The House in the Meadow

Chapter 2 A Soft Heart Unburdened

    Marco came down with a severe case of the flu. He'd gone fishing in the rain, happily brought his catch home to be that night's dinner, and woke up the next morning sick. Somehow Euijin ended up being the one to clean up the mess. Marco, wrapped in a blanket, gazed out a window. He watched Hojun try to teach a morning exercise class to the younger kids who attempted to follow along but teased each other when he signaled someone else out for not paying attention. They reached for the sky, fingers wiggling as they stretched as tall as they could, and then bent over to touch their toes. Daewon kept trying to help little Kijoong do the exercises. Marco joked about the class to Euijin who could tell that he really wanted to be outside with everyone else. Exercise class ended and they started to play soccer. 

Feeldog, who usually enjoyed a rowdy game of anything, came into the house singing with Kijoong following behind him. "Let's go for a walk." He suggested to Euijin. "Daewon said he'd be in soon to look after Kijoong. And Marco has a bucket."

They left the house and walked in an opposite direction of the soccer game. Feeldog was silent and Euijin, who usually talked a lot, was quiet as well. Feeldog picked up a stick as they entered the woods and swung it around. "I've been thinking," he started out. "There's a lot of us now."

Euijin eyes darted to the side to watch him, wondering where this was going.

Feeldog used his stick to swat at a few plants before throwing it further into the woods. Rather than looking at Euijin directly, he half looked at him, and half looked past him with his gaze focused on something else."We could make more money if we hit more than one market day. We could split up into different teams." He suggested.

The market in the large city happened seven days a week. Their market day in the town was based on the fact that it was the weekend and kids were always roaming around since there was no school, but, in the towns and villages, it occurs on different days.

"We need more money, but," Euijin paused, "we can't get caught. If people think that we're kids skipping school, they might start asking questions."

"I'm tired of being hungry all the time. You and Daewon keep sharing your portions, I'm worried about you."

"Marco set snares to try to catch a rabbit. Hojung helped him." Euijin didn't know if he had the heart to kill a rabbit but food was food. Feeldog's plan had its own hidden dangers. "Going to more than one market is a good idea. We can time our arrival when school gets out. And we'll just make sure the kids don't go anywhere they can be recognized. If we're breaking up into smaller groups, that will be easy." He reached out, grabbed the younger teen's shoulder lightly, and gave it a reassuring squeeze. He wanted to promise that it would be okay but he'd been told that too often in his own life to believe it anymore. "We've got each other. We can figure things out."

They made plans as they walked back to the house. Euijin lightly rested his arm around Feel Dog's shoulder. At home, Hansol was working with Jun and Chan on their reading. First, he had Jun then Chan read aloud from a biography on Gandhi. If they stumbled over a word, he would help them.

"Where's Marco?" Feeldog asked the rest of the cousins.

"He said he needed to check something," Hojung answered.

The next morning, Euijin woke up to a commotion outside. He climbed down the ladder and, through the picture window, saw all the younger kids clustered around Daewon on the front porch. Marco and Feeldog were still sleeping, but Hojung stood with his arms crossed on the grass facing Daewon and Euijin. He had the same expression on his face as the day they came home from busking to find Kijoong running around the house in only his underwear covered in big black spots. He told them he was a puppy and the spots, they later found out, came from a permanent marker he'd found. Daewon, who'd been watching him, had thought that the game of pretending was so much fun till he realized, when he bathed Kijoong that night, that the spots didn't come off with soap. It took close to a week for the places to fade away.