The Garden of Heathen

Box Day

It was Newbie day in the garden, a day that was exciting but also gave Aussie a lot of anxiety. Every month the box brought up someone, a girl who needed a lot of help, and Aussie liked to help. But she never knew who the box was bringing up. Was this girl going to be an angry one? A scared one? A crying one? They all needed different things from her and the quicker she figured out what that was, the better it went for everyone.

Luckily she was pretty good at that, at least, she was better at it than the other girls in the Garden. Despite being able to read people well and act accordingly, Aussie always felt like she was the only one who didn't fit in.

Her jobs in the Garden rotated between tending to the gardening, taking care of the animals, cooking, and mending clothes. She wanted to try her hand at building but didn't understand the angles and supports well enough to make anything structurally sound, so she settled on making things pretty. Most girls in the Garden thought it was a waste of time, but never tried to discourage her from doing it, mostly because it kept her busy and not bugging them. Plus, she was the first one the girls bonded with after coming out of the box, so there was a begrudging fondness they had for her.

Thena was one of the few that actually valued Aussie's talents, mostly because she took care of all the Newbies. Thena knew it was an essential thing to do, she just didn't have the patience or temperament for it herself. She allowed Aussie to doodle around the garden as she wished if it meant they got a well trained newbie out of it each month. Plus, whenever a girl did crack up or break down, Aussie could usually mother them back into shape when that's what they needed.

Aussie sat in her chair a few feet from the box holding her potato sack parasol to protect her from the sun. She slapped a mosquito off her arm and sneezed.

"Ready to play house, Mom?" Thena asked as she came up behind her.

"Ready as ever, Daddy-O" Aussie replied with a sniffle. She always felt miserable when the grass bloomed.

"Have you been eating the honey?" Thena asked, noticing her symptoms.

"I forgot," Aussie admitted. "I got too wrapped up in getting things ready for the newbie."

"Dang it, Aussie!" Thena chastised her, stepping around to look at the pale and scrawny girl before her. "You need to take care of yourself, even half as much as the newbies, you snit."

"Mm, thanks," Aussie mumbled, impressed with level of empathy she received, and turned back to stare at the box.

Thena shook her head and looked away, wiping the sweat from her dark brow with the hand not grasping her spear. She didn't understand why pleas and reminders for her to take care of herself were met with such disregard. Especially when she proved she was fully capable of taking care of other people. You'd think Aussie would take excellent care of herself.

"Why does it feel late today?" Thena asked as she checked the sun's position in the sky.

"I know right," Aussie agreed. "I hate it, I don't know when that stupid alarm is gonna go off. Scares the crap out of me everytime as is."

"Even though you just sit there waiting for it everytime?" Thena asked, putting her hand on her hip.

"Yeah. Go figure."

Thena stood there in silence for a couple moments, both girls staring off toward the box like it might do something different for the first time in three years.

"Well, good luck with that," Thena said before turning on her heel and heading back to the shade.

She saw Gertie, seemingly the youngest girl in the garden even though she'd been there 7 months in total. She was almost as soft as Aussie, though she had no issue with dissecting any body that life had vacated to see how it worked. Luckily she used what she learned to help anyone sick or injured, so everyone learned to deal with her morbid tendencies.