Chapter Seven: Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch...
Unsurprisingly, Not Reaping Day Yet
Faolan Drover, District Ten Male
If you've never had to clean out a pig trough before, consider yourself lucky.
Trust me on this one. The stuff my parents feed the pigs on, mainly leftover food (usually not in the best condition), isn't that pretty. And that's before the pigs are done with it. Needless to say, they're not the cleanest eaters.
Unfortunately, I drew the short straw today, so while my two older brothers (and my father's numerous helpers) are engaged in other work around the farm, I'm scraping the leftovers from the pigs' lunches into a compost bin for later.
Once that is finished, I hustle out to the barnyard, where my older brothers, Dougall and Naoise, are struggling to move bales of hay inside before it starts to rain.
Once they notice I'm there, I give them the heads up. "I can help you guys!"
"Sure thing, just stay away from the big pile, we got that!" They say this almost simultaneously.
For those of you who don't know, hay is much heavier than it looks. Even though I'm in shape, it's a struggle to life each bale, stumble into the barnyard with it on my shoulder, and add it to the increasingly big pile in a fenced-off area.
Half an hour later, that's finished, but it's thundering really loud now. Chances are, we're in for a major storm, which makes sense considering it's the middle of June and about ninety degrees out.
Sure enough, it starts pouring the instant I step outside to take a look. Thankfully, my brothers have already routed most of the animals into the barn, leaving only a couple of cows out in the rain. I can deal with those.
Cows are easy to herd, but getting them out of the rain is a nightmare, because most of the time you're required to get them back in the rain before they can get dry. And let me tell you, they do not like getting wet. Bringing out some grass and corn helps, but even a food reward out only gets you so far.
It takes what feels like forever, but I finally manage to get every last cow inside, and take shelter in the barn for a few minutes to dry off before running for the house.
Once I hustle through the back door and slam it closed, I head towards the kitchen to make some lunch for myself. However, when I enter, my father's already beat everyone to it. Instead of the usual simple meals we all make ourselves, a very fancy meal is laid out before us.
"Dad, why did you make all this?"
"Isn't today Reaping Day?"
"No, Dad, that's tomorrow," Dougall corrects him.
The smile he was wearing like a mask falls right off his face. "Oh- dammit," he chokes out. "If I'd known it wasn't today I wouldn't have made all this stuff." Thankfully, after he regains his composure, he says, "Oh well, then. Let's not let it go to waste."
He calls in all the ranch hands, who all take a plateful, before he serves all four of us- Dougall, Naoise, me, and my really little brother, Ruarc (eleven years younger than I am), my mother, and finally, himself. The food in front of me is absolutely delicious, and it's gone before I know it. Everyone else seems to be experiencing the same thing, as the rush for seconds before everything is gone nearly causes a stampede.
It only takes a few minutes for every plate in the kitchen to be scraped clean of food. However, that's not done before everyone here has their stomach replaced with a swollen lump.
Since everyone's stopped chowing down, my father taps his fork on the side of his glass to get everyone's attention. "Well, with this rain, we're probably confined to doing indoor work for the rest of the day. How about re-painting the walls inside this afternoon?"
Honestly, I'm thrilled that that's all he asked of us. Considering that's easier than about 95% of the things that I have to do daily, we've essentially been given free passes.
Ruarc runs down to the basement, and comes out with several containers of paint- most of them brown (since most of our house has brown walls, obviously) as well as a blue one (for my parents' room) and a green one (for the room I share with my siblings).
Naoise must have slipped off at some point without me noticing, but he's tailing Ruarc now, carrying numerous large paintbrushes.
"Okay, everyone," my father says, "Let's do this!"
The next couple of hours go by fast. First, all of us drag all the furniture into the center of every room so that none of it ends up with paint stains. Unfortunately, the furniture is really heavy, especially the beds, so much so that even though everyone here is in pretty excellent shape, it takes two and sometimes even three of us to even get the furniture to inch across the floor for the few feet we need it to.
Then, the next couple of hours go by fast- lots of climbing up and down ladders to reach areas that would be impossible to get to otherwise, as well as hurrying from room to room to help anyone who needs it, moving cans of paint quickly from room to room ("Not too quickly, or you'll spill the paint all over the floor!"), and finally just moving all that furniture back to where it was supposed to be in the first place.
By the time that's done, my worn-out clothes are a stained mess (I'm not the best artist) and all of us are drenched in way more sweat than anyone believes we should be, but the house looks better than ever.
After that's done, the rain's slacked off, and the sun is sinking lower in the sky even though sunset is still pretty far away. However, my father's turned to all our helpers.
"Okay, everyone! Your shift is over! Thanks for helping out today. Because tomorrow's Reaping Day, everyone gets tomorrow off. That includes you, Bovina!" Bovina is my father's most dedicated worker- she shows up every single day, without fail, including holidays. While I wonder how few outside attachments she must have in order to be able to sink every single day into her job, I've never asked her about it, mostly because being rude and invasive is not my style.
All the helpers wander off, heading back to wherever they came from. That leaves the six of us- Mom, Dad, me, and my siblings- standing in the middle of a freshly re-painted kitchen.
"Well, why don't we all make dinner?" This comes from my mother, which makes sense, especially since she didn't eat fast enough to get seconds at lunch.
"Sure thing."
In half an hour, we have a modest but tasty meal laid out in front of us- grilled chicken and carrot slices with fresh milk. Needless to say, it's gone rather quickly, especially since there wasn't that much to begin with.
Once Mom is finished with her meal, she makes a suggestion. "Well, after we get all the basic chores out of the way, why don't we go swimming tonight at the lake?"
Everyone nods emphatically, except for Ruarc. "It's too dark for me."
"Ruarc, you don't have to come! Mom's just saying that we can do something fun after we're done with the chores," Dougall adds.
"Can we get some friends?" Naoise asks this quickly.
"I don't see why not," Dad replies. "Do the chores, then get them. As long as you keep to that, you can bring whoever you want, within reason."
Trust me, I've never seen the chores finished so fast. Or frankly, so effectively.
As soon as that's over, all of us are running in a different direction, ready to collect our various friends.
It takes almost fifteen minutes for me to reach town.
Considering we live almost two miles outside of the town proper, that meant I actually made good time getting there, too. Due to the size of our property, we're a long way away from our nearest neighbors.
However, my best friends, Amaia and Ciro, probably shouldn't be too hard to find. Their parents work together at a meat-processing plant, and they got jobs there last year. From what I remember, their shift ends in a few minutes, so they could be ready to go for a swim as soon as they leave.
So, I wait on the side of the dirt road, waiting patiently for doors to open.
When they do, a stream of people pours out, most of them wearing the same stained aprons and gloves. However, Amai and Ciro are easy to spot, being they types that wait out the initial rush before leaving.
"Guys! Over here!" I yell this as loud as I can, causing a couple of people nearby to stare at me angrily.
However, it succeeds in catching their attention. "Faolan! What brings you here?"
"We're all going swimming, you guys want to come?"
Their faces immediately light up. "Sure thing! Just give us a couple of minutes to change out of this stuff, and I'll be good to go!" They say this with near-perfect sync that's almost unnerving.
I wait a few more minutes while they clean themselves off, and am soon greeted to the noise of them both running out to meet me.
"Race you to the lake!" Amaia immediately yells this out as she books it down the road.
"You are SO going to lose!" Ciro immediately hurries after her.
"Hey, guys, wait up!" Finally, I hustle after the two of them.
The race is very tiring, especially since I've already run all the way to town. Four miles at top speed is not exactly easy, you know. I don't beat Amaia or Ciro into the lake, either. Instead, Ciro pulls ahead at the last second and hits the water an instant before Amaia, while I come to a stop right before the edge of the lonesome dock we built a couple of years ago.
"I win!" Ciro yells this out as soon as he resurfaces.
Amaia playfully splashes lake water in his face, and then swims away shrieking as Ciro chases her, trying to get her even more soaked then she already is.
"Well, better make sure they don't drown each other," I say to no one. Then, I dive head-first into the water.
The lake is chillier than you would expect, since it's summer, but it's enjoyable. It gets really hot outside during this time of year, hence why the lake is such a prized possession of ours.
However, it's pretty small. Small enough that I could probably swim from one end to the other if I tried it. However, most of the lake is so deep that drowning is a very real possibility, and it didn't exactly come with lifeguards. So, for the most part, everyone sticks close to shore.
It's a beautiful night despite how terrible the afternoon weather was- almost no clouds, a huge, luminous moon shining down, framed perfectly by dozens of stars.
"Nice weather, huh?" I toss this at Dougall as he swims past.
"Really? I haven't noticed," he replies, harmless sarcasm dripping from his voice. Within a matter of seconds, he's far enough away I'd have to shout to have him hear me.
As the moon climbs higher and higher in the sky, the party begins to tucker out. Ruarc climbs out first (no surprise there) and after drying himself off with one of the towels we'd brought out, Mom takes him back home to get some sleep. Naoise's girlfriend, Paola, wanders off toward where she came from, still dripping a little even after scrubbing herself with a towel. People begin to leave in a steady stream. Eventually, even Ciro and Amaia signal to me that it's time for them to leave.
"We have the early shift tomorrow at the meat processing plant," Amaia explained. "We don't want to wake up late for it."
At that, the two of them swam back to the dock, pulled themselves out, and staggered back towards the road (after drying themselves off, of course).
A few minutes later, everyone left seems to simultaneously decide that they've been in the water long enough for one night. All of us swim to either shore or the dock, pull ourselves out of the chilly water, and rotate the towels around so that nobody goes to bed soaking wet.
It feels like forever before we get back in the house, but it really can't have been any longer than ten minutes. However, as soon as everyone's back, we stagger off to bed, so tired we can barely keep our eyes open.
I'm the last one back to our room. All of my brothers are already sprawled out on their mattresses in various poses, some of them not even bothering to pull the covers over themselves.
However, I at least manage to do that before I pass out. Sprawled on the bed, I only have one thought in my head:
Well, that ends another typical day. Hopefully tomorrow is just as normal.
Author's Notes:
-Sorry this took so long to get out. I just got slammed with way more homework over the holiday's than I'm used to, which didn't leave too much time for writing. However, I'm happy I got it done before school started back up.
-Thanks, once again, to Sparky She-Demon for Faolan.
-Next up is the D4F. After that, the next three tributes will be the D4M, D3F, and D8M.
-See you guys again next chapter!