Rich Girl Poor Girl

Chapter 2

“You are amazing.  You are beautiful.”  Sparrow knelt down, and spoke from her open heart.  “You are an incredible creation, a miracle, and your growth inspires me.”

The tomato plant she was speaking to didn’t reply, which was good, because talking vegetable would be much harder to eat from an ethical standpoint.  Satisfied that every plant in the garden was vibrating happily with positive energy, she said, “Thank you for contributing to our household and our bodies.  I honour your offerings.”

With a small bow, Sparrow moved forward and began to harvest, humming a soothing tune under her breath.

Kimble, her longest-standing housemate appeared on the back step of their dilapidated home.  It was six am and already he smelled of weed.  She greeted him merrily.  “Morning!”

“Hey, Sparrow.”  He rubbed at his shadowed eyes, then tucked his hands into the pockets of his worn fisherman pants.  “Meg is on the warpath.”

“What’s up her arse this time?”  She reached between the prickly leaves and snapped another zucchini off at the stem.

Kimble sat on the outdoor couch.  It wasn’t outdoor furniture, just a ratty couch that used to live in their lounge room until the smell grew so bad, they threw it outside.  He sighed deeply.  “She’ll tell you, I’m sure.”

“Sparrow!  Sparrow, we have a problem!”  A screechy voice echoed through the house.

Sparrow steadied herself, imagining a perfect cloak of white light around her, protecting herself from negative energy.  “Out here, Megs.  What’s happening?”

Meg emerged from the house, slamming the broken screen door on its hinges.  The pretty girl waved a white piece of paper, which stood out like a pale banner against her black clothing and dark, bookish hair.  “This!  This is happening, Sparrow, and much as you might like to pretend the outside world doesn’t exist, it freaking does, and ignoring shit until it explodes in your face is idiocy!”

She thrust the sheet at Sparrow.  Wiping her dirt-encrusted fingers on her long skirt, Sparrow took it and read out-loud.  “To the tenants, something-something, owner inspection, potential for sale, something…”  She looked at Meg and shrugged.  “So?”

“So?  So!”  She inflated like an over-filled water balloon.  “Sparrow, look around!  You guys have let this place go to shit!  You’ve ripped up the garden to plant a goddamn farm, there’s five cats living in our kitchen, the whole place smells of pot and feet, my room has a hole in the wall from our last psycho housemate, Utara’s ripped up the carpet in the lounge so she can ‘feel closer to the earth’, or whatever that means, people come and go – I don’t even know who the guy living in the back bedroom is, there’s graffiti covering the whole front hall...”  Arms akimbo, she glared at Sparrow.  “I can keep going.”

“Please, don’t.”  Sparrow passed her back the letter and moved to the snow pea vine, where she began to pluck the sweet green pods off one by one. 

“I’m on the freaking lease, you guys!  And unlike you hippy losers, I have a real life waiting for me back in Melbourne, one which will require me to have good rental references to find a place to live.  How do you think it looks for me if we get evicted for trashing this place?  What owner is going to look at this shit-box and not want to immediately sell!  Where are we going to go then?”

Sparrow smiled inwardly at poor Meg, stuck between two worlds.  Meg had moved out to the beachside town of Bateman’s Bay three months before, a blogger from the city with a grand idea about writing a brilliant series on giving up everything material for a year, then turning her writing into a best-selling book.