It starts out slow-ish. I'm trying to hurry to the good parts. :]
Chapter 2: First Day of Work
Bella
"It's open!" I yelled as I heard banging on my door. It opened and I pulled the covers over my head to block the light.
"Time to work!" I heard a familiar voice tell me.
I pushed the covers back off my face and looked at who was at the door. It was Damien and his gorgeous blue gray eyes. I looked over at the clock on the wall. "It's only six in the morning. Emma didn't even make us get up this early."
"She doesn't live on a farm." He was leaning on the table casually. "Get up." He sounded serious, but his face was still smirking.
"No one said anything about this."
"I didn't? My bad," he said sarcastically, teasing me.
"I thought you were nice." I teased, throwing a pillow at him.
It hit his face and fell into his arms. "And I thought you were too sweet to throw a pillow at me." He teased again, throwing it back at me. It landed on my face. "Just get up," he chuckled, leaving the cottage.
I groaned, pushing the pillow and covers off of me.
Damien
The only girl I would act like that around would be my sister, but she got up in the morning easily. She gets up at about five thirty and took a five-minute shower every morning except Sundays when we sleep in and do the work after lunch. That's when we go do things we want to in the morning.
When I had walked into Bella's room, the teddy bear was laying on the dresser I was leaning on. I thought people would sleep with stuffed animals. Not that I cared. But oh well.
I knocked on Lily's door after. She opened the door. She was blow drying her short hair.
"Finish up drying your hair; we have work to do." I smirked a little bit, trying not to sound cruel.
"Aw, I don't want to work!" She complained. It made me chuckle.
"Do you want to live on the streets?" I joked. I was still holding onto the door frame.
She froze a little for a few seconds, looking from left to right. "I'll be out in five minutes."
I laughed and left. My sister woke up the other three girls. She was lucky. She could walk in while I had to wait for the girls to answer me, even if it were only a couple of seconds. But I didn't want to walk in on them on any "special" moments or anything. I saw Olivia getting the other girls up while I waited for them to come out. We really needed phones in each cottage for wake up calls.
I played with Kiwi while I waited. Olivia walked over to me and started petting Kiwi. Kiwi automatically licked her face.
"How were your girls?"
I sighed. "They were…" I looked for the right words. "They complained. What about you?"
"Mine didn't complain. Layla had a hard time waking up though. I had to dump water on her to wake up."
I raised my eyebrows. "You seriously dumped water on her!?"
"That was the only way she would wake up. Diane was already awake. She said she was awake since four in the morning and couldn't fall back asleep, so she was reading. And DaeSung… She was excited."
I raised my eyebrows in shock again and mouthed the word "wow".
After playing with Kiwi for another ten minutes, the girls lined up in front of us.
"Okay," I started. I was pretty much trying to make it all up right on the spot. "You all are going to help watering the plants, except one of you. One of you will make us breakfast. And it's even because there's a full acre of land you have to water now that we've planted new seeds these past couple of days. Who wants to cook?"
DaeSung raised her hand and smiled.
"Alright then." I waited a second. "Wait a second, how do you guys know how to cook."
"We watch people up in the sky for seventeen years for a reason." Layla rubbed her eyes and yawned.
Me and Olivia looked at each other.
"What?" My sister asked.
"We watch down on the earth for seventeen years of life," Lily explained, "so that we know what to do when we fall into the Earth ass naked."
"Interesting…" I nodded awkwardly.
"Anyways…" Olivia coughed and grabbed a clipboard to write down the work.
"Okay, DaeSung–"
"Call me Dae!" She smiled.
"Dae…" I chuckled again. "You'll make the food in Joel– our brother's cottage. It's the bigger one over there." I pointed towards Joel's cottage. "Everything you'll need is in his fridge. He always eats out though. He leaves at six to go to do whatever. We eat breakfast at eight, which should be about when you finish watering the plants."
"Since Dae cooked," Olivia continued for me, "she'll be in charge of cleaning the dishes and, since the dishes probably won't take that long, the laundry."
"At the same time, starting at about eight-thirty, once we each finish eating breakfast, two of you will help Olivia with fishing."
"Lily! Layla! Thanks for volunteering!" My sister said, making a big and probably fake smile at them.
"So then I guess Bella and Diane will be the ones helping me with the animals." I advised them.
"You two will be in charge of grooming the animals, including Kiwi, Yoyo, and Aurora, while Damien will take care of milking the cows, sheering the sheep, getting the eggs from the chicken, and feeding them."
"Don't think that grooming is easy, though." I warned. "It takes time."
"All these chores will be done by ten." Olivia was writing everything down on her clipboard.
"Between ten and ten fifteen," I continued, "You will have a break to drink water, eat, talk, anything as long as it's on the farm. At ten fifteen, Dae will cook us lunch, since I guess she's the cook." She smiled. I guessed that she liked cooking.
"As for…" She looked for a couple of the girls. "Bella and Lily, you will go with Damien to trade the goods to the farm in Candle-Light Valley. They give us the food we need to live off of instead of buying it. Besides fish. That's what fishing is for." She paused, and then continued. "Layla and Diane will help me with being your guys' maids. This way you don't have to worry about making your own beds. Then is lunch. After lunch, you can pretty much do whatever you want for the rest of the day."
"But since you girls are kind of part of the family now, we want you back here by seven, just to make sure you're okay. But you all know what you have to do right now, right?" I made sure.
They all nodded.
"If you ever forget, I'm posting it next to the door of Joel's cottage." Olivia went over and posted it.
"Who will be in charge of making dinner?" Dae asked.
"If you have money," my sister explained, "you can go out to the Hotel not too far from here, or you can take Damien or Joel to take you to a restaurant over in Candle-Light Valley since you have to be at least eighteen to cross the mountain pass by yourselves. Otherwise, we have a lot of food in the fridge so that you can make your own dinner."
"Okay, go!" I directed them.
Everyone except for Dae went over to the fields, while Dae went to the kitchen to make us breakfast. My sister and I followed four of the girls over to the fields where the crops were. The views from their windows were the fields, since they lived behind them.
I directed Bella and Layla how to use the hose to water the half an acre of strawberries, while my sister showed Lily and Diane how to use the hose on the half acre of cucumbers (we had bought another hose).
They split up the chores by Layla doing the first half of the strawberries, and Layla doing the second half. Diane did the first half of the cucumbers, and Lily did the second half.
While I showed Bella and Layla how to spray the crops at the bottom, I sprayed her for a second and back on the crop.
She shook the water off her hands. "What was that for?"
"For being too slow in the morning." I sprayed her for another couple of seconds.
She took the hose from me and sprayed me. I tried blocking it with my hands, but, obviously, it didn't do anything. I took the hose back, changed the nozzle from 'shower' to 'jet', and sprayed her. Jet was the fastest, hardest, narrowest nozzle on there. It also kind of hurt it was so strong.
"Ow!" She shrieked a bit when I got her. She was able to block it with her hands the rest of the time since the nozzle was so small. Luckily, all the girls dressed in denim shorts and either white, gray, or black tank tops, like my sister dressed every day, so they could get dirty in it.
Suddenly, someone else took the hose from me, changed the nozzle back to 'shower', and completely soaked me. I didn't even try and fight back.
"You know Joel will scold us if we don't take this seriously!" Olivia told me.
"Oh, lighten up!" I said, taking the hose and sprayed her.
Kiwi immediately ran over to me and started playing in the hose and drinking the water from it. Kiwi loved the hose.
I handed the hose to Layla and me and Olivia went back to the area around our cottages. Kiwi followed us.
"Can you tighten the trucks on my short board?" She asked me. "It's turning too much again."
Until breakfast, I tightened Olivia's short board's trucks; we talked about how we didn't have to work until later, and how we could do more in the morning.
I had a short board of my own as well. Technically, they were called long boards, but they were shorter versions. When you rode them, it was called longboarding. We rode them down to Tristan to go get the paper.
"Hey Tristan!" Olivia said as she hopped off her board and kicked it up.
At least Tristan was wearing a shirt today, because it was a bit cool out. He was wearing a white tank top and faded black denim shorts.
"Hi, Olivia." He smiled at my sister. I didn't know Tristan also called my sister 'Olivia'.
"Thanks for the paper." I held out my hand to get it from him.
Olivia
"Hey, Damien…" Tristan laughed nervously and handed my brother the paper. "How have you been?"
"Good," Damien answered while glaring at Tristan.
"You want to go now?" I asked my brother.
"Sure. I thought you would want to stay longer, but whatever." He got on his board.
Him getting on his board was exactly what I wanted. Once he was on, I pushed him down this grassy hill. Grassy plus wheels equals bad. He fell off his board and began rolling down the hill.
"So when do you want to hang out again?" Tristan asked, ignoring my brother.
"How about after lunch today?"
"Sounds great. I'll meet you at the usual spot." He kissed my forehead and walked away. My forehead was at the bottom of his nose, so it was perfect height. Our 'usual spot' was behind the waterfall. Next to the waterfall there was a hole in the wall that was covered up by a sheet. It used to be an old dig site, but they couldn't find anything except the escape behind the waterfall. No one uses it besides us though.
"OLIVIA!" Damien scolded, walking up the hill with leaves in his hair and holding a half a shortboard in each hand. I covered my mouth in shock, raising my eyebrows.
"Sorry…"
"You're lucky the general store gives insurance for this kind of thing." He waved the halves of his shortboard in front of my face on 'this'.
Bella
Me, Layla, Lily, and Diane watered the plants with about five minutes spare time before Damien and Ollie came back, went into Joel's cottage, and came back out yelling "breakfast!"
"Where'd you two go earlier?" Lily asked while eating the amazing breakfast.
"We went to the Blue Bar." Ollie answered.
"You went to a bar?!" I asked.
"Not that type of bar, you idiot." I pursed my lips and brought my eyebrows together at Damien's insult.
"It's not all alcohol. It's just a nice place to relax." Damien explained, not so insulting.
I stuck my tongue out at him from across the table. He stuck his out back at me.
"You two are such children." Ollie commented.
It was true; we were. We were still friends, at least I thought so, but we liked to pick on each other. I guess.
After breakfast, Lily and Layla left with Ollie to go fishing. Me and Diane stayed with Damien to help with the animals as planned. He showed us how to wash a cow, sheep, and Aurora. He said that you only wash a boxer (Kiwi) once every six months and you don't wash chicken. After you wash them, you brush them. He showed us how to do that as well, as well as Kiwi, since it's only brushing her.
Damien was pretty quick at his job. The sheep didn't have any sheering since it takes time for them to grow their wool. He milked the cows just much faster than we washed and brushed them. He had plastic buckets for the milk. From five cows, he got two full buckets. He put a plastic top on them and put them in Joel's over-sized fridge. He put the eggs from the chicken in an egg carton. They had saved up a lot.
Washing and brushing the cows was a little scary. I didn't want to annoy one and have it kick me in the face. So once Damien was done with his job, he helped me.
He looked at his watch once we were all done. Me and Diane fell down on the grass and started laying there. It had gotten hotter while we were working.
"We're a couple minutes into your break." He informed us. Me and Diane groaned. Mine was louder than hers. I closed my eyes to take a short nap.
"Hey," Damien greeted. "Did you guys get any fish?"
"Just four." Ollie sounded a little sad about it. I looked up. The fish were decent-sized.
"Is there anything in particular you want for lunch?" Dae suddenly asked.
We all shrugged.
"Are sandwiches fine?" She asked.
We all nodded. She then sat down next to me and Diane laying on the sand-ish ground. We got dirty with the cows anyways (not in that sort of way).
"Sorry you're stuck in a room all day," Ollie apologized to Dae, still holding the fish.
"It's alright." She assured.
"Do you know how to cook fish?" Ollie asked.
"Certain ways." Dae coughed then smiled sweetly at Ollie.
"There's a bunch of cookbooks on Joel's bookshelf if you need help."
Damien
"You girls want some water?" I asked. They all nodded. We headed over to the ice chest next to Joel's cottage (everything seemed to be around or in his cottage). Olivia went inside to put the fish in the other ice chest. When she came out, I asked her a question while we got the waters.
"So how are the girls?"
"They both complained a lot about being bored waiting for the fish to bite. What about you?"
"They were good…Afraid of the cows…"
I grabbed four waters; Olivia grabbed three.
We got back over and tossed the bottles to the girls.
***
As Bella, Lily, and I made our way over to the Candle-Light Valley, I carried the buckets of milk since they were probably too heavy for the girls to carry.
"If there are no crops to pick and nothing else to carry, then why do we have to go with you?" Bella complained.
The crops would be ready in another two or three days. We would keep a little bit of some of them, and sell the rest for other ingredients we needed.
"For Lily," I started, "so she doesn't get fat. For you," I talked towards Bella, "so you don't get fatter." I teased. I bet she made a gasping face. She wasn't fat at all; she was even more gorgeous than when I first met her. And I was still falling for her. Messing with her was just fun. She kicked my leg and I dropped the buckets, holding my back, lower right leg. Luckily, we were on a flat part of the hill, so the milk didn't spill.
I got my grip back on the handles of the buckets. I grunted slightly while picking up the buckets. I could feel my body sweating under my tank-top. It had gotten hotter from this morning, and the sun was beating down on me.
We got to the farm in Candle-Light Valley and I felt like I was going to have a heat stroke. I knocked on the door. Mason opened the door.
"Damien!" We shook hands. "Good to see you. Keira's inside doing inventory. Come on in."
We went inside. The girls immediately sat down on two random chairs. It was nice and cool in there. I put the buckets on the floor and started fanning myself.
"Hi, Damien!" We shook hands. "You three want some water?" Keira offered.
We all nodded.
"Don't take this the wrong way," Mason said, "but who are you girls?"
"They are the stars that fell a few nights ago." I explained as Keira gave us glasses of water.
I drank the glass of water and put it on the counter to next to the sink in their little inventory room.
"I have two buckets of milk for you, like always."
"I'll get you your usual." Keira left the room.
"Can you two girls go outside?" Mason asked. "I need to talk to Damien alone." They listened to him and left.
Once the door closed, I took off my shirt. "Oh god it's hot. So what do you need to talk about?"
"Damien," he started panicking, "Ace is going to propose to my sister!"
"Is that a problem?" I asked, nonchalantly.
"They barely know each other. I don't want her to make the biggest mistake of her life!" He went on, talking at a million words a minute. "She doesn't know too much about guys yet. She doesn't really date, so I'm not sure if she would accept or not—!"
"Okay!" I interrupted. "Dude, calm down. Where did you hear this from anyways?"
"He was talking to a guy in the super market about how he had a blue feather and wanted to ask Keira. I totally do not approve!"
First off, Ace was just a guy living in the town. He was really down to Earth; there really wasn't anything bad about him. A lot of girls liked him and he was a real charmer.
Second off, a blue feather was something you had to find. It's not like they were extremely rare or anything, it would just appear somewhere random only when you were really ready to propose to a girl.
"How does he have a blue feather? Is he seriously ready to propose?"
"He said that his dad had two, because he was going to propose to two women."
"Sounds like a prick." I commented. "Just tell your sister about it or tell Ace that you don't approve." If you were the brother, mom, or dad and told them you didn't approve, they couldn't propose to them.
He nodded and we went outside. The girls stared at me for a second.
Keira handed me two grocery bags, and one to each of the girls and we walked back to the farm.
