Disclaimer: I'm an american 14 year old girl sitting in blue striped pajamas eating frosted flakes on a Sunday. I am not a British male author that was alive for the Russian Revolution. I do this for entertainment so please don't believe I'm actually making a profit off of this. Also need I point out that this is fanfiction.
Update Date: Sunday April 25, 2010
Re-Update Date: Saturday May 1, 2010
A/N: I'm a fan of Orwell and John Reed's work which is why I'm making a trilogy out of this starting with my own work.
The order will be:
Animal Farm Continued
The Return of Snowball
and the prequel Animal Farm's True Story.
Believe it or not I just made up the last two right on the spot so I hope you appreciate that. Anyway enough with my babbling on with the hopefully anticipated chapter four of Animal Farm Continued.
Chapter Four
Animal Farm, Trading, and Home
Fifteen minutes later Snowball, Amelia, and Bruno were all quite upset with Pilkington as he insisted on making their names far too informal for their taste.
"For the fifth time my name is Snowball, I am not nor do I ever wish to be Napoleon. So if you continue to disrespect me to the point where I show anger it's rather likely you won't wish to return. Now then as I was saying we of Animal Farm will not tolerate our farm being called Manor Farm, nor will we tolerate our comrades being talked about as if they're nothing higher than soil. They've worked hard and if this is the amount of respect they will usually receive, then perhaps we should trade with someone else. Don't you agree Amelia," Snowball said. Amelia nodded but Pilkington couldn't see it as her nod was rather subtle, but the animals could. What did the nod mean some of the animals thought? Then just as the day of Snowball's expulsion the dogs chased who the leader didn't want on the farm until they left and it seemed they would never return. Afterwards out in the field where the Battle of the Cowshed had taken place Annelise and Bruno were having a discussion about possible present and future results and problems and their solutions. Their conversation didn't seem as strange when you suddenly discovered that the "mindless slaves to the leader" way the sheep tended to act and seemed to think could've been at least a partial ploy to make everyone except their closest friends think the sheep had only a small idea of what they were doing.
"What happened out there Bruno," Annelise asked.
'Well it was mostly Pilkington calling Snowball Mr. S, and Snowball threatening Pilkington with the fact that if Amelia wasn't happy then the dogs would be more vicious and such," Bruno said.
"All right, but what's going to happen now," Annelise asked.
"I think that Amelia and Snowball are choosing to trade with Fredrick instead even though they'll need to test the bills for authenticity and all," Bruno answered.
"Why are they trading with Fredrick? I thought he counterfeited the notes that he used to pay for the pile of wood that used to be here. By the way what was that pile of wood earlier," Annelise asked
"Amelia told me that pile of wood was formerly a small barn, in fact Amelia was born in it if I'm not mistaken. I wonder how they'll detect false bills, probably by smelling or some other measure so that we can all be sure of the authenticity of bills," Bruno said also saying some of his own thoughts.
"What do you think will happen to us now, Pilkington will surely want to hurt Animal Farm if it prospers," Annelise said.
"Pilkington could try to kidnap one of the animals that's a central connection to Snowball. So the only options for that would be Amelia obviously and me, although if I suddenly discover an animal that's a central connection to Snowball I'll tell you," Bruno said knowing all the time that he'd made a promise to her in saying that and intending to keep it as well. After all she'd been kind to him hadn't she? That alone when he was so accustomed to most besides Snowball and Amelia to care about him the way she did. Was this how his sister had felt about her friendship with Jessie? It was possible yes, but their relationships were a bit different in ways such as he wasn't a sow, Annelise had a different name then Jessie, Annelise was a lamb not a dog, Jessie was dead and Annelise wasn't, and Annelise was not the same gender as him.
At the Sunday meeting all except the pigs, the dogs, Moses, Benjamin and the sheep were demanding to know what had occurred on Thursday involving Pilkington. Amelia was terrified of upsetting them so she didn't say anything and only sat in a corner of the platform hyperventilating. Seeing Amelia panic made the animals calm down a bit since as lead sow when she was afraid they were to attempt to end what was causing her fear or so one pig had said quite some time ago before Snowball's expulsion. The position of lead sow was something akin to a second in command as the position of second in command tended to rotate between the lead sow, the lead boar, and a position called lead porker which would probably be rare nowadays as no animal wanted to see one of the piglets castrated unless necessary.
"Amelia what happened on Thursday," an angry cow shouted. Amelia continued hyperventilating as if she hadn't heard the cow and everyone was told Bruno and most of the others who knew would spread the word. Amelia wouldn't be joining the group because of what had happened when the other animals started shouting for her to tell them what had happened on Thursday after all if it had caused that kind of reaction when with that much pressure then what would it be out in the open where some might shout at her without fear? When the news was spread Amelia was presently surprised the other animals were upset of course as they deserved to be, however they were rather thankful that Amelia and Snowball would notbe trading with Pilkington after all since he had disrespected them after all. The problem the animals had was the fact that their leaders had decided to trade with Fredrick and hadn't yet made an undetectable way of testing whether or not the bills were falsified and were going to tell them next meeting about the possible solutions they had created.
"Well we've come up with a few solutions for how to tell if bills are falsified and they are:
1. By looking at them, but this is more suited to those who have good vision or something like that and so it might not work, not to mention that after a while it could become suspicious.
2. By smelling them, this seems more undetectable since if our noses are near them it doesn't look as suspicious because it might simply be coincidence. Added to that it might also be a better way as humans most likely don't know that there is a way to detect whether or not a bill is falsified by mere scent alone.
These are limited options but at this moment they are in fact the only options we have for detection of falsified bills. There are a few of us such as Amelia, Bruno and myself that have found bills here and tested them ourselves for authenticity and now it's time for all of you to learn as well which are genuine and which are false," Snowball said before nodding and letting Amelia take her place in the center of the platform. What would she say, the animals wondered. Would it be a comforting speech of how they intended to help the farm or something else?
"Well comrades the reason I was so nervous the last meeting was because I don't like the fact that we have to trade with someone who counterfeit bills to get the respect we deserve. Well that and there was so much pressure to tell everyone what happened at the meeting I just started to panic, but I'm okay. It's fine you wanted to know, and I'm not mad at anyone. I am slightly scared of the more excited question askers that shouted at me, but I'm not mad," Amelia spoke.
Well the animals thought that wasn't exactly a speech as far as lengthy speeches went but no one minded, and it also helped that there weren't any complex words as there had been when Squealer spoke. Everyone remembered that Squealer had previously used rather complex words that fooled them while Snowball and Amelia did their best to speak in words everyone could understand. There was a certain freedom in the air one that reminded those who still remembered the days under Snowball's leadership of just exactly how friendly and kind a leader could be.
Unlike Napoleon Snowball didn't make them live in fear, he asked them to try and make their fellow animals at home as much as possible. The dogs were no longer made used to make them fear, instead they were meant to protect those living on the farm. The animals were glad to know they had a ten minute break once an hour which they'd never received before but as Amelia explained its purpose was for them to be able to rest for a while and talk to one another. Additionally they also received three meals a day, an occasional visit from Amelia, Bruno, and Snowball to see what they might need, were allowed to vote on the issues of the farm and make suggestions whenever they felt the need to. Compared to Napoleon's time Animal Farm in it's current state was rather a paradise! Now that Snowball and Amelia were running things it seemed as though good times were here to stay, but how long before Pilkington came back to seek his revenge? How long before this dream turned into a nightmare? How long before all their dreams came crumbling down as they had the first time?
A/N: I realize I'm doing two cliffhangers in a row and I apologize for that, but at least this isn't a pointless chapter that's really an author's not telling you I abandoned the story so be grateful. Just this afternoon I had the bright idea of uploading all of my current document of the story to the site hoping it wouldn't come up as either a processing error or blank and thankfully it didn't. So to celebrate I'm giving you a small peek of the next chapter, I hope you like it. Also the character named Hermes is Moses' brother from another farm that delivers a message of varying levels of importance depending on how much you like Amelia, Pinkeye, Bruno, or Annelise.
"What's going on out there," a horse asked.
"I don't know, but if it can make both Snowball and Amelia speechless for at least three minutes and Annelise and Bruno worried it can't be good," Pinkeye replied.
"Why don't we ask them," Pandora the sheep asked.
"I don't know, but for now we shouldn't bother them if what Hermes said is true," Clover replied.
"What did Hermes say," Virgil the pigeon asked.
Yet another A/N: It doesn't really look like a lot, but it's the best I could do to give you a hint, but not totally ruin Chapter Five for you, so sorry about that. The good news is though because of the uploading troubles I've had I'm almost done with Chapter Five and I think it might even be longer then Chapter Three which at the moment is probably the longest chapter. I only have one review for this entire story so will someone please pluck up the courage to review and tell me if there's anything wrong with it? Enough with my rambling please review or whatever else you do after getting to the end of an uploaded group of chapters.
" Something about Pilkington kidnapping Amelia sometime soon, I heard Bruno and Annelise talking about it as a possibility the day Pilkington came attempting to trade. I just hope it doesn't happen sometime soon or at all," Brighton the dog said. After the dog said this everyone in the largest barn turned toward Benjamin seeming to ask " well what do you think?"
"Stop looking at me like that, I may be a donkey, but I don't know everything. As I've said before donkeys live a long time, and none of you have ever seen a dead donkey. More likely than not you never will see a dead donkey. I'm the oldest animal on this farm, let that be a sign that I won't be around forever.
Learn how to take care of yourselves because Amelia won't be around forever either when you take into account the fact that this farm is practically useless without her and she's worrying almost constantly over one animal or another. For once in your lives listen to what I'm saying, you're too dependent on Amelia. If she gets taken from this farm maybe you'll all learn how to take care of yourselves instead of counting on Amelia and Snowball to do it. Get the heck off their backs and learn something that'll make you worth remembering if that's what you want. Don't just sit there and do nothing while the pigs are taking action and doing something that'll put them in the history books. Get your own life and let Snowball and Amelia live in peace! You're allowed to return to ignoring me now," Benjamin said angrily.
