family recieves nothing from their field, child digs it up, woop woop there's jewels
30MIN
The Rhyder children exchanged appalled glances over the bowl of cold vegetable soup placed in the middle of the table. They coughed awkwardly, mumbled their graces, but dug in with the sort of reluctant manner that made Mrs. Rhyder grimace at the guilt of not being able to feed her children properly. As the gentle clinking of soup spoons reverberated around the kitchen, Mr Rhyder watched his wife slip in with concern wrinkling her face. His face was equally grim.
"What's wrong?"
"Why are the children having to eat cabbage soup again? I thought you could get some chicken? At least another vegetable?"
Mr Rhyder solemnly looked out the scratched window that encapsulated the fields outside, rubbing his patchy stubble as he contemplated.
"The chickens have died. Something's wrong with the field, then that affects the chicken feed." Mrs. Rhyder looked out in the same direction, heart twisting painfully at the growling thunder and the dreary mass of accumulated rain clouds. It made no sense-they had gotten a decent downpour lately, and the sun wasn't too bad. The wind whistled through the door crack. Mrs. Rhyder sharply stood up, staring down the length of her knobbly nose at this morose, sulking husband of hers.
"Well do something about it," she snapped as she skulked back towards the dining room. "They not going to live much longer if they eat cabbage soup every day."
Mr Rhyder said nothing, watching her torn frock drag out the door.
Annie Rhyder smiled out at the field, reveling in the whoops and cheers her siblings emitted as they soaked up the sunrays. It felt like it had been ages since her bare feet had touched such ticklish, blanket-like grass. Her gaze travelled back up to the veranda, where her mother's worried face stared back over at her. The family had to live off cabbage soup for the following days(although resources were so scarce that they might even be running out of cabbages) and Mrs Rhyder couldn't even enjoy the sun, or the congenial weather that the skies offered. Annie knew all she could see were her shrinking children, the cheekbones and skin stretching over their ribs. A guilty feeling stirred in her stomach-but what could she do about it except for make the most of the sun?
She stooped down to play with a spot of dead earth, scratching at the ground. Yes, Annie would make the best dirt-castle her three brothers had ever laid eyes on. She scooped the handful of dirt to one side. Drove another hand in. The cheers and tomfoolery of her siblings were faint by now, muffled by the mounds of the dead harvest surrounding them. She repeated the process, until she had a satisfactory dirt pile adjacent to her.
Annie bent forwards to make one final scoop. However, instead of feeling the dry earth slip between her fingers, a sharp pain shot up her arm. Retracting her hand rapidly, she clutched it to the chest where a spot of crimson trickled down her day clothes. Timidly, she reached out and brushed away the layer of dust coating the sharp object.
These weren't seeds. They weren't roots, either. Neither of those glimmered in the sanguine sunlight as this object did. With an odd swell of temerity encompassing her chest, she reached inside and tugged the object out.
A distinct knob of gold glimmered from between her grubby fingers.
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