The Last Bowl of Soup: Part One

by Littlestarfaerie

"But I'm so very sick of soup," I complained that morning as my owner, Carrie took me through the marketplace to the soup kitchen.

"I know Frellielle. I really do. But we don't have enough money to buy you a better meal. Soup is all we can afford! How could we pay for the food even if there isn't a famine? We'll just have to live off the soup kitchen for now."

For now. I have heard it many times. I passed the hospital for the hundredth time that month. She went on, 'I just thank my stars you aren't sick. We certainly can't afford the remedies," sighed Carrie.

"What about the shop?" I asked. The shop was Carrie's only income.

"What about it?" she asked.

"I'm afraid it isn't very helpful. Maybe we should try the money tree?" I asked.

"Good idea," she said sadly.

We had reached the kitchen and I took a bowl and the Soup Faerie ladled us some soup, smiling her mysterious smile. She knows us well by now, because we've been coming here every day for two months. I went back for another serving and we left for home. We stopped at our shop, but nothing was gone--all of our inventory was still there. Disappointed, we walked back home in silence, Carrie taking her long strides, me, shuffling to keep up.

We soon reached our little cottage and checked the mail. Carrie searched through the mass of bills for something handwritten. "Nothing," she said in disgust, dropping a shower of brown envelopes onto the table.

"Frelly?" she asked. "Uhu?"

"You want a story?"

"Okay!" I said, overjoyed that she wasn't unhappy anymore.

We climbed up the rotting wooden stairs and I sat down on my bed in the attic. Carrie sat down beside me and began to read. "Everything you need to know about Earth faeries....."

I awoke next morning at the same time as Carrie. She was sitting up in her bed and was wearing her glasses which she usually kept on the bedside table.

"Carrie?" I asked, feeling nervous.

"Yes?"

"Something's wrong," I said.

"You don't have to tell me."

Carrie and I left our bedroom and went to the stairs. But that was it. There weren't any stairs. All that was left of our rotting house was an empty space and a splintered frame.

"Dear God..." Carrie said. "What are we going to do??!!"

And then Carrie sat down on the bare splintery floorboards which still had a few fragments of the stairwell on them and began to cry. Sob after sob. I didn't know what to do. Should I comfort her?

"We'll be okay. We can get downstairs Carrie."

"It's not that. We don't have any money to speak of, and my weekly income is nothing but a small shop! Our lives are a mess!" she said, bursting into tears again.

"We manage!" I said. "Remember how the other day we found 20 Neopoints? And one day there'll be a fortune at the tree! At least 100 whole Neopoints! We'll grab it and be rich. (We were so poor 100 Neopoints seemed a fortune!)

I brought out a hanky from my pocket and comforted her. I helped her up and we decided there was only one way down. Down Down DOWN!

One...Two...Three! And holding each other's hands we took the leap of faith.

To be continued...