Leonie watched him go, shrugged her shoulders at me and started across the yard towards the house while Basil stood near the fence waiting for me. I hesitated, and then walked towards him. When he saw me coming he jumped and kicked his heels together out to one side and then jumped and kicked them together on the other side.

‘That’s called a bell-kick, did you know?’ he said. ‘Not many people do.’

‘No, I didn’t know.’

He leapt over the fence using only his hands on the wooden post as he swung his legs with his knees together up and over the wire.

‘What’s that called then?’ I asked.

‘That’s a Basil original.’ He took off again, bell-kicking side-to-side across the paddock while I negotiated the wobbly fence wires, ending up too high and too wobbly, glad he was preoccupied while I indelicately dropped to the other side.

The ground was furrowed with hard clogs of dirt in among the new green. Walking was difficult, I nearly lost my footing, but Basil was gambolling up ahead like a spring lamb. ‘You’ll sprain your ankle,’ I called out to him.

‘It’s called a bell-kick because you’re supposed to look like a bell while you do it,’ he called back. ‘Side to side. Swinging and dinging. Like this. Bing bong bing bong. Do I look like a bell?’

‘How old are you?’ I asked, and just as I said it he landed heavily on one foot and went down like a sack. I hurried over to where he was already sitting up and brushing the dirt from his hair. ‘You okay?’

‘Totes.’

‘Okay, really,’ I said, ‘how old are you?’

‘Why?’ he said, looking up at me. ‘My youthful exuberance too much for you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh alright, I’ll tone it down. Be mature. Act all of my fifteen years.’

‘Fifteen? You seem heaps younger.’

‘Oh great. Thanks. I’ll take that as a compliment. And you’re seventeen.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Oh, I know things. Help us up?’

He held out his hand and I took it and pulled him to standing. ‘You know,’ I said, ‘a male of fifteen years old should be able to get from sitting to standing without using their hands at all, let alone someone else’s. It’s an accurate predictor of life expectancy.’

‘Yeah, but then you’d be left standing there with nothing to do.’ He brushed the dirt from the back of his jeans.

‘So what was all that about, between you and your mum?’

‘What?’

‘The “remember” stuff.’

‘That? Bullshit, that’s what. Nothing for you to worry about, though. Hey, so.’ He slapped me on the arm and gestured towards the little house. ‘Have you seen the Dutch Room yet?’

‘The Dutch Room?’

‘Behind the double doors of Dutchness?’

‘Ah, no?’

‘Oh man, it’s completely wild. You should sneak in and have a look.’

‘Why? What is it?’

‘No way. I’m not going to ruin it for you. You just wait. The lair of His Royal Dutchness. So, hang on, really? He hasn’t “had you in for coffee” yet?’