Chapter 36: 36
“Morning.” I said.
The rest of them greeted me and I helped them prepare the food. We made Fried Boneless Bangus on top of Garlic Rice and an Eggplant Omelet. The first dish is Milk Fish deboned, seasoned and finally fried. The Eggplant Omelet is made by boiling eggplants then mushing them and finally mixing them with scrambled eggs to be fried with the stem still on.
After that, I helped with carrying them on the poolside while they prepare coffee for everyone. I was about to head up to wake the three but I saw the three of them walking down. We greeted each other and we went to the other houses to wake those who are not in the pool area yet.
Rin and Olivia went to the other side then me and Kaley went in the other. We first saw Ken sleeping soundly with Peanut on the couch then I woke him up while Kaley knocked on Kristine’s room as well.
We then headed to Allan’s room but there were a lot of rustling going on and we heard a female voice inside.
“We’ll head down, thanks.” the voice said.
Kaley mouthed to me, “Jenny?” I just nodded while we smiled walking to the next room.
*knock* *knock* *knock*
“Chris? Charlotte? You guys there?” I said as I knocked. No one answered for a while then I tried for the knob. I opened the door and I saw the bed with pillows bisecting it in half. The door from Allan’s room then opened and the two came out. They looked at us embarrassingly first but they linked arms.
“Well, this happened, ahaha… We really like each other and we think that we’ll continue to do so…” Allan said.
Jenny was older than us probably in the mid 30s and Allan is kind of explaining the situation.
“Hey man you don’t need to explain everything, do what the heart wants, yeah?” I said.
“That’s so cheesy.” Kaley said to me.
We all shared a laugh then they told us that the two are probably in the greenhouse. Me and Kaley went there and we found them harvesting tomatoes. Charlotte is eating one while Chris is carefully placing them in a basket. They saw us come in and they both gave a small nod.
“Sky! Did you grow this all by yourself?” Charlotte asked.
“Yeah? Why?” I said.
She handed Kaley a tomato and Kaley then took a bite from it.
*chomp*
“Hmm! It’s good! Sweet too!” Kaley exclaimed as her eyes shot up.
“You’re really good with your hands, this garden is well taken care of. I’m happy that you let me take care of it. I promise to do a good job and meet the same standard such as this.” she said earnestly.
“Thanks, I still really find this switch of personality too abrupt, can’t you act a bit more barbaric like last time?” I teased.
“Last time?” Kaley asked.
“Hah! You should’ve seen her at the store, you wouldn’t recognize her I’m telling you. In the store…” I told Kaley the story when I met the two at the supermarket.
She harrumphed while Chris laughed heartily. I saw the button on his shirt fixed now and then we all went to the back to eat breakfast. We brought the tomatoes in the table and we sliced a few of them so we could have fresh vegetables in our meals. We even made a dipping sauce with soy sauce and lime with chilies for the Bangus. We finished eating and I grabbed a cup of coffee after putting some sugar and creamer. I also made one for Kaley which she promptly accepted.
Oscar then sat next to me and said. “What’s the plan now kid?”
“We finish reclaiming the area. The goal today is to at least reach the radio station. I’d also like to drop by the two housed families first and you guys double check on the alleys that you went through yesterday. We might be able to finish this thing in 2-3 days.” I said.
“What do we do after that then?” Chris raised his hands.
“There’s a whole lot more to do. I won’t bog you guys down on the other plans for the future but some of them are that we need to have a group exploring outside and gathering more resources, start on teaching some of you to defend yourselves and how to survive, and establishing a partnership with the DDR camp next to us.” I said.
“We’re gonna go outside? Isn’t that dangerous?” Charlotte asked.
“I’ll train a few of you personally, some would come with me and some would stay here to guard this place. I know it’s dangerous but we need to gather more resources and more people.” I said.
“More people?” Kaley asked.
“Yeah, Ideally, I want as much as possible but realistically speaking, I’d like 150 people as a start.” I said.
The group gave me looks of surprise and wonder.
“That many? Why though?” Kaley replied.
“Ever heard of Dunbar’s number?” I asked them.
They gave more looks of confusion but Kaley answered, “If I recall correctly, it is the suggested cognitive limit to the number of people where a person can maintain a stable social relationship with and those who the person has a relationship with has the same stable social relationship with each other.”
“What? That’s too many relationsh.i.p.s in a sentence. My head spins when you all start to talk like this…” Russel said.
“Hahaha, but what Kaley said is correct. However, it varies between 100-250 persons, I think 150 is a good number for an average. The catch is that we need to be very careful in choosing the people that we let in. If you remember the mob in the video, they’re around 50 plus of them. It would be dangerous if we let people that have let their humanity go or have other intentions for us. We’ve been pretty lucky that we have each other here. I think I could handle more than the said number but let’s just stick to that for now.” I said.
The group looked at each other and smiled.
“Are you trying to make me tear up kid?” Oscar said jokingly while the group laughed.
I clapped my hands and said, “Alright, that’s enough talk for now, let’s get to work.”
I brought the same group as before while Oscar formed his own with Arnel, Chris, Jo and Zardon. Arnel volunteered to test the waters even though he’s still afraid of blood. We both we’ll be heading to explore the area but I’ll head to the families first to talk to them while Oscar will do another run through to the alleys. Allan and Jenny will be the additional guard in the catwalk during the day while the rest do their usual things.
We set out and Jared saw Kaley’s tanto on her hip.
“Hey bro, you gave Kaley the small knife and you’re using the short one, can I use the samurai if you’re not using it?” he asks.
“Tanto, the small knife is a tanto. The ‘samurai’ is a katana.'” a small voice from somewhere sounded.
“That’s probably Aya.” I said to myself while Jared tried to look for where the voice came from.
I looked at him and said, “You’re lucky I even gave you that trench knife, you can’t even peel a potato without losing 50% of it. And it’s called a tanto and a katana by the way, don’t let your little sister hear you say that again. Lois was burned before and she’ll keep on correcting you if you don’t say it right.”
Everyone laughed and Jared scratched his nose. Oscar and his group now walked in the alley and we proceeded forward to one of the families’ home. I rang the doorbell and waited for someone to come out. It’s a regular sized house, only a single-story and a family of eight is inside. After a short while, a kid peeked out but he went inside quickly. His dad came out and opened the gate for us.
“Can I help you?” The father said.
“Hello, I’m Sky from a few gates back, I-” I said before he cuts me.
“What? Sorry, speak a bit louder, I’m kinda low on the hearing side.” he said as he points to a hearing-aid on his ear.
I immediately understood so I started to sign with my hands while I talk to introduce myself. However, all I could sign was my name and a few simple answers. He looked surprised and he gave me a smile, he introduced himself the same way I did. When he started to sign more, I told him that I only know a very few number of them. He nodded his head and he invited us inside so his wife could translate while we talk.
“I need to learn everything now. Communication is key as always.” I said to myself.