The next morning, after breakfast, not one of the five had forgotten the family meeting from the night before.
While Arthur cleared the bowls from the table, Clara had already taken out their list.
The paper had been folded and unfolded so many times that the corners were beginning to wrinkle.
On the back were the four things they had settled on the previous night:
Make sure they had food and shelter.
Repair the house.
Figure out the land.
Then think about earning money.
Now that they had decided on an order, they might as well follow it.
Helena started by going through all the food they had left.
There was only a small bag of flour, some oats, and a little more dried beans than they had expected.
Other than that, they had a few onions, a small amount of salt, and some cooking fat.
Spread out across the table, it looked like quite a lot.
But when they really looked at it, there wasn’t much variety at all.
Clara leaned against the edge of the table and wrote everything down.
Her hands still hadn’t fully adjusted to writing in this smaller body.
The pencil never felt quite right between her fingers, and her handwriting was nowhere near as neat as it used to be.
She stared at one crooked line for two seconds before deciding not to rewrite it.
As long as they could read it, it was fine.
Helena picked up one of the onions and gently pressed the outer layer.
“This one’s getting soft.
We should eat it today.”
Theo, who was standing beside her, immediately reached out and poked it.
It was indeed a little soft.
Still uncertain, he raised his finger to poke it again.
Helena slapped his hand away.
“Stop poking it.”
Theo looked up and explained seriously, “I’m checking whether it’s gone bad.”
“If you keep poking it, it’ll go bad even if it wasn’t before.”
Theo thought about that.
His mother had a point.
He quietly pulled his hand back.
On the other side of the table, Arthur weighed the bag of flour in his hand before looking over everything they had.
“Let’s not try to work out how many days this will last yet.”
Clara looked up.
“Why?”
“Because we won’t get an accurate number.” Arthur put the flour back on the table.
“We don’t even know how much we use in a day.
Let’s write down what we have first, then keep track of what we eat over the next few days.
After that, we can work it out.”
Lucas nodded.
“That’ll be more accurate.”
Clara agreed and lowered her head again, adding the last few items to the list.
Once they had finished with the food, the five of them went over the house again, inside and out.
Yesterday, they had only known that the place was old.
Today, after looking properly, the number of things that needed attention seemed to multiply.
There were gaps around the window frames.
One section of the kitchen wall felt damp.
A floorboard beside the bed creaked whenever anyone stepped on it.
The fence behind the house was so crooked they could see it leaning from the window.
And, of course, there was the cabinet door.
It still refused to stay shut.
Helena walked over and pushed it closed.
The door stayed in place.
She let go.
Slowly, it opened again.
Helena frowned and pushed it shut a second time.
It opened again.
Apparently unwilling to accept defeat, she was about to try for a third time when Arthur happened to walk past.
“Stop fighting with it.”
Helena turned to him.
“I’m not fighting with it.”
Arthur looked at the hand she still had pressed against the cabinet door.
“You’ve pushed it shut twice.”
“I’m trying to see what’s wrong with it.”
With that, Helena pushed it closed again.
The door remained still for a moment.
Then it slowly opened.
Arthur said nothing.
He simply looked down at the gap that had reappeared.
Helena followed his gaze.
After two seconds of silence, she finally took her hand away.
Clara, who had been standing nearby the entire time, quietly added another line to the list.
Cabinet door.
Helena noticed.
“That one can wait.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you writing it down?”
“So we don’t forget.”
Arthur overheard them and tried not to laugh.
“No need to worry about that.
It reminds us every day.”
Helena immediately turned to look at him.
Arthur calmly looked away and went to inspect something else.
By the time they had finished checking the house, the list of problems had grown considerably.
Fortunately, none of them seemed serious enough to make them stop everything else and deal with it immediately.
Arthur still needed to inspect the roof more carefully.
They could find something to block the gaps around the windows later, and the cabinet door could certainly wait.
The only thing Clara wasn’t entirely comfortable with was the floorboard beside the bed.
Arthur stepped on it to test it.
Creeeak.
The sound was unusually loud.
All five of them looked down at the same time.
Arthur paused for two seconds before slowly lifting his foot.
Clara looked at him.
“You’re sure that’s fine?”
“For now.”
Clara immediately caught the important part.
“For now?”
Arthur looked down at the floorboard.
“As long as nobody steps on it every day.”
Clara didn’t find that particularly reassuring.
She lowered her head and added something else to the list.
Arthur saw her do it but didn’t stop her.
The list had been getting longer since yesterday anyway.
One more line wouldn’t make much difference.
By the time they had finished checking the house, the sun had climbed higher.
Arthur stood by the door and rolled his shoulders.
His gaze fell on the hoe leaning against the wall.
That hoe again.
Yesterday, he had thought that even if he didn’t know how to farm, surely pulling weeds couldn’t be that difficult.
Not long after he started, he had nearly cleared out the plants they were trying to save.
Arthur stared at the hoe for a couple of seconds.
Then he picked it up anyway.
Clara walked past with the list in her arms.
The moment she saw what he was doing, she stopped.
“Dad.”
Without even turning around, Arthur said, “I’m not going to pull things out randomly today.”
Clara blinked.
“I didn’t say anything yet.”
Arthur finally looked at her.
“Your face did.”
Clara nodded.
“Good.
At least you understood.”
Then she hugged the list to her chest and walked outside.
Arthur stood there watching his daughter leave.
For some reason, he had the distinct feeling that his credibility in this family was slowly disappearing.
At that moment, Lucas and Theo came out of the room as well.
The two boys were wearing similar old clothes.
They were the same height, and Helena had combed their hair almost exactly the same way.
Arthur instinctively looked at the boy on the left.
Then the one on the right.
Lucas immediately noticed.
“Dad, are you trying to figure out which one of us is which?”
Arthur’s expression didn’t change.
“I’m checking whether you’re dressed properly.”
Theo looked down at his clothes.
“We are.”
“Then let’s go.”
Arthur took the hoe and headed straight outside.
He had assumed that if he simply refused to continue the conversation, that would be the end of it.
Unfortunately, Clara was already outside and had heard everything.
She turned around.
“Dad, did you mix them up again?”
Arthur kept walking.
“Go look at the field.”
Helena, who was last to leave the house, burst out laughing.
The plot behind the house looked much the same as it had the day before.
Only a small section near the house had been cleared.
The freshly turned soil was darker than the ground around it.
Farther out, dead grass, fresh shoots, and all kinds of plants they couldn’t identify grew together in a tangled mess.
It was almost impossible to tell what had once been planted where.
Arthur stood at the edge of the plot for a long time.
This time, however, he didn’t swing the hoe.
Helena waited for a while before asking, “What’s wrong?”
“I’m looking carefully first.”
Helena glanced at the plot, then at her husband.
“You said that yesterday too.”
Arthur turned toward her.
“Are you going to remind me about yesterday all day?”
“I’m only stating a fact.”
Arthur decided not to answer.
He crouched down and pushed aside some of the grass near his feet.
Lucas crouched beside him.
Clara and Theo came over as well.
Eventually, even Helena joined them.
And so the entire family gathered around one small patch of ground and began seriously discussing which plants they were actually allowed to pull out.
Arthur pointed at one.
“This should be a weed, right?”
Lucas leaned closer and studied it.
After a moment, he hesitated.
“I don’t know.”
Arthur immediately turned to him.
“Weren’t you the one who stopped me yesterday?”
“I only said those plants didn’t look like weeds,” Lucas explained.
“I never said I knew what everything was.”
Arthur thought about it.
That was true.
He turned to Clara.
The moment she noticed him looking at her, she shook her head.
“Don’t look at me.
I’m only in charge of writing things down.”
That left Theo.
Arthur looked at him.
Theo had been crouching nearby, poking at the soil with one finger.
When he noticed his father staring at him, he slowly raised his head.
Father and son looked at each other for several seconds.
Then Theo reminded him very seriously,
“Dad, I’m three.”
Arthur had no answer to that.
Of course he knew Theo was three.
The problem was that his mind wasn’t actually three.
But after thinking about it a little more, Arthur realized that even if Theo still had his old body, there was no reason being an adult would automatically make him good at farming.
Helena guessed what he was about to ask almost immediately and raised a hand.
“Don’t ask me.
I only just learned how to use the stove in the kitchen.”
That settled it.
Arthur looked down at the hoe in his hands.
Then he looked over the entire messy plot in front of them.
Only now did he realize they had a rather serious problem.
Last night, the five of them had sat around the table and seriously discussed figuring out the land.
Yet not one of them actually knew how to farm.
Arthur was silent for a moment before letting out a resigned sigh.
“Fine.
I admit it.
I don’t know how.”
The moment he said that, he saw Clara lower her head and start writing.
Arthur immediately asked, “What are you writing now?”
“I’m making a note.”
“Why does that need to be written down?”
Clara looked up and explained with complete seriousness.
“You’re the only one who can use the hoe right now.
The fact that you don’t know how to farm is pretty important.”
Lucas nodded in agreement.
Arthur looked at his son.
“You don’t have to agree with everything she says.”
Lucas didn’t argue.
His expression, however, made it obvious that he still thought Clara was right.
Arthur decided not to fight them on it.
Fine.
None of them knew how to farm.
They could learn.
For now, the important thing was not to pull out anything they were supposed to keep.
Arthur lightly tapped the ground with the hoe.
“New rule.
If we’re sure it’s a weed, we pull it.
If we don’t recognize it, we leave it alone.
If we’re not sure, we leave it alone too.”
Helena nodded.
“That’s safest.”
Lucas agreed.
“At least we won’t pull out the wrong thing again.”
Arthur looked at him.
Lucas paused before quickly adding,
“I wasn’t talking about you.”
“You don’t need to explain.”
“Oh.”
Clara turned away, trying not to laugh.
Once the rule was settled, the family finally began clearing the plot properly.
Arthur loosened the soil around the outer edge with the hoe.
Helena followed behind, pulling out the roots that had already come loose.
The three children were too small to handle heavy tools, so they crouched nearby, pulling out the weeds they were certain about and piling them together.
At first, things went fairly smoothly.
The grass around the outer edge was messy and shallow-rooted.
Once Arthur loosened the soil, Helena quickly cleared a small patch.
Clara crouched nearby, sorting the weeds they had pulled.
Lucas stopped every so often to study the plants they had left behind.
Theo, meanwhile, soon became interested in one particularly tall weed.
It stood by itself at the edge of the plot, leaning noticeably to one side.
Surely nobody had planted that on purpose.
Theo decided this one had to be safe.
He walked over, grabbed the stalk with both hands, and pulled.
Nothing happened.
He frowned and pulled again.
Still nothing.
Clara noticed that her younger brother had been standing in the same place for quite a while.
“Theo, can you pull it out?”
“Yes.”
He answered immediately.
Determined to prove it, Theo shuffled half a step backward, planted both feet firmly on the ground, and leaned his whole body away from the weed.
Clara watched him.
Something about this didn’t look safe.
“Theo, slow down—”
Before she could finish, the weed suddenly came free with a clump of dirt attached to its roots.
Theo lost his balance.
He landed straight on his bottom in the mud.
Arthur heard the noise and immediately stopped working.
“Theo!”
He crossed the short distance in a few steps and crouched in front of his son, first checking the back of Theo’s head, then his arms and hands.
“Did you hurt yourself?”
Theo seemed a little stunned by the fall.
He sat there for two seconds before shaking his head.
“No.”
“Does anything hurt?”
“No.”
Arthur finally relaxed and helped him to his feet.
Once Theo was standing, he looked down at himself.
The back of his trousers was covered in mud.
He stared at it for a moment.
But instead of worrying about his clothes, he suddenly lifted the weed he was still clutching.
“Dad, I got it out.”
Arthur followed his gaze.
The weed was indeed out, roots, dirt, and all.
Then he looked at the muddy seat of Theo’s trousers.
He couldn’t help laughing.
“Yes.
You got it out.”
Clara came over as well.
The moment she saw her brother, the corners of her mouth curved upward.
“It just cost you a little more than expected.”
Theo immediately looked at her.
“Clara, don’t laugh.”
“I’m not laughing.”
“You are.”
“I just think your trousers are a little dirty.”
“You’re still laughing.”
Lucas walked over and crouched beside them, studying the weed in Theo’s hand.
“The roots are really long.”
Theo immediately found his excuse.
“So it’s not because I’m weak.
It was just hard to pull out.”
Lucas nodded cooperatively.
“Yeah.
You could say that.”
Theo was satisfied.
Arthur tried brushing the dirt off his trousers, but instead of cleaning it, he only managed to smear the mud over a larger area.
He gave up.
“You’re changing clothes when we go back.”
Theo looked down at himself.
“Do I have to?”
“Are you planning to sit on a chair covered in mud?”
Theo thought seriously about that.
“No.”
“Then you’re changing.”
Once Theo’s little accident had been dealt with, they went back to work.
The farther into the plot they moved, however, the slower they became.
Before long, Helena found several plants she didn’t recognize.
She stopped and called to Arthur.
“Arthur, come look at this.”
Arthur walked over with the hoe.
“What is it?”
Helena pointed toward her feet.
“Can I pull these?”
Arthur crouched down.
The leaves were broader than the grass around them and did look a little different.
Lucas soon joined him.
Clara and Theo noticed everyone gathering in one place and came over too.
Helena looked around at all of them.
“Anyone know what this is?”
Nobody answered.
Arthur moved one of the leaves aside with his fingers.
“Doesn’t look like ordinary grass.”
Clara looked at him.
“Then what is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“So do we pull it?”
Arthur was silent for two seconds.
“No.”
They scattered again.
Not long afterward, Lucas found another unfamiliar plant.
He called Arthur over.
Nobody knew what that one was either.
So they left it.
A little later, Clara pointed at several narrow leaves.
“Dad, what about these?”
Arthur came over and looked.
“Don’t know.”
“But they really look like weeds.”
“Are you sure?”
Clara studied them carefully for a few seconds.
Then she shook her head.
“No.”
“Then leave them.”
Eventually, whenever someone asked, “What’s this?” the others could almost predict the answer.
They didn’t recognize it.
They didn’t know.
Leave it alone.
It was certainly a safe method.
So safe that after an entire morning of work, the only things they had actually removed were the plants that looked so obviously like weeds that even five complete beginners were willing to risk it.
As the sun climbed higher, sweat gathered on Arthur’s forehead.
He straightened and wiped it away with the back of his hand.
A sharp soreness ran through his palm.
The skin he had rubbed raw yesterday hadn’t fully recovered, and after gripping the hoe all morning, it was red again.
Arthur glanced down without saying anything.
Then, as casually as possible, he shifted the hoe into his other hand.
Clara noticed.
She had already grown tired enough to sit on a small stump nearby.
When she saw her father switch hands, she stared at his palm for a moment.
“Dad, does your hand hurt again?”
Arthur looked over.
“No.”
Clara said nothing.
She just stared at him.
Arthur stared back.
They remained like that for several seconds.
Then Clara suddenly turned her head.
“Mom—”
“Clara.”
Too late.
Helena dropped the weeds in her hands and walked over.
She looked at Arthur first, then held out her hand.
“Let me see.”
Arthur sighed.
“It’s really nothing.”
Helena kept her hand out.
“Then show me.”
Arthur knew there was no getting out of it.
He opened his hand. Find the original chapter at g.com.
The moment Helena saw how red his palm was, she frowned.
“Didn’t I tell you yesterday not to hold the hoe all day?”
Arthur tried to defend himself.
“It hasn’t been all day yet.”
“Then this is a good time to stop.”
“I can still do a little more.”
“No.”
Helena took the hoe straight out of his hand.
Arthur looked at her.
“Do you know how to use that?”
“No.”
“Then why did you take it?”
“So you can’t.”
Arthur opened his mouth.
Then closed it again.
He had nothing to say.
Clara nodded approvingly from her stump.
“Mom’s right.”
Arthur immediately looked at her.
“Wasn’t that tattling?”
Clara corrected him seriously.
“I wasn’t tattling.”
“You called your mother over.”
“I was informing her.”
Arthur paused.
“What’s the difference?”
Clara thought about it.
“Informing sounds more official.”
A laugh came from nearby.
Arthur turned.
Lucas immediately lowered his head and pretended to be very busy picking weeds.
Theo didn’t bother pretending at all.
He sat at the edge of the plot, laughing openly.
Arthur looked at the three children.
Then at Helena, who had already put the hoe aside.
Finally, he gave up.
“All right.
That’s enough for today.
We’re going back.”
Clara climbed down from the stump.
The moment her feet touched the ground, her legs went a little weak.
She quickly grabbed the stump and pretended nothing had happened.
Arthur had seen everything.
“You’re tired too.”
Clara straightened.
“I never said I wasn’t.”
“You looked pretty energetic when you were supervising me.”
“I was supervising you while sitting down.”
Arthur had no answer to that either.
Lucas was clearly less energetic than he had been that morning as well.
A three-year-old body simply couldn’t keep going for very long.
When he stood up, he instinctively rubbed his legs.
Theo was even worse.
He had fallen into the mud earlier and spent the rest of the morning crouching beside the plot.
Now he was already starting to yawn.
Arthur took one look at the three of them and made the decision for them.
“We’re going back to eat.
After lunch, the three of you are taking a nap.”
Clara immediately objected.
“I’m not sleepy.”
“I’m fine too,” Lucas said.
Theo opened his mouth, clearly intending to say the same thing.
Instead, a long yawn came out first.
When it finally ended, he realized all four of them were looking at him.
Theo fell silent for a moment.
“…I’m fine too.”
Arthur pointed at him.
“You’re the least convincing one here.”
Helena laughed.
They piled up the weeds they had pulled, put away the tools, and prepared to head back inside.
Before leaving, Arthur turned for one last look at what they had accomplished that morning.
The cleared section really wasn’t very large.
Compared with the rest of the tangled plot, it almost looked pitiful.
Still, it was a little bigger than yesterday.
And every plant they couldn’t identify was still safely in the ground.
He hadn’t accidentally pulled out anything they wanted to keep.
That alone made Arthur feel slightly better.
“Actually, this isn’t too bad.”
Lucas followed his gaze and nodded.
“Yeah.”
Arthur glanced at his son in mild surprise.
For once, Lucas hadn’t immediately pointed out a problem.
Then Lucas added,
“At least we didn’t pull out the wrong thing today.”
The small bit of satisfaction on Arthur’s face disappeared.
“You could’ve left that last part out.”
Lucas nodded.
“Okay.”
Unfortunately, he had already said it.
At that moment, Clara pulled out her list again.
The sight of that increasingly familiar piece of paper was enough to give Arthur a headache.
“Clara, what are you writing now?”
“Something we found out today.”
Arthur looked at her.
“There’s more?”
Clara didn’t answer.
She lowered her head and slowly wrote a new line.
When she finished, Arthur leaned over to read it.
Nobody in this family knows how to farm.
Arthur stared at the sentence for a long moment.
“Did you have to write it that directly?”
Clara looked up.
“It’s true.”
“You could write, ‘Need to learn farming.'”
“But right now, we don’t know how.”
Arthur turned to Helena.
“What do you think?”
Helena read the sentence carefully.
Then she nodded.
“I think it’s accurate.”
Arthur looked at Lucas.
Lucas nodded too.
“Nothing wrong with it.”
Arthur decided he wasn’t going to ask Theo.
Unfortunately, Theo came over on his own.
He read the line, then looked at Clara.
“You can add another one.”
Arthur immediately had a bad feeling.
Sure enough, Clara asked,
“What?”
Theo pointed at Arthur’s palm.
“Dad can’t hold the hoe for too long.”
Clara actually lowered her pencil to the paper.
Arthur quickly stopped her.
“You don’t need to write that down.”
Clara looked up.
“Why?”
“They’re my hands.
I’ll remember.”
Clara looked at his hands.
Then back at him.
“But you remembered yesterday too.”
Arthur said nothing.
“And your hands are still red today,” Clara added.
Arthur had absolutely nothing left to say.
After a few seconds, he quietly pulled his hand back.
“Write it.”
Clara lowered her head again, satisfied.
Arthur had no intention of staying there while his three children continued publicly documenting his shortcomings.
He turned and headed toward the house.
Helena followed him.
After a few steps, she asked with a smile,
“Coming back out this afternoon?”
“No.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Arthur raised his reddened palm for her to see.
“I’m very good at listening now.”
Helena nodded.
“That’s a big improvement.”
“Thank you.”
She was about to keep walking when something occurred to her.
“Oh, right.
What are we having for lunch?”
Arthur’s steps slowed.
He remembered the soft onion they had set aside that morning.
Then he remembered Helena’s cooking skills, which were still not exactly reliable.
Arthur fell silent.
Helena immediately noticed his expression.
“Arthur, what did you just think of?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why did you suddenly stop talking?”
Arthur glanced at the three children walking ahead of them.
He thought about keeping quiet.
He failed.
“I was just thinking that we can take our time learning how to farm.”
Helena looked at him.
“And?”
Arthur paused.
“We can probably take our time learning how to cook too.”
The moment the words left his mouth, he knew he had made a mistake.
Helena stared at him in silence.
Arthur turned around and started walking.
“Kids, let’s go eat.”
Clara looked back in confusion.
“Dad, why are you walking so fast?”
Without turning around, Arthur replied,
“I’m hungry.”
Behind him came Helena’s voice, calling his full name.
“Arthur Bennett.”
Arthur immediately walked faster.
All three children turned around at once.
Theo looked at their father, who was rapidly getting farther away, then at their mother behind them.
He lowered his voice.
“Did Dad say something wrong?”
Lucas thought about it, then nodded seriously.
“Probably.”
Clara hugged the list to her chest and added with complete certainty,
“And he knew it the moment he said it.”
Arthur heard every word from where he was walking ahead of them.
He didn’t turn around.
He was beginning to realize that although the three children now had short legs, little strength, and bodies that grew tired after walking for too long—and although they still got sleepy when nap time came around—there was one thing their three-year-old bodies didn’t seem to have affected at all.
Their mouths.
Every single one of them had plenty to say.