23The next day, I told Grandma I was taking Skye to check out the barn, which was way in back of the hill, past fields full of muddy pigs and warm cow patties, which I often stepped in when I was a kid.
“Well, I declare,” said Grandma Z. “I don’t know why you’d wanna go down to that dirty old barn. It’s just filled with junk.”
“Skye’s never been in a barn before.”
“Watch out for them old snakes,” she called after us.
The barn had faded to a brownish red, not like the bright red barn we all posed in front of for photos when I was little. And junk was right, magical junk. The canoe we used to fish in, some rusty tools, a banjo with no strings, Grandpa’s ancient tractor that he didn’t use anymore but couldn’t bear to sell and all sorts of other crap, like the plastic cash register I used
