand over her shoulder to hug her close to his side.
"None of that secret stuff, I'm your girlfriend now and couples shouldn't keep secrets from each other."
"Yeah, but for trade secrets like this, that only counts when you're talking about married couples."
"Hey, no fair! You're pulling out the heavy artillery now," she jabbed him in the ribs.
"Okay, as my girlfriend I'll tell you one fact. Horses don't like stubbing their toes."
"Well, I don't either," she giggled and jabbed him again. "But what has that got to do with anything?"
"Oh, oh. Sami is going faster. Now she has Fancy trotting and . . ." he paused, because with her ample bust, the sight was definitely interesting, but he didn't know exactly what he should say.
"Oh my!" Sunny's voice dropped to a whisper. "If that girl is going to ride horses, she needs a better bra."
"Oh, I don't know? I kinda like the effect," he chortled, but got a jab in the ribs.
"You would like the way it looks, since you're a guy, but that could hurt her if she rode at a trot for very long."
"Yeah, you should talk to her about it, darn it," he sighed, and Sunny slapped his arm lightly.
Since both girls had to ride their bikes home, they didn't ride the horses for long, but both of them asked if they could come back and ride again another day. He agreed, but warned them that it definitely couldn't be for at least a week and that next time he'd put saddles and bridles on the horses.
Tor saw Sunny take Sami and Emily aside before the two girls left, so he imagined that they were discussing 'unmentionables' - he liked that term and planned to use it on Sunny if he had the chance. Let's face it, he liked to tease Sunny and she returned the favour in spades, so they teased each other a lot. Actually he felt that's one of the reasons they got along so well – by teasing each other they were able to bring up topics that most kids their age wouldn't think of discussing. That probably smoothed over a lot of rough spots that they might have had otherwise.
As the girls peddled off on their bikes, Sunny walked over and slipped her arm around his waist, so he dropped his arms around her shoulder and held her tight.
"It's a good thing I got here when I did," She smiled at him. "You've got Sami thinking you walk on water and Emily's not far behind."
"You mean you don't?" Tor grinned, which got him a really hard slap on his arm.
"Owww!" he complained, so she grabbed his arm and leaned over it.
Tor thought she was going to kiss it better, then tease him about it, but instead she spit on his arm and rubbed it in with her fingers, then spun away and ran off giggling. So he ran after her, growling and stomping his feet loudly. Of course she ran to the house, dashed inside and stood between his mom and hers.
"We've gotta go home, Mom," Sunny announced with a grin. "I made that big bear angry and he's chasing me. I don't know what he'd do if he ever caught me."
"Oh, don't be silly, girl, you've had that bear trained to roll over and play dead since he was five years old," Tor's mom laughed and swatted Sunny lightly on the bottom. "Now why don't the two of you just learn to play nice like good children?"
"Aw, that wouldn't be any fun," Sunny winked at her. "I have to keep him on his toes, what with all these other girls running around and drooling over all his muscles."
"Aye seed you hadt doze two girls ridin on da horses. Dey lookedt like goodt riders too, an dey efen had dem horses doin da fancy steps you taught dem, Tor."
"Uncle Nils, I don't think either of those two had ever sat on a horse before," Sunny giggled. "Tor stacked the deck and told them how to make the horses do that fancy footwork, but he won't tell me how he trained the horses to do it in the first place."
"That's just smart business, girl," Aunt Hanna chuckled. "Tor knows your dad trains horses too and he's keeping his special training practises secret from the competition."
"But it's not fair, a guy should tell his girlfriend all his secrets."
"Oh boy, do you ever have a lot to learn, daughter," Mrs. Enright took her turn to swat Sunny lightly on the butt. "Your father won't even tell me some of his horse training secrets, and we've been married for twenty-two years. However, all kidding aside, it is time for us to go home. We still have beds to make and showers to take, so I think we should meander into the sunset. Thanks for the meal, Olga. Tor, I want the recipe for that ryebread some day, if it isn't a secret."
"It's just sourdough ryebread," he shrugged. "It's nothing special. I used Mom's regular ryebread recipe, then added an extra bit of sugar and used a home grown sourdough 'mother' as a substitute for the yeast."
"Oh, of course," she chuckled. "But just how much sugar is 'an extra bit' and just how much 'sourdough mother' did you use?"
"I dunno, just enough," he shrugged. " I poured a little pile of sugar in my palm and added that to the mix. After that I stirred up the 'mother' and poured some out of the container right in the middle of the dry ingredients, then worked it in, along with a bit of water. You just use enough sugar to look right and enough 'mother' to make the sugar work, then add enough water to make the dough work easily, but not go all gooey. Then the mix get's kneaded, let rise, kneaded again, put in the pans, let rise a last time, then the loaves get baked."
"See, I told you," his mom broke into laughter. "When he cooks, he never gets any measuring cups or spoons dirty. Everything he does is 'by guess and by gosh,' yet he seems to get it right most of the time."
"Mom stood by one day when he baked French bread and measured everything he used before she would let him add it to the mix. His bread came out light in the middle and crusty on the outside, just the way it should be. The next day she tried to use his recipe from the measurements she took, but ended up feeding the bread to the chickens because it was so tough. The chickens were pecking at one of those loaves for a week before it finally disappeared." Alva teased their mom.
Tor just rolled his eyes. "How about telling them about some of my failures though, like my chicken stuffing last year?"
"Highly spiced, greasy bread stew, almost - just a bit stiff for stew," Alva giggled. "Even the dogs turned their noses up at that. So you see, Sunny, he really isn't perfect."
"As if I didn't know that," Sunny grinned. "But, my mommy says I need to go home, and since I'm an obedient little kid . . ."
"Oh my, don't I just wish –" Mrs. Enright sighed, then grabbed Sunny's arm and made as if she meant to drag Sunny toward the door.
Sunny pretended to protest. However it was only moments before they did leave and shortly after that Aunt Hanna and Uncle Nils left too, but he still had family left in the house and it felt wonderful. Unfortunately his mom and Alva had been up early and had driven a long way, then had worked hard the rest of the day. They were worn out and ready for bed.
Tor wasn't tired though, so he went for a walk around the yard and ended up in the barn. He was reluctant to try teleporting because he'd used a lot of energy moving furniture during the day, but he got to thinking about flipping that darn light switch. That was 'moving' something physically, in fact it was almost as if he was 'lifting' something. He wondered if he could 'lift' something heavier.
Tor set an empty pail in the middle of the barn floor, then sat down on a bale of straw and imagined lifting that empty pail and floating it at eye level. It took him two or three attempts, but suddenly he discovered how and found it was easy, so easy that he went to the grain bin and filled the pail almost full of ground grain, then sat down and tried again. That was harder, a lot harder! Not because the bucket was heavier, but because the individual bits of ground grain were lighter than the pail. The grain lifted out of the pail before it even quivered.
Tor suddenly had a fountain of ground grain, then in a second he had a cloud of ground grain floating about waist high, right in the middle of the barn. At least it was still under his control, relatively speaking, because it did hang in one area. It took a little time to do it, but he managed to condense that cloud into a ball, then lower it toward the bucket. Steering it the last few inches was something like herding goldfish. Grains collided with each other and darted off in odd directions. He'd push those grains back and more would dart away on another side from bumps and collisions, and he soon had a cloud again. Then he thought he got smart. He formed the cloud into a cylinder and lowered that toward the bucket. As the bottom of the cylinder reached the lip of the bucket, he let the whole mass drop. He only forgot one thing – the bucket wasn't empty, it was full of air. The middle of his column of grain must have been more concentrated than the outside. As the ground grain dropped, the central portion compressed the air to the outside of the bucket, then the air escaped upward along the outer edges. Instantly he had a hollow fountain, then as he tried to gain control of that fountain, he soon had a doughnut shaped cloud. He considered the problem for a moment and finally just 'pushed' the cloud ahead of him as he walked down to the feed bin, then he lowered it slowly and finally let it drop.
Tor was just walking back to pick up the half-full bucket of feed when he heard someone at the barn door. He rushed over, scooped up the bucket and set it aside, then hurried toward the door and opened it quickly. He was thinking that either his mom or Alva had wondered where he was and decided to look for him, then noticed the lights were on in the barn. Someone had come to investigate all right, but it wasn't his mom and it wasn't Alva, instead it was Ghost, who must have decided that if Tor was doing something, he wanted to be involved. That's when Tor realized he had one more complication to frustrate him in his need for privacy, his dog, since Ghost was accustomed to following him almost everywhere, and his family knew it. If they wanted to find Tor, all they had to do was look for Ghost, since he was never far from Tor's side.
Just what he needed - like a hole in the head!
Still, it certainly wasn't Ghost's fault. He was just doing what dogs do, choose a human and lavish all his love and affection on that person in any way he could. The dog was just one more obstacle Tor would have to work around.
As Tor was walking back to the house with thoughts of sleep, he suddenly recognised that there had been a change in his goals. Instead of only learning how to avoid his strange new abilities, he was developing his present gifts, as well as instigating searches aimed at investigating further talents and powers. He seemed to have admitted that he was different from the norm and he was embracing that difference, yet hiding it from everyone. In a way that shocked him, because as long as he was hiding his talents from everyone else, he was actually lying about himself to his friends and family, yet he hated liars. Unfortunately he couldn't see any other way to remain safe from prejudicial people who would set out to destroy anyone that didn't fit their narrow definition of humanity. Wars were fought over nationality, skin colour, race or religion, so what chance did one teenage kid have – if he was different from everyone else in the whole world?
Tor was feeling quite sober and somewhat apprehensive as he approached the house and went inside. Slipping off his shoes quietly, he noticed the lights were still on. His mom must still be up.
She was. In fact she was sitting at the kitchen table, sipping a cup of chamomile tea. She lifted her eyes and smiled.
"Out checking the farm and putting everything to bed just like your dad always does?" she asked quietly.
"I guess," he smiled and shrugged his shoulders, recalling that Dad usually went out for a short walk around the farm before bedtime. "I just felt like taking a walk."
"Um hmm," she smiled. "I noticed that the bedroom you chose faces the driveway and the barnyard so you can keep an eye on things as well. You've become quite a responsible young man."
"Oh, but it also faces the setting sun, so that room gets the last heat of the day," he grinned. "On top of that it's right above the kitchen, so I can hear anyone cooking a meal and get a head start toward grabbing my seat at the table."
She laughed and held out her arms as she stood. "Wise guy! Just give me a hug, then get to bed. We've all had a hard day and we need sleep, because tomorrow is going to be just as hectic."
So she got her hug, then Tor had a quick shower and collapsed on his bed.
For once Olga Eklund was wrong. The next day was beyond hectic and approached frenetic.
Thankfully he'd had a shower before going to bed, because he'd hardly gotten dressed and downstairs to put the coffee on when he heard the Jake-brakes of a semi-trailer truck as it slowed for their driveway. He didn't even get a sip of coffee before he was up to his ears in vehicles, men, cattle, horses, dogs and machinery. He couldn't even attempt to describe that day other than to say that he'd never been busier – or happier. The rest of his family had arrived and so had all the animals and equipment needed to turn the place back into a working farm
Björn was the first to arrive in a new Chevy pickup truck with a canopy on the back and a horse trailer towed behind it. He was being followed by the semi-trailer truck Tor had heard, which was loaded with twenty-nine head of Black Angus heifers and one young bull. They'd hardly managed to unload that batch of cattle, as well as the horses and dogs from Björn's stock trailer when Dag showed up. He was driving another pickup truck, pulling a covered trailer full of tools and equipment, but leading another semi-trailer load of animals. That second trailer load had three milk cows and another Angus bull, as well as four bred sows and a hundred chickens. At the front of the trailer they had loaded three skidoos and a whole batch of other gear such as garden equipment, tarps and other light junk, which was a pain in the butt to unload.
Thankfully their dad arrived towing a flatbed trailer behind his pickup and his trailer carried a small diesel tractor equipped with a front end loader. Dag hopped on the tractor and was shifting and shuffling material and equipment around in no time flat. They'd just finished unloading the last of the equipment out of the stock trailer and were about to send the driver on his way when another pair of semi-trailers arrived. Thankfully those were flatbed trailers loaded with farm equipment and covered with tarps, so Tor's dad had the drivers park the trailers next to a steep bank. Those two trailers would be left where they sat for four days, which would allow the Eklunds to shift those loads at a more leisurely pace.
Just then, Tor's mom ordered the four men inside, and her timing was perfect. The last of the animals had been unloaded and had been herded into the corrals, sheds, pens or pastures, while the last of the big trucks had just driven away.
"Ollie, you are starving our youngest son with all this work. He was up before six this morning and has been working like a fiend ever since. Now, it's after ten and he hasn't eaten a bite. Take a break! Come inside and at least have a coffee, so I can feed the poor starving boy his breakfast," She snapped at the boys' dad.
"Well, from the looks of him, Mom, he can't have been starving for long," Björn laughed. "He's added a few inches and several pounds since I saw him last."
"If he keeps growing like that and he's gonna be bigger than you soon," Dag slapped Björn on the shoulder. "In fact I think you'll soon be the shrimp of the family."
"Oh, my youngest son still has some catching up to do," Ollie snorted, then suddenly Tor was held in a bear-hug and getting a whisker rub from his dad. "Look. He's still growing peach fuzz, not a real beard like mine."
Ten minutes later they were washed and sitting at the table, then while his dad and his two brothers teased him and gave him a rough time, his mom and Alva cooked up a storm. Tor was certain they fried every egg in the fridge and cooked up about half a ham, while toasting up two loaves of bread. Then too, his appetite seemed to surprise everyone, because he certainly got kidded about it, but he didn't mind.
It was great just to have his family around him again.