“The most horrible part of my life was followed by the most wonderful part,” Teina explained, but had no more strength for speaking, so she looked at Jimox.
Jimox turned to the many faces gathered around, more than twenty now, eager to hear the story even if they had heard it before. “What Teina said was true, but we wouldn’t have been ready for that wonderful part without the horrible year that came before.”
Teina
nodded.
“At ages seven and eleven . . . seven and thirteen in Nebador numbers . . .
most kids on our planet wouldn’t have been ready for a working relationship like we had to quickly develop . . .”
While Teina finished boiling water on a little camp stove, Jimox worked on highlighting areas on a map. She stirred in instant cereal and handed him a bowl and spoon.
“Thanks. I’ve finished marking my picked-clean places in orange, and my lightly-picked areas in yellow.”
“Good. I want to start scrounging in that neighborhood just south of the motorway. It’s the closest one I haven’t cleaned out, and you haven’t touched it.”
Jimox looked thoughtful as he ate his cereal and gazed at the map. “Are you thinking we should bring everything here?”
NEBADOR Book Eight: Witness 40
Teina appeared slightly bothered by his question. “Yeah, or to one of your camps.”
After scraping out his bowl, Jimox unfolded another map that showed a larger area, and all the main roads, but not every little street. “I have an idea to share. After I share it, I’ll let you decide, okay?”
She
shrugged.
“Scrounging close to our house and camps will get the most stuff stacked up in those places. But while we’re slowly picking one or two cans of food out of each ruin, rats are eating through all the paper and plastic packages in all the grocery stores in . . . these suburbs farther out . . . and all these small towns out in the country.”
“But they’re so far!” Teina began with a tone of frustration. “Even if we used bicycles, we’d be riding all day just for one little load!”
Jimox let a long moment pass before continuing. “True. But what will happen when we’ve picked clean all the areas close to our house and camps?”
Teina looked back with wide eyes. “I don’t know.”
“Remember, I’m just asking you to listen to my idea.”
She took several deep breaths to collect herself.
“I suggest that wherever there are stores and restaurants, and sometimes unburned houses with good scrounging, we go there and protect as much stuff as possible, as quickly as possible, from rats, birds, insects . . . you know the list.”
She forced out a smile. “Yep!”
“And we just leave it there. If we need it someday, we can go to it. We can spend days, even weeks, riding between suburbs and little towns, spending however long we want in each place, setting up a safe house, protecting the food, then moving on. When we feel ready to come back here, we can bring a load. That’s my idea. Your choice.”
NEBADOR Book Eight: Witness 41
“It took me days to get my head around Jimox’ idea,” Teina shared with her listeners. “I was only seven years old, and he was challenging me to think about a strategy that would maximize our food supply in the long-term, while I was thinking like a little squirrel, just wanting to pull as many nuts as possible into my nest in the short-term.” She paused to cough. “He never asked again. We even went scrounging close-by several times. Then I started dreaming about rats and bugs eating the food we could be saving.”
Many of her listeners chuckled.
“The next morning, as soon as he poked his head out of his sleeping bag, I looked at him and said, ‘You’re right. Let’s get bikes and start saving stuff.’”
“For the next three years,” Jimox took up the story, “we journeyed in wider and wider circles, eventually exploring the big cities north and south of our home town. There are still food stashes in a hundred places up there, maybe some of it still good today.”
Teina made a face and shook her head.
Jimox grinned. “And we had to learn to listen to each other in many different situations . . .”
The two young monkey mammals, now wearing gun belts and holsters, crept into the sporting goods store through an upstairs apartment and office.
The apartment had given them a few cans of tuna, but their primary mission was the large rack of freeze-dried food they could see through the front window, and maybe some propane camp-stove bottles.
Jimox led the way along the narrow inside balcony toward the spiral staircase. Suddenly Teina touched his arm. “Stop, I sense danger!”
Jimox looked down, but didn’t see anything. “I can handle it,” he asserted, patting his new holster and the pistol inside. “Wait here while I scout.”
Teina breathed a silent sigh as Jimox descended the metal stair. It creaked under his weight.
He reached the bottom and started to walk around on the main floor of the store when he smelled something, but didn’t have time to think before two large dogs came bolting out of the storeroom in the back.
Jimox tried to pull out his pistol, but dropped it, judged he didn’t have time to pick it up, ran, and hopped onto a table, scattering sun hats and dark
NEBADOR Book Eight: Witness 42
glasses in all directions.
The growling, snapping dogs each took one side of the table, just barely big enough to protect Jimox from their hungry jaws if he stood in the very middle.
He could see his pistol on the floor. He looked up and saw Teina leaning on the balcony rail. “Help!” he called.
“Why?” Teina asked. “I tried to warn you. You wouldn’t listen.”
Jimox tried kicking at the dogs, but they were quick and avoided his boots.
“It looked safe!”
“But you forgot about smell, and all the things in the store that are chewed up, and plain old gut instincts. And even if your instincts weren’t working, mine were!”
“I will never, ever again ignore your warnings, I promise!”
“And you thought your new gun could handle anything.”
“I was wrong!” Jimox admitted, almost dancing to keep away from the canine teeth on both sides of him. “It’s too easy to fumble it when something’s running at you.”
Teina took a slow, deep breath. “Boys,” she mumbled to herself, pulled out her pistol, and took careful aim.
NEBADOR Book Eight: Witness 43
One dog squealed, ran a few feet, and dropped. The other barked with anger and grief as it ran back toward the storeroom.
“I think you should stay on the table until I get down there to cover you,”
Teina said, starting down the spiral staircase.
Jimox, feeling about an inch tall, did as she said.
