Secrets and spies

- Do you want to earn some money? It's just a short trip on your bike. 

My mother asked me this one afternoon and of course I wanted to earn some money. When you're 12 years old you don't get many opportunities to rake in cash.

- Orren is away over on the rented fields tilling on his tractor, I know he's seeing that tramp from the neighbouring farm and I want you to go and spy on them. You'll get 500 kronur for it.

OK, so I'll just ride over there on my bike, sneak in the middle of the day through open fields close enough to spot if anything is going on without being seen, sneak back undetected and then double back with the report and collect the reward.

Easy money, right?

The ride takes maybe 15 minutes, I decide to hide the bike some distance away and sneak closer through a dried drain pipe that ran under the road.

I reach the other side and get close enough to see a tractor approaching from the distant field. No tramp or other cars in sight.  Maybe my mother is creating one of her conspiracy theories again, a variant of the imaginary vacation pipedreams that she looped me into  occasionally when the hours were dark and bleak. We would look at some pamphlet or other with far away places with exotic names dancing about the pages with smiling people with tanned skins beckoning us to join them in a happy place. Plans would be made, excitement and exhilaration created, then nothing. Rinse and repeat.

The farmer is harvesting hay with a trailer, I've had experiences with the trailer in the past where I got caught between the tractor and the trailer while trying to hop onto it after fighting with one of the hired hands on the farm that then threw me off it after I lost the fight. In righteous fury I ran to the front of the trailer after being thrown off the back off it, intent on jumping onto it again but my foot got caught in the bezzle as I was making the attempt.

I ended up hopping on one leg after the tractor for several seconds with slashing blades at my heels until the farmer finally heard my screams and stopped the tractor so I could dislodge myself from the bezzle.

Needless to say he wasn't happy, he even scolded the hired hand for sloppiness.
- You don't have to beat the boy so hard that people can see it 

The tractor gets closer and I decide I'd better retreat to avoid detection, my skills at subterfuge at the age of 12 are however lacking and the tractor comes to a grinding halt and the farmer jumps out, an angry buzzing hornet intent on settling the score with his soon-to-be ex-wife through whatever means available
 Right now, that would be me.

I backpedal frantically through the drain pipe and skipjump over a few low ditches and throw myself flat into one of them and stop breathing and moving. I hear the volume of curses grow louder and risk a sneak peek over the top of the ditch, is that a wrench he's carrying?

He stalks around in the distance searching behind every nook and cranny except the one I'm safely hidden away in, trying to flush me out by threatening and goading me into making a revealing response. I know better and I'm good at playing dead.

He eventually gives up and returns back to his tractor, slams the door shut and revs away as fast as only a tractor with a trailing mower can go.

I wait for several minutes or hours, completely still, listening for signs of an ambush.

Finally, the tractor appears again but this time on the other side of the road. There is no escape this time, I'm trapped and resign myself to the inevitable but remain frozen to the spot.

The tractor passes by within a few yards, apparently heading back to the farm and I start breathing again as it slowly fades away into the distance. I sneak back to the farm, slowly but surely in case I run into someone or something that I want to avoid.

Nobody's home  when I get there so I quickly grab a few sandwiches from the kitchen and splatter some strawberry jam onto them before disappearing up into my hiding place in the attic. The attic has been my sanctuary for a few years, creeps and all.  Its only reachable by climbing through a hatch in the roof amidst the cobwebs. I've dragged a mattress up there and some books, a flashlight and a pillow. Sometimes I stay there for hours when I want to disappear. Nobody seems to know about it except me.

Eventually, I feel safe enough to come down and give my report to my mother when she returns.

I get my money even if the mission didn't give any clear results.