Chapter 47 – Anna’s First Festival #2

The dull village had changed into a colourful event. Wooden decorative statues were splattered across the village, the majority of which were animals. Most were made by Elly, but there were still plenty made by other families. These ones were of a worse quality but had a personal touch of the family–marks, names, odd spots, etc.

There were also small artworks placed around the town, these were mostly made by the children and had an odd charm about them.

Tables and chairs were set up in the middle of the village around a large fire, but there was also an area between five of the large pillars, where at the top of them was a stitched-together tarp of leather that covered the area between them–just in case it rained. There were already a few chairs and tables there, so people didn’t have to be in the sun.

The pillars themselves were each roughly two and a half metres tall, made of shorter shaved-back trees. The woollen-knitted figures and wooden signs dangled between the rope connecting them.

Jen and George went to check on the crops. They would be doing this for half an hour, and once that was done, they would come back to celebrate. Different groups of parents would head over at different times until the afternoon. 

[Now, what are we going to do?] (Luna)

[I don’t know, the food doesn’t come out until later, right?] (Syrus)

The morning was slow, and the adults remaining in the village–who weren’t cooking–were just standing around happily talking to each other.

[Let’s just go hang with the kids.] (Eva)

[Seriously?] (Syrus)

[Is that a problem?] (Eva)

[Nah, just you're never one to bring that up.] (Syrus)

[It’s a festival… Let’s just make sure everyone is having fun.] (Eva)

With an idea set, Anna decided to find some people to hang out with. 

Anna wasn’t that social with the other kids. When Syrus was in control, she kind of was, but only when playing games, outside of that, they didn’t really have much interest in hanging out with other kids. Usually, it was the youngest, Lilly, who found it the most awkward to be around them. Luna didn’t mind, she had been around many kids visiting the church orphanages and public displays of the church. Syrus just enjoyed moving around and didn’t have a problem being around kids.

Anna walked over to where a small group of kids were hanging out–Billy, Elliot, Tom, Jerry, Leah, and Ella. The usual suspects. 

There weren't that many kids in the village, depending on where one set the age limit, there were about fifteen, but that still made up a decent percentage of the town’s population.

The youngest was five and the oldest was fourteen; after that, parents in these parts would stop considering them children. That was a mindset that changed where people lived, but here on the outskirts, every extra pair of capable hands was needed.

No new kids had been born for a while. Most parents had a few children, the ones that didn’t have any or only one were happy with the amount they had. People weren’t interested in having any more children either, due to the multiple recent issues the town had been having in the last few years. Anna remembered hearing this information a couple of times when some of the older members of the village rambled about their parents asking about when they would have another kid.

Billy, was the youngest, at seven years old now, shiest, son of Mern, and the first one Anna properly met after her awakening. He hung around Ella a lot, who was twelve this year, and Elliot, who was also his age.

Ella had a bit of a mouth but was kind and a bit competitive. She also took care of Billy when he needed help, mostly because he asked nicely.

Tom was Ella’s younger brother by a year and was considered by most to be the most annoying. He had refused to give up in games multiple times even after being caught; it took a combination of Syrus and Ella to stop that behaviour, mostly by just ignoring him when games were played.

Jerry and Leah were siblings aged nine and eight, respectively. Both were frequent troublemakers in the village.

Elliot was Ella’s cousin and stayed around his family a lot.

“What are you all doing?” Syrus walked up from behind the group. This caused Tom and Jerry to jump, but everyone just said hi. 

Jerry coughed first and asked, “Did you hear? We get to have a group sleepover!”  

Syrus replied, "Yeah, I heard, Elly’s place.”

Jen told them in the morning that all the children under fourteen would have a sleepover at Elly’s place. Elly’s place actually had a large basement, which she used as storage, but she was forced to move stuff around for the children tonight. The basement was something the previous owner made.

“Yeah, ain’t that so far away?” 

“It’s barely a three-minute walk…” Syrus just stared blankly at the child. Elly’s house was a little bit further away, and it was next to the forest, but there were still houses in between. Not to mention, it was a much longer walk to the farms.

[I wonder why?] Eva thought. They didn’t really talk about this morning because there were other things to do.

[Maybe security? There is a high chance that kids will be running around, so if they are all supposed to return to a single place to sleep, it makes it easy to count. [Especially if the adults will stay up late partying.] (Syrus)

[That sounds right.] (Luna)

Ella commented, “Stop complaining, Jerry, you were the first one excited to explore Elly’s basement.”

Leah added, “Yeah! Don't be annoying in front of Anna.” 

“Why are you against me, Sis…”

The crew chatted for a little longer about mostly random topics. Syrus didn’t talk much, and she only really spoke when questions were asked.

Billy then asked, “You guys want to play something?”

Syrus said, “I’m fine for anything.”

Tom replied, “Tag?”

Ella said, “Nah, it’s the start of the day. I don’t want to be dead tired already.”

“You could just not play seriously?

“Yeah, no to that.”

Billy said, “If not that, do you have any other suggestions?”

Ella shrugged. “Ergh, I don’t know.”

Then Elliot finally suggested something everyone was happy with, “How about bowling? The parents would’ve already gotten it out.”

“That works.” It didn’t take any convincing for the group to agree. Someone long ago made a small set of totems and a solid wooden ball to play games with. 

So everyone moved as a group to the open area to find where the bowling set had been placed.

Bobple

Potentially the next couple of chapters will be a little slow (Honestly not exactly sure how long this will be dragged out myself). Mostly just because still settling into work, but in probably two weeks? There will be an extra chapter or two, hopefully. Just still haven't got over the after work exhaustion yet, this chapter took way too long to write because of that (May only be finishing writing it hours before it gets released, so sorry for any grammar mistakes).