The Vagabond Girl of Nothingtown

Chapter 9: Fish in a Basket

              The next week again passed rather uneventfully, that is to say nothing too interesting happened to go into detail about. To me however, it was one of the happiest weeks of my life. Dandelion had begun to make an effort to learn how to read. She struggled at first, but it is quite a bit easier to teach a fully cognitive adult their first language than a new born.

"Wa... Wa... Waamart?" She read as we biked past the supermarket.

"Walmart." I pronounced for her.

"Walmart."

She was a diligent student all things considered. To further help her, during the nights we would watching various movies with subtitles turned on.

"Why doesn't Jack just get on board with Rose?"

"I... don't know."

"This movie's weird,"

"I... don't disagree."

Explaining the concepts of directing inconsistencies proved slightly tedious so I usually gave non-answers like that one. In any case, the week passed by in a flash and although I was on a bit of a wayward road so to speak, I felt more at home with Dandelion than I had ever been in Nothingtown 1. About 3 weeks total had passed now since Dandelion first dropped into my dumpster and into my life. In another town, on another Friday, we decided to take a rest day and visit a river.

Well... I say visit but the truth of the matter was more that Dandelion had gotten bored from our delivering and wandered off on her own when we reached a spot that happened to be near one. Without any hesitation upon seeing the river not being very deep, she took off running towards it.

"Dandelion... what are you..."

Before I could stop her, Dandelion ran straight into the water not bothering to take off her sandals.

"Kane!" She shouted turning to wave at me. Sighing, I parked my bike and ran to the edge of the river.

"Kane!"

"Yes?"

"I'm hungry,"

"Why did you run into the river then?"

A small smirk appeared on Dandelion's face. Pausing briefly to look around the water depths that went up to her waist, the vagabond girl quickly locked in on her target and swiped down fast onto the water with on bare hand managing to catch a fish and triumphantly lift it into the air.

"How did you..."

"I'm hungry,"

Do you plan to eat that?"

She nodded.

"Raw?"

She shook her head.

"How then? We don't have anything to carry that home in."

She tilted her head slightly looking at me puzzled. Then, without second thought, she made a dash for my bike.

"Hey wait, you can't just..."

All that time spent outdoors had made Dandelion quite a bit more athletic than me as she made it to my bike before I could catch her dropping the fish into the basket.