Little House on the Wasteland

Twelve: Happy Valley Orchards Restup and Reptilsoo

By the time Laura opened her eyes, morning had crept into the room. She sat up and worked her fingers through her hair. There, towards the back of her skull, she could feel a bump. It felt sore but only when Laura touched it.

She got out of bed. Then she lifted her scraped knee and let her leg swing up and back. It didn't hurt at all. Tobias Goatherd's medicine needles had done their work.

Laura walked in a circle all the way around the little hut. As she padded barefoot around the soft dirt floor, she reached out and let her fingers crawl along the wall like a spider, tap tap tap. The walls were made of stacked logs. The wood felt rough and raw, not like the ancient pine beams that had supported Laura's house back in the Big Woods. Through the gaps between the logs, pinpricks of sunlight pierced the hut.

Laura hopped back up onto the bed to reach the hut's little square window. She pulled aside a ragged cloth curtain and peered out into the dawn. There, the first teasing rays of morning cast zig-zag shadows through a weed-covered yard. The yard was divided into neat squares by the remains of several criss-crossing creetrock walls. Beyond these ruins, just a short distance from Laura's window, there was an old brick building. Jutting out from the building was a covered wooden porch that did not look like it had been part of the original construction. Its deck and posts and awning were all painted a milk white that clashed with the weathered brick. A pair of wicker chairs sat beside the railing. Laura supposed that was where Pa and Tobias Goatherd had been sitting when Laura had overheard their conversation the night before.

Laura leaned a little further out the window to better scan her surroundings. She took in a long breath, filling her nose with the fresh morning air. Before she could exhale, her eyes landed on something that made that breath stop where it was, lodged right at the top of her chest. Rising up from behind the brick building's roof was one of the monsters Laura had seen from the hilltop. Only now she wasn't gazing down on it from afar but looking right up into its lizard eyes, which peered down at her from a tiny head perched at the end of its long snake neck. Instinctively, she jerked her head back inside the window.

As soon as the cloth curtain flopped back into place, Laura released the breath she had been holding in. It poured out in a giggle of relief. She knew the monster was just a creetrock statute. She had just been startled to find it looming over her, so big and close. She peeked out of the window once more to prove to herself she wasn't afraid. Then she hopped down from the bed.

Laura found her coat, shrugged it on, and stuffed Oprah snug into the pocket. Then she walked over to the curtain which was draped over the doorway of the little log hut. She pulled it aside, letting the sunlight wash over her.

Before Laura could even take in her surroundings, she heard Mary call out.

"Laura!"

A dirt path led from the hut towards the brick house with its white porch. A little ways up the path, sitting beside the ruins of an old wall, were Mary and Ma. Alongside them sat the silent, tangle-haired girl Laura had met the night before. Ma sat on her stool, and Mary sat cross-legged on the ground, Baby Grace in her lap. The girl—Mabel she had been called—crouched across from them, hugging her knees tight against her chest.

"Laura's awake!" Mary cried, rising to her feet.

Mary handed Baby Grace to Ma and ran to Laura. Close at her heels was Jack. Mary wrapped Laura up in a joyous hug, while the little striped pigdog raced in circles round and round them.

Mary at her arm and Jack at her heels, Laura was swept up the path. There was a fire going. As Laura approached, the smell of frycakes greeted her. Soon, she could hear them sizzling. Her stomach squealed in anticipation.