Excerpt from Strawberry Fields (Two Caravans) by Marina Lewycka, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

But they didn’t. Instead, a pudgy red-faced man wearing dirty clothes and rubber boots came out of the house - the farmer, I guessed - and he helped me out of Vulk’s vehicle, mumbling something I couldn’t understand, but it was obviously not an invitation to tea. He looked me up and down in that same rude way, as though I were a horse he’d just bought. Then he and Vulk muttered to each other, too fast for me to follow, and exchanged envelopes.

"Bye-bye, little flovver," Vulk said, with that chip-fat smile. "Ve meet again. Maybe ve mekka possibility?"

"Maybe."

I knew it was the wrong thing to say, but by then I was just desperate to get away.

The farmer shoved my bag into his Land Rover and then he shoved me in too, giving my behind a good feel with his hand as he did so, which was quite unnecessary. He only had to ask and I would have climbed in by myself.

"I’ll take you straight out to the field," he said, as we rattled along narrow winding lanes. "You can start picking this afternoon."

After some five kilometers, the Land Rover swung in through the gate, and I felt a rush of relief as at last I planted my feet on firm ground. The first thing I noticed was the light - the dazzling salty light dancing on the sunny field, the ripening strawberries, the little rounded trailer perched up on the hill and the oblong boxy trailer down in the corner of the field, the woods beyond, and the long, curving horizon, and I smiled to myself. So this is England.

• • •

The men’s trailer is a static model, a battered old fiberglass box parked at the bottom of the field by the gate, close to a new prefab building where the strawberries are crated and weighed each day. Stuck onto one corner of the prefab is the toilet and shower room - though the shower doesn’t work and the toilet is locked at night. Why is it locked? wonders Andriy. What is the problem with using the toilet at night?

He has woken early with a full bladder and an unspecific feeling of dissatisfaction with himself, his trailer mates, and trailer life in general. Why is it, for example, that although the men’s trailer is bigger, it still feels more cramped than the women’s trailer? It has two rooms - one for sleeping and one for sitting - but Tomasz has the double bed in the sleeping room all to himself and three of them are sleeping in the sitting room. How has this happened? Andriy has one of the seat-beds and Vitaly has the other. Emanuel has made himself a hammock from an old sheet and blue bale twine, skillfully twisted and knotted, and slung it across the sitting room from corner to corner. He is lying there breathing deeply with his eyes closed and a cherubic smile on his round brown face. Andriy recalls Emanuel’s look of astonishment and horror when the farmer suggested he should share the double bed with Tomasz.

"Sir, we have a proverb in Chichewa. One nostril is too small for two fingers."

Afterward, he took Andriy to one side and whispered, "In my country homosexualization is forbidden."

"Is okay," Andriy whispered back. "No homosex, only bad stink."

Yes, Tomasz’s sneakers are another insult - their stink fills the trailer. It is worst at night when the sneakers are on his feet and stowed beneath the bed. The fumes rise, noxious and clinging, and dissipate like bad dreams, seeping through the curtain that divides the bedroom from the sitting room, hovering below the ceiling like an evil spirit. Sometimes, in the night, Emanuel rolls silently out of his hammock and places the sneakers outside on the step.

Another thing - why are there no pictures on the walls in the men’s trailer? Vitaly keeps a picture of Jordan under his bed, which he says he will stick up when he finds something to stick it with. He also keeps a secret stash of canned lager and a pair of binoculars. Tomasz keeps a guitar and a pair of Yola’s panties under his bed. Emanuel keeps a bag full of crumpled papers.

Excerpted from Strawberry Fields by Marina Lewycka Copyright © 2007 by Marina Lewycka. Excerpted by permission of Penguin Group USA, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.