The Struggle Of Our Lives

Chapter 9, continued.

Time to go find moooorreee rocks.

I once again sat on the edge of the cliff and slid down the hillside. I went out to the river, as I had learned my lesson from last time I needed rocks, and collected more rocks from the river.

After about two trips, I had enough rocks to easily cover the roof. I placed each rock onto the roof to filter and separate the dirt from the wood.

Once the roof was completely covered, I leaned over and dumped the mud onto the rocks. I used my hands to spread it out as evenly as possible. I pushed the mud I didn't need near the edge so I could use it on the walls.

I slid down the side of the hill again, and used the leftover dirt to coat the walls of the house and to join the roof to the sides. I again used my hands to evenly coat the walls, making them more stable.

Once the mud looked good, all that was left was the inside and a door. I decided to leave that for tomorrow, and for the time being, I would rip up grass from somewhere in the woods, and re-plant it onto the roof.

At the time, I did this to make it look more appealing. I didn't know that it'd also help keep water out of the house.

For a door, I walked around looking for a big sheet of metal or something I could use to blockade the opening. I wandered through the forest, noticing all the tall trees. I stopped to examine a berry bush. It was red-ish in color, with a slight pink hue.

I immediately recognized them as Raspberries. Not too long ago, me and my friend had snuck away during a walk around her neighborhood, and she brought me to backside of the cemetery near her house.

There was woods for miles, and right on the cusp of it, there were bushes of wild raspberries. She told me they tasted good, and even at that age, I knew that they might've been poisonous.

She laughed at me, and ate some off the bush in front of me. She had told me she ate from the bushes before, and they tasted good.  Since she ate them, and she seemed fine, I ate some too.

We took some home with us and we finished them before we got to her backyard. In hindsight, wild raspberries tasted less sweet than the kinds I avoided in grocery stores, and so I immediately grabbed a bunch.

I picked the berries and lifted the bottom of my shirt to carry all of them. I figured we could snack on these. I also took a bunch of leafs from the bush so I could make tea.

I continued to search for a door, holding my shirt to keep the berries in place. I realized I hadn't seen the twins in a while, so I called out to them.

"Marco!"

There was a silence before I heard a call back.

"Polo!"

I realized they were decently far away from me, and I changed directions to find them. Every five seconds or so, I would call out again.

Eventually I found the twins and saw them playing on a big rusty piece of metal. It looked to be something from a construction site. I looked around us and found an old abandoned garage that was for a house that clearly was no longer standing.

"You guys are geniuses! Look!" I pointed to the metal sheet and they looked at each other for a second, before realization hit.

"Sissy! This can be a door!" Charlotte exclaimed. I asked Teddy to take off his shirt and hand it to me so I could put the berries in it. He did as I asked and I rolled the berries and leafs into the middle of his shirt, then I tied it around to keep them from falling out. I told him to hold the shirt and he held it like a baby doll.

"Alright Char, wanna help me move this thing?" I asked. She nodded excitedly and she picked a corner to lift. Now, if I had to guess, the sheet was about 50 pounds. But 50 pounds of child and 50 pounds of metal feel very different.

She lifted a corner with all of her strength, and I grabbed the opposite corner on the other side.

"Teddy, run those berries back home and come back to help us, ok?"

"Ok!" He yelled, already running full speed into the dense woods. I turned my head back to Lotte.

"Ok, now on three, we lift. Ready?" I asked.

She looked focused as she prepared herself to lift the sheet, weighing about the same as her.

3

2

1

"Lift!" I lifted with my legs as she lifted with her back. I began to walk backwards to walk towards where the house was. We made some progress before Teddy came running back over and carried the corner on Charlotte's side.

With the two of them helping, moving the sheet wasn't too horrible, but I knew my back would hurt tomorrow. Eventually, we reached our new home, and we flipped the sheet so the long end wasn't touching the ground anymore.

The twins helped me set it down without crushing any fingers, and we stepped back to admire our handy work.

At this point, our hut actually looked like a decently sized house (with only one room), with a roof covered in grass and flowers and a copper sheet as a door.

We all exchanged high fives, and decided it was time for lunch. I went inside to find Teddy's shirt and dumped out the contents into the newly cleaned bucket. I told the kiddos to dig in, and handed Tedd back his shirt.

As he put it back on, we snacked on the wild Raspberries I found.

Things are starting to look better for us.