Let me tell you about a Weather Vane.

Over the summer, something else had changed too. While I was laid up, Hank got his driver’s license and the keys to his father’s hand me down car.

In September life pretty much got back to normal, aside from the extracurricular physiotherapy.

I had clamped my jaw tight, keeping the secret of the barn portal from my family but I needed to share it with someone. That someone was Hank.

I told Hank about the portal barn and he was both intrigued and skeptical.

“That’s some super power you have, Jo.” he said incredulously.

“Listen” I said “I’m only telling you because I have to tell someone.”

“You could tell a shrink.”

“Thanks, buddy. Here’s the plan. We’ll drive up to the farm and I’ll demonstrate. We can’t do it here because we’d be stranded. The portal is a one way trip, so we’ll need a way to get back home.”

So, first thing that warm Mid-September Saturday morning we took off in Hank’s old Volvo wagon and headed up to the farm. The farm is entered through a long lane through the woodlot and we parked where the car would be hidden from both the highway and the house.

Then, the grand reveal. We stepped out of the car and stood on the gravel laneway. I pulled a small box from my sporran and opened it. Inside was an old velvet sack. Royal blue with a gold drawcord and emblazoned with gold embroidering spelling out “Crown Royal”. I carefully opened the sack and withdrew the barn portal. I flourished it a moment or two and then held it before my eyes.

I said “I’ll meet you at the barn” as I focused my attention on the nearside of the barn portal. Carefully choosing the side that faced away from the house where the big double doors on the barn opened toward the meadow. I stepped forward and I was there. Immediately I turned around and started limping back down the lane towards the car where I met him running full tilt with a crazed look in his eyes.

Much astonished gibbering and expletives flowed forth from his mouth. Who, what, when, where, HOW?

“You turned into a ghost, man. I could see you and then you got all shimmery and sparkly and see through and, and then you were gone!”

I calmed him down and carefully explained what not to do if he wanted to avoid hurting himself by falling from the sky. I held the barn portal in my left hand and pointed at the spot where he needed to focus with my right index finger. I warned him that the barn portal would get cold and that meant that it was working.

I handed him the barn portal and let him try. Then I watched him disappear just the way he had just described my vanishing act.

I hobbled back towards the barn as fear started to clench my jaw and I felt ice water churning in my stomach. From a distance I could see him sitting in the dirt next to the barn but I could not tell if he was alive or dead. When I reached him, he was sitting there wide eyed and gasping like a fish out of water with the barn portal sitting in the dirt between his knees.

Words escaped him. Then words really started escaping him. Expletives punctuating a myriad of emotions.

“My family doesn’t know, and I’d like to keep it that way for now. So let’s get out of here. We’ll go up to the Grand Experience in Lindsay and I’ll treat you to lunch.” 

We walked along the lane towards the car in silence. Trying not to be seen when he asked sheepishly “Can I try it again?”

“I guess that one more time will be okay” I said as I lifted the barn portal and handed it to him. I didn’t realize that I had my hand on his shoulder as he held up the barn portal to activate it. He stepped forward and I stumbled along after him.

“Wow!” as we stood by the big doors to the barn. “That’s cool! But we gotta get out of here.”

As we headed down the lane, away from the barn and towards Hank's V70 Wagon I glanced back at the barn and it stopped me cold. "Son of a bitch!" I hissed as I stared at the weather Vane on the tip of the cupola on the peak of the barn roof. 

It WAS bent the same way as the one on the portal barn.

It had escaped me as to why my family had never questioned my excuse for having 'fallen off the barn roof' and now I saw that I hadn't entirely made that part up.

At lunch it was all we could talk about and if I could make another one. 

A wish list was compiled:

The Girls Locker Room, etcetera….

We got a couple more trips out of the barn portal before it eventually stopped working. Hank and I used it to get to the farm for Thanksgiving weekend that October, and again over the Christmas holidays. We’d tell our families that we were going up with that other ~Friend~ “‘who has a cottage near Fenelon Falls’” but would ride back to the city with our families.

I slaved away all my spare time trying to create another portal. On the train layout, I built, or rebuilt every building on it that has an actual prototype in real life, as well as a half dozen separate dioramas. 

It wasn’t until after Christmas that I had success. Then several more failures until I built my third.

It’s always hit or miss, but I did start to get more hits than misses over two years.

My first success (Or second, counting the barn) is Gerry’s Fast Food, of all places… The building is a cinder block bunker on the beach on the shore of Lake Huron, Ontario in the town of Southampton. The best french fries on the planet, that are cut fresh by hand daily and served during the summer months to vacationers enjoying the big sandy beaches along the shore.

When Hank’s family wasn’t visiting the farm with us, we were visiting his family cottage in Southampton. Beautiful beaches populated with gorgeous girls. It’s heaven on earth.

I held off until May before I told Hank. Then “Hey, Hank. Pack your bathing suit. We’re going to Gerry’s next weekend!” We worked it out that we could use his family's cottage for the May Two-Four. (Canadian long weekend celebrating British Queen Victoria’s Birthday)

By then, I had managed to create a portal for my home, so we had round trip tickets.