Faye had promised the weaving club a photograph of its visit to Orin's small alpaca farm. She had remembered the camera, the spare battery and, unusually, the little tripod.
The four visitors stood beside the paddock fence. Behind them, a brown alpaca cropped the grass. Orin stayed inside the paddock, a few paces away.
“Everybody ready?” Faye asked.
She pressed the timer and hurried into the gap.
In the photograph, three people looked at the camera. Faye looked at her own feet. The alpaca looked elsewhere.
They tried again. This time Faye arrived neatly, but someone sneezed.
On the third attempt the alpaca turned, presenting its substantial woolly back directly behind the group.
“An excellent view of our raw material,” Orin observed.
All four visitors laughed. The camera clicked while they were still laughing.
Back at the clubhouse, Faye opened the pictures on the large screen. There were tidier photographs from earlier in the afternoon: the spinning wheel, the stacked fleece, a row of empty cups.
“Which one?” she asked.
Nobody chose the tidy ones.
She enlarged the third group picture. In one corner, beyond the fence, Orin was laughing too.
Faye checked the edges before saving it. This time she had managed not to cut off anybody's shoes.