Gamer1234556
Planter
Chapter 12
Town Square was nearly empty by the time I got back.Rain tended to do that.
The cobblestones shone dark under the grey evening light, and water ran in thin streams along the edges of the path. Pierre’s windows glowed faintly behind me. The Saloon had not fully come alive yet. Even the fountain looked tired, its surface broken by rain instead of coins.
I stopped at the bulletin board.
Mostly out of habit.
Mostly because Pierre had mentioned it.
Mostly because money was money, and the backpack still hung in my head like a price tag attached to the future.
A small note had been pinned near the center.
HELP WANTED
Looking for someone to bring me a Carp.
— Sam
Reward: 90g
Sam will be happy.
Sam.
The blond guy near the bushes.
The one who had been crouched by the stream like he was scouting enemy territory.
Nice timing.
I actually had a carp on me.
Gold-star, too.
For a second, the Joja part of my brain perked up.
Ninety gold.
Not much.
But not nothing.
Ninety gold was almost two pieces of hay. Almost a seed run. Almost one step closer to the backpack if enough little steps stacked together before my legs gave out.
Then I read the final line again.
Sam will be happy.
I stared at it longer than I meant to.
The board did not say Sam needed the carp. It didn’t say emergency. It didn’t say food shortage, research, festival prep, bait comparison, anything practical.
Just:
Sam will be happy.
Pelican Town, apparently, had an economy of mood.
I pulled the carp from my bag, wrapped it as best I could, and headed toward Jodi’s house.
The house stood near the square, warm behind its windows, ordinary in a way that made me pause before knocking. After Robin’s place, I was starting to distrust ordinary houses. From outside, they all looked simple: walls, roof, light, door.
Inside, every family seemed to have its own weather.
I knocked.
A few seconds passed.
Then footsteps.
The door opened, and a blond kid stared up at me with wide eyes.
He was small, maybe around Jas’s age, wearing pajamas that looked like they had been wrestled onto him against his will. His hair stuck up in the back. He looked from my face to the fish bundle in my hands and then back to my face.
“Are you the farmer?”
“I think so.”
“You think so?”
“I’m new at it.”
That answer seemed to satisfy him.
“Mom!” he shouted over his shoulder. “The farmer’s here and he has a fish!”
From somewhere inside, Jodi’s voice answered, “Vincent, don’t yell at the door!”
“I’m not yelling at the door! I’m yelling through the door!”
The boy turned back to me.
“Do you know my brother?”
“Sam?”
“Yeah.”
“I met him for about three seconds.”
“That sounds like Sam.”
Before I could ask what that meant, another voice called from deeper in the house.
“Vincent, who is it?”
A blond teenager appeared behind him, taller than I expected, with messy hair and the restless energy of someone who had been sitting still for too long and resented furniture for it.
He saw me.
Then the fish.
Then me again.
“Oh! Hey. You’re Eric, right?”
“Yeah. Sam?”
“That’s me.” He grinned, easy and bright. “New farmer. Cool.”
The grin was casual.
Maybe too casual.
Not fake exactly.
Just active.
Like something he was keeping in motion.
Vincent pointed at the fish.
“He brought your carp.”
Sam blinked.
“Oh, seriously?”
“I saw your request on the board.”
“No way. That was fast.”
“Rain day. Fishing day.”
“Nice.” Sam leaned against the doorframe. “I was gonna try to catch one myself, but then Mom started dinner, and Vincent said he wanted to help, which meant he mostly put his hands in everything.”
“I helped!”
“You tried to put cereal in the casserole.”
“It needed crunch.”
“It did not need crunch.”
Jodi appeared from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. She looked tired in the specific way mothers looked tired: not dramatic, not collapsing, just worn along the edges by a hundred small tasks nobody else counted.
“Oh! Eric.” Her face brightened. “Good evening.”
“Sorry if I’m intruding.”
“Not at all. We just finished dinner.”
The smell confirmed it: something warm, savory, and domestic drifting from the kitchen. For a moment, it pulled a memory loose — Mom at the stove, Eirika stealing pieces of carrot from the cutting board, Dad sitting too quietly at the table, Grandpa saying something designed to start an argument and pretending surprise when it worked.
I pushed the memory down.
“I saw Sam’s request for a carp,” I said, holding it up. “But, uh… from the smell, I’m guessing you already cooked something.”
Jodi laughed, a little embarrassed.
“Ah, yes. Perfect timing, huh?”
Sam winced.
“Sorry. I posted that earlier.”
Vincent looked scandalized.
“You wasted the farmer’s fish?”
“I didn’t waste it!”
“You made him walk in the rain with a fish.”
“That’s not wasting. That’s… community engagement.”
I looked at Sam.
“Did Pierre teach you that phrase?”
“No, but I’m stealing it now.”
Jodi gave him a look.
“Sam.”
“What? It’s useful.”
I found myself smiling.
Compared to Robin’s house, where the tension lived in closed doors and careful pauses, Jodi’s house wore its strain more openly. Dishes in the sink. A boy in pajamas at the door. Sam filling the room with jokes before silence could settle. Jodi watching both sons like she was counting them by instinct.
Two boys in the house.
One father absent.
Kent.
The name arrived before anyone said it.
Jodi noticed me looking at a framed photo near the hallway.
A man in uniform stood beside her, one hand resting on Sam’s shoulder. Vincent was much smaller in the picture, held against Jodi’s hip. Sam looked younger too, but already trying to grin like everything was fine.
“That’s Kent,” Jodi said softly.
“Your husband.”
“Yes.”
Sam’s grin thinned.
Only slightly.
Vincent looked at the photo and then away, as if the picture was too familiar to be interesting and too important to ignore.
“He’s coming home,” Vincent said.
Jodi’s hand tightened around the towel.
“Yes,” she said. “He is.”
Sam looked at the floor.
The room held that sentence carefully.
Not because anyone doubted it out loud.
Because everyone knew hope could become a rule in a house where someone was gone.
I thought of Grandpa’s activism. Gunther’s government files. Jodi saying Kent had heard of him through military circles. The war was not just history here.
It had a chair at the table.
I adjusted the fish in my hands.
“Should I still leave this?”
Jodi shook herself back into the present.
“Oh, honey, you don’t have to. Why don’t you keep it? Sell it to Willy or use it yourself. If Willy runs out sometime, I might ask you instead.”
“Ninety gold is ninety gold,” I said.
Sam gave me a sympathetic look.
“Backpack fund?”
“That obvious?”
“Pierre gets everyone with the backpack.”
“Backpack gets everyone,” Jodi corrected. “Pierre just sells it.”
Vincent looked at my bag.
“Is yours bad?”
“It’s small.”
“Why don’t you get a bigger one?”
“I’m trying.”
“How much is it?”
“Two thousand gold.”
Vincent’s eyes widened.
“That’s a lot of cookies.”
Sam nodded gravely.
“Economists fear his methods.”
Jodi tried not to smile.
I laughed, and the house warmed a little.
Sam leaned against the wall, studying me with a curiosity that was more careful than his grin.
“So you’re fishing for it?”
“Mostly. Crops take too long. Fishing pays immediately.”
“Smart.”
“Or desperate.”
“Same thing sometimes.”
That line came out too easily from him.
I looked at him.
For a second, the cheerful surface shifted.
Not gone.
Just thinner.
Sam shrugged like he had not said anything meaningful.
“I mean, I’m saving for band stuff, so I get it. Strings break. Gear costs money. Everything costs money.”
Jodi’s face flickered at that.
“Sam…”
“I know, I know. Not now.”
There it was.
Not a fight.
A path worn by almost-fights.
Sam’s cheer returned quickly, maybe too quickly.
“Anyway, keep the carp. I can post another request when I actually remember I asked for one.”
“That sounds inefficient.”
“Yeah, but it’s very me.”
“Do you post a lot of requests?”
“Depends what I’m trying to do. Fish, snacks, random stuff for band practice, things Sebastian refuses to help me find because apparently leaving his room is a constitutional crisis.”
I looked at him.
“You know Sebastian?”
Sam’s grin brightened.
“Yeah. He’s one of my best friends.”
That caught me more than it should have.
Sebastian, who appeared halfway up the basement stairs like daylight was a personal insult.
Sam, who seemed physically incapable of letting silence remain unbothered.
“You and Sebastian are friends?”
“What, because he looks like he was assembled from shadows and sarcasm?”
“I wasn’t going to say that.”
“You were thinking it.”
“I was thinking something adjacent.”
“Good. Sebastian would respect adjacent insults.”
I laughed.
Sam leaned against the wall more comfortably.
“He’s alright. He just hates being dragged into things.”
“People?”
“Mostly expectations.” Sam scratched the back of his head. “Sebastian doesn’t mind people as much as he minds being told what version of himself he’s supposed to perform in front of them.”
That was too precise.
I looked at him.
Sam noticed and immediately made a face.
“What?”
“That sounded thoughtful.”
“Don’t spread that around. I have a reputation.”
“As what?”
“The fun one.”
Vincent reappeared in the hallway.
“You’re not always fun.”
“Betrayal from my own blood.”
“You made me practice counting.”
“That was Mom.”
“You helped.”
“I was an accessory to education.”
Jodi pointed down the hall with the towel.
“Vincent. Bed.”
He vanished again, but slowly enough to remain part of the conversation.
Sam watched him go with an older-brother expression that was fond, irritated, and protective all at once.
“Penny says he’s doing better with numbers,” he said.
“Penny teaches him?”
“Yeah. Him and Jas.” Sam grinned. “Vincent says Penny is nice because she answers questions. Mom says Penny is a saint because she has not thrown him into the river.”
“Sam.”
“What? Lovingly.”
Jodi sighed.
I thought of Penny kneeling beside Vincent and Jas in the museum, making room for questions nobody else knew how to answer.
“She seems patient,” I said.
“She is.” Sam’s smile softened in a way I had not expected. “Quiet, but not boring. People get that wrong.”
“You know her well?”
“Kind of. Small town.” He shrugged. “She teaches Vincent, so she’s around. Sometimes she talks to Maru. Sometimes me, if I catch her when she’s not carrying books like she’s trying to protect them from weather.”
That sounded like Penny.
“She and Maru are friends?”
“Sort of. Maru’s busy with clinic stuff and science stuff. Penny’s busy with teaching and… well…”
Sam trailed off, his grin dimming.
Jodi looked at him.
“Sam...”
“I know.”
He stopped there.
I appreciated that more than if he had kept going.
Some names changed rooms.
Pam had.
Penny did too, apparently.
Sam noticed my expression and tilted his head.
“You’ve already met her?”
“At the museum. And the Saloon.”
“Oh.” His face changed with immediate understanding. “Ah.”
That was all.
Ah.
But it carried enough.
Jodi folded the towel tighter.
The house felt smaller for a second.
Then Sam, mercifully, moved the conversation before it could sit too long.
“Maru’s cool too. She fixes things. Sometimes machines. Sometimes clinic equipment. Sometimes people’s bad ideas before they explode.”
“I met her today.”
“Yeah?” Sam brightened. “She give you the geode speech?”
“Close. Clint speech.”
“Classic Maru. Practical. Smart. Makes you feel like the world is complicated but maybe manageable if you label enough wires.”
That was a surprisingly good description.
“You know a lot of people,” I said.
Sam blinked.
Then grinned.
“I live here.”
“Not everyone who lives somewhere understands it.”
His grin stayed, but his eyes sharpened slightly.
For the first time, I felt like I had said something that actually interested him.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s true.”
Jodi watched us from near the kitchen, quiet now.
Sam pushed off the wall.
“Pelican Town’s small. You hear things. People think because I joke around, I don’t listen.” He shrugged. “That’s useful sometimes.”
Useful.
There was that word again.
“What do you hear?” I asked.
Sam’s eyebrows rose.
“That is a dangerous question from a guy who showed up with a carp.”
“I’m learning the local economy.”
“Of mood?”
Sam laughed.
Then his expression shifted, more thoughtful.
“You worked at Joja, right?”
The question landed harder than I expected.
“Yeah.”
“Thought so.”
“Do I smell like it?”
“No, that’s Shane.”
Jodi’s face tightened.
“Sam.”
“What? He wears the jacket everywhere.”
I went still.
Sam noticed.
“Oh. You’ve met Shane too.”
“Unfortunately.”
“That bad?”
“We had an argument.”
Sam whistled softly.
“Yeah. That tracks.”
“You know him?”
“From Joja. Not well. Enough.” He leaned back against the wall again. “He’s not always like he is at the Saloon.”
Maru had said almost the same thing.
The repetition did not comfort me.
“What’s he like at work?”
“Tired,” Sam said. “Cranky. Usually mad at Morris.”
“Morris?”
“Our manager.” Sam’s mouth twisted. “Smiles like a coupon.”
That was unfair.
It was also perfect.
“Shane fights with him?”
“Sometimes.” Sam thought about it. “Not heroically or anything. More like a guy trying to punch a wall made of paperwork.”
I hated how clearly I could picture that.
“Does Morris fight back?”
“Morris doesn’t fight. He redirects.” Sam lifted his voice into something smooth and hollow. “‘I understand your concern, but the policy exists to support storewide efficiency.’ Stuff like that.”
The Joja part of my brain recognized the cadence immediately.
My shoulders tightened.
Sam saw it.
“Yeah,” he said more quietly. “You know.”
“I know.”
Jodi looked between us, worry passing across her face.
Vincent peeked from the hallway again.
“What’s a Morris?”
Sam looked toward him.
“A cautionary tale with hair gel.”
“Sam.”
“What? Educational.”
Vincent considered this.
“Is he mean?”
Sam hesitated.
Then shrugged.
“He’s Joja.”
That answer did not satisfy Vincent, but it satisfied the adults in the room in exactly the wrong way.
Jodi pointed again.
“Bed.”
This time, Vincent retreated properly.
Sam waited until he was gone before continuing.
“Claire works there too,” he said.
“Claire?”
“Cashier. Quiet. Older than me. Gets stuck with the worst shifts a lot.”
“Worst how?”
“Late hours. Dead aisles. Barely any customers, which sounds easy until you spend four hours under fluorescent lights pretending facing shelves is a personality.” Sam’s expression sharpened. “Morris says slow shifts are good for productivity. Claire says slow shifts are how time goes to die.”
“I haven’t met her.”
“You probably will if you ever go in.” He looked at me, then winced slightly. “Unless you’re avoiding the place.”
“I am.”
“Fair.”
Jodi’s eyes softened.
“You don’t have to talk about work tonight, Sam.”
“I’m fine.”
The answer came too quickly.
Jodi heard it.
So did I.
Sam rubbed the back of his neck.
“Anyway. Claire’s alright. Keeps to herself. Morris likes employees who keep to themselves until he needs a brochure smile.”
That sounded familiar enough to make my jaw tighten.
“And Martin?” Jodi asked gently, changing the subject with the practiced care of a mother steering around a pothole.
Sam blinked.
“What about Martin?”
“You said Harvey mentioned him yesterday.”
“Oh, yeah.” Sam looked back at me. “Harvey’s nephew. He’s away at college in Zuzu City. Medical program, I think.”
“Harvey has a nephew?”
“Apparently. Martin comes up sometimes when Harvey is trying to sound casual and failing.”
Jodi smiled faintly.
“Harvey misses him.”
“Harvey misses him professionally,” Sam said. “Which means he says things like, ‘If Martin does decide to complete an internship here, it would be logistically convenient,’ while looking like someone offered him a puppy.”
I laughed.
That one slipped out before I could stop it.
Sam looked pleased.
“See? You get it.”
“I barely know Harvey.”
“You’ll get it more.”
“Is Martin coming back?”
“Maybe. Internship at the clinic eventually, if school doesn’t eat him alive first.” Sam shrugged. “Zuzu does that.”
Zuzu.
The city.
Joja.
Corporate offices.
Fluorescent rooms.
People disappearing into systems and coming back speaking in metrics.
Or not coming back at all.
I looked down at the carp in my hands.
“Small town, huh?”
Sam followed the thought somehow.
“Small town with long strings.”
That line sat there between us.
Jodi looked at him like she had heard something older than his age.
Then Sam seemed to realize the room had gone quiet and immediately ruined it on purpose.
“Anyway, that’s why you should absolutely give me the carp for free.”
I stared at him.
“Was this whole conversation a negotiation tactic?”
“Not whole. Maybe forty percent.”
“Sam.”
“What? I said maybe.”
Jodi shook her head, but she was smiling.
The house warmed again.
Vincent called from the hallway, “Can the farmer see my room now?”
“No,” Jodi and Sam said together.
A beat.
Then Sam added, “It’s raining. Room tours are weather-dependent.”
“Why?”
“Safety.”
“That’s not real.”
“It is in this house.”
Jodi closed her eyes.
“Vincent. Bed.”
“But he has fish!”
“That is not a reason.”
“It’s a good reason.”
Jodi crouched slightly, smoothing his hair when he shuffled back into sight.
“You can say hello properly another day.”
Vincent looked disappointed, then suspiciously thoughtful.
“Can I visit the farm?”
“Ask me when it isn’t raining and bedtime.”
“So yes?”
“So bedtime.”
He sighed with the tragic exhaustion of a man denied justice.
“Fine.”
He turned to me.
“Goodnight, farmer.”
“Goodnight, Vincent.”
He took three steps toward the hall, then turned back.
“Don’t let Sam waste your fish again.”
“I’ll try not to.”
“Hey,” Sam said.
Vincent disappeared down the hall, victorious.
Jodi watched him go, her expression soft and tired.
“He’s excited,” she said. “New people make the town feel bigger to him.”
“And to Sam?”
Sam looked at me.
“What?”
I hadn’t meant to say that out loud.
Jodi glanced between us.
Sam’s grin returned, but not fully.
“New people are cool,” he said. “This town gets kind of… same.”
Same.
The word carried more than boredom.
I thought of Sebastian downstairs, refusing to come up.
Sam was not like Sebastian.
Not on the surface.
Sebastian hid from the room.
Sam tried to become the room before anyone noticed what was missing.
Both made more sense than I wanted them to.
“Yeah,” I said. “I get that.”
Jodi folded the towel over one arm.
“Don’t worry about dropping in,” she said. “I don’t usually like strangers wandering in, but you seem trustworthy.”
“That’s a lot of trust for a guy holding a carp.”
“Maybe the carp vouched for you.”
Sam nodded.
“Gold-star character reference.”
I looked down at the fish.
“It has excellent judgment.”
Jodi smiled properly then.
Not the polite one from earlier.
A real one.
“Goodnight, Eric.”
“Goodnight, Jodi.”
“Night,” Sam said. “And hey — seriously, thanks for checking the board. Even if I messed up the timing.”
“No problem.”
“Catch you later?”
“Yeah. Catch you later.”
I stepped back into the rain with the carp still in my bag.
No reward.
No ninety gold.
No progress toward the backpack.
Technically, the stop had been inefficient.
But the word felt wrong now.
Behind me, Jodi’s house glowed through the rain: warm kitchen, two sons, one absent father, one dinner already finished, one fish request that had missed its moment.
Definitely a mom, I thought.
But not just that.
Jodi was a woman keeping a household shaped around someone missing. Sam was loud enough to make the absence seem less obvious. Vincent was young enough to believe coming home was simple because adults kept saying it would happen.
And her husband was still somewhere far away, held by the same conflict Grandpa had once stood against.
I had come for ninety gold.
I left with the carp.
And one more family I did not know how to carry yet.
