Mr Wetheral leaned on his stick. It made him look just like his mother, Elsie.

“Ah, the lovely Maggie. How delightful to see you.” He held his hand out for shaking, his fingertips poking through the ends of his fingerless glove. He only ever wore one, on his right hand.

I shook it.

He smiled his uneven smile. The right side of his face, pulled and scarred, didn’t work so well as the left.

The whole right side of Mr Wetheral got horribly burned in a terrible fire.

Lindi told me. One breaktime, at school.

It was wanderers that did it.

I can’t believe you haven’t heard this, Maggie.

He was with his family; they lived right on a boundary. And the wanderers – they set his house alight, with everyone still in it.

He had a wife, and two daughters. They died. All three of them. Mr Wetheral tried to save them. He was all but dead himself when they dragged him out.

Someone my uncle knows was there. Saw it with his own eyes.

Screaming, they were. Screaming and weeping.

“I, um, have your brother’s portrait.” Mr Wetheral gestured towards the pony and cart behind him. It was Melissa, Mayor Anderson’s piebald mare. Mr Wetheral always borrowed her when he was delivering a portrait. His wife – the one that died – she was the mayor’s little sister, so I s’pose she liked to help him out when she could.

“Is there any possibility I could have some help getting it inside?” he said.

I looked at his gloved hand, his scarred face.

Melissa swished a fly with her tail.

“Course,” I said. “Course.”

The portrait lay flat in the cart with a cloth pinned across its front.

“That’s so you can uncover it yourselves,” Mr Wetheral said. “When you’re ready.”

We each got on a corner of the frame, Dad and Mum and Jed and me. Dad didn’t want Jed helping but Mr Wetheral said he should if he wanted to, so Dad gave in.

We hauled it off the cart. It was long and wide and heavy.

Melissa snorted and stamped a hoof.

“Is this bigger than usual?” I asked. My corner dropped lower than the other three. It was too heavy. Why was I breaking my back heaving around a massive picture of Jed, just because he’s an eldest?

“I make all the camp portraits exactly the same size,” said Mr Wetheral.

We edged it down the path, through the front door. We had to turn it on its end to get it into the sitting room. Trig scurried around in front making sure our way was clear. Mr Wetheral followed us with his stick and his toolbox and his unsteady walk.

We propped it against the wall. The cover sagged. A sliver of dark-green background showed along the top.