The sun is almost set, so the party has started. Unther was welcoming everyone and started with this long boring speech that I paid no attention to but I could see my parents tearing up and clapping every 2 seconds. Also, I was hungry. We don’t really eat lunch, I mean, you can, but everyone usually grows out of it. I used to eat lunch but everyone thought I was weird. Now I just starve.
Finally Unther finished his speech and announced it was time to eat.
“Finally!” I exclaimed, rushing to the food table. I know I make it sound like I don’t like Unther, which isn’t really true. He is nice and cares about our village, but he is mostly just better than our last leader, Darius. Darius only wanted money. Except, we don’t have any money. Only food and animals and clothes or wool to trade for other food or animals or, as I said, jewelry. My family has a pig named Peanut and a cranky old goat named Thumpbutt. (It was Thumper, but I could only say Thumpbutt when I was little, so that name lived on.)
Anyway, food table. This is usually the one night a year we have really good meals. There were lamb chops and cow parts cooked perfectly. There were also these amazing strips of pig, which are cooked crispy and thin. Of course, there was also a variety of fruits and vegetables there too. I piled lots of stuff on my plate. I couldn’t wait to dig in.
“Hiya, Kate!”
I almost dropped my crispy pig strips.
“Geez, Anne. Hi.”
She looked very nice tonight. She wore a purple dress, unlike our normal white dresses and shirts and pants. Her parents traded 2 pigs for that dress, white cloth (from sheep wool) dyed with purple cabbage. She had also washed her hair with soaproot so it looked very shiny and clean. I just wore my dirty white dress.
“Sooo….Kate? How are you?” She was smiling really big and tapping her fingers on her side for some reason. I pretended not to notice.
“Oh, not much. I am starving though. Sometimes I wish I would stop caring what other people think so I could just eat some lunch! You know, one time when I was eight-”
Anne cut me off. She obviously didn’t want to hear my very interesting story.
“Kate, I found something. Something-” She glanced around as if to make sure no one was eavesdropping. Like anyone would want to hear what we were talking about.
“Something….something…” She seemed uncertain.
“For moths sake, Anne! Something…..?!”
Anne smiled and whispered in my ear, “Something...new.”
Big whoop. We found new stuff all the time! New...animals and plants...and...rocks...okay so maybe not all the time-
Anne obviously saw I wasn’t impressed.
“Come on!” She pulled on my arm. “I’ll show you!”
“But-but my crispy pig strips! Anne, I haven’t eaten since-”
“Kate! You can eat after! Please?” Anne stared at me with her big brown eyes.
Don’t give in...don’t give in…
“Anne, look…..let’s do it! Show me!” I exclaimed while also thinking, What am I doing?! Anne quickly celebrated, made sure no one was watching, then grabbed my hand and pulled me into the forest.