Changing Seasons. Autumn III, part 2

Autumn III, part 2 “Now, what is it you’re needing?”
“Cleaning stuff for definite!” Honey went over to look at the shelves and Frank began to chat to Minnie.
“The pictures? Yes, that’s the grandchildren. They’ve got a kind of thing going on about gnomes at the moment. The other ones are about due a change – they’ve promised me some new ones next time I see them!” There was quite a pile of stuff by the time Honey had finished, and Minnie’s shelves looked a lot emptier!”
“I’ll just ring up so that I know how much you’ve spent, but you don’t owe me anything yet. You’ve got some credit here – everyone put a little in. We figured from what you’d said in your letters that you’d not be bringing much with you…”
“Just what we could pack in our suitcases,” Honey said, laughing. “Everything else belonged to the landlord anyway.”
“Do you need any pots and pans? I’ve got a couple of old ones I could lend you? I don’t know what there was in those old cupboards.”
“We haven’t really looked yet either! But Marcus said he’d take us into Newborough tomorrow…” “You’ll be wanting to go and visit Old Tench,” Minnie had said. “He remembers your folks so well.” And now Frank was shaking hands with him.
“My, you’ve sure got a look of your grandpa about you. It’s real nice to meet you – and you too, Miss Glaze.” “But do call me Honey, please,” she said, after Old Tench had paused in his reminiscences of Frank’s grandfather – “Course, he were quite a few years older’n me” – and Frank’s father. “Fine young man he were. Mary and I were right pleased when he married Lily.” “Well, iffen you want me to call you Honey, than I guess I can. Ain’t no harm in givin’ you the respect you deserve, though. Specially as seein’ you’re so young an’ all.”
How old was Mrs McPhail, Honey wondered? She had young children – but she could still easily be mid-thirties. To Honey’s not-yet-twenty-three, that seemed like a long way off.
“Patience, now, she’s kinda got a natural authority, I guess. Won’t hurt none iffen we all show we reckon you should be respected for the job you’re doin’.”
It was kind of nice to feel like the whole community wanted her to succeed. Some of her nervousness subsided. “Right,” Frank said when they got back home. “We’ve got the whole of this week before you start work. What do we want to try and get done? Marcus says he’s back in Newborough tomorrow, so if we want more paint, he’ll pick it up for us.”
They’d bought large quantities of white paint – emulsion for ceilings, gloss for windows. They knew that would all get used. “We’ll need more than this for the whole house,” Frank had said. “But this will get us started.”
“Which rooms do we think are the priority?” “Rooms,” Honey said. “I’m not used to that!” Their rented house had had three rooms – bedroom, bathroom and then the kitchen/dining/living room.
Two new cardboard boxes sat on the floor – one was full of paint, but the other had kitchen basics in it.
“Let’s go and look at the kitchen first. We need to make a home for that stuff.” “This could be a really nice room,” Frank said thoughtfully. “We could put a table in the window, have breakfast there…”
“Paint,” Honey said. “We’ll look at those colour charts and tell Marcus what we want. The paint’ll be here before we’re done with the windows.”
“We’ll start those today then.”
“Now?”
“No, let’s finish looking round properly first.” “Two downstairs rooms as well as the kitchen!”
They had moved into the big room at the back of the house. “And the little storeroom off the kitchen,” Frank added. “I’ll take those old crates out front to pieces and make us some shelves for it.”
“We should do the garden as well. This could be lovely – and we’ve got water on the lot.” “Look! A guest bedroom,” Frank said, lying down on the bed.
“A banish-you-to-it bedroom,” Honey said, laughing. “If you’re bad.”
“I’d better be good then!" He laughed back. "This bed is dusty. I think we’d better visit the laundromat with this lot.” The smallest bedroom only had an old chest of drawers in it.
“I’ll clean that up,” Honey said. “And then we can unpack the suitcases. These two rooms can wait until we’ve got more money.” “Bedroom door first,” Frank said decisively. “And we’ll have to buy that.”
“You can fix that screen, can’t you? We could board it over for the winter to keep the cold out. It’s very romantic, having a balcony to step out onto. And you can’t be worried about burglars here!”
“No!” He laughed at that as well, and Honey suddenly realised that she’d not heard him laugh so often before. “No. But I’d like a proper door we could shut and lock. A balcony’s not a very safe place for small children.”
Honey felt as though her world had suddenly been shaken up like a kaleidoscope and settled into a new pattern. Here, in this shabby room, with its unmade bed and still-packed suitcases, Frank was hinting at something more than their current easy-going arrangement. He reached for her hands, tongue-tied as always when it came to the deeply serious.
“Maybe we could think about it. In a couple of years or so. If we stay here.” She leant towards him and kissed him. “Maybe we could. We’ll see how we do here. Just the two of us.” “Okay!” Honey was on a roll. “I’ll finish the walls off today.”
They were putting their remaining money (and there wasn’t a lot of it left!) into painting the kitchen. Amber and Lucie had called by to introduce themselves and got very enthusiastic about that.
“We’d have come to help, but we’ve both got a deadline to meet on my new book! This is technically our coffee break! Having a good kitchen has made such a difference to us though. Come round in two weeks’ time, when the deadline will have expired.”
"Or we have, with the effort!" “And I’ll get that ceiling sorted. Finish getting it sorted. If you start where you left off, I’ll be done before you get to that end, so I won’t drip paint on your hair.”
“Good. I’ve no desire to be grey before my time. Then you can help with the walls. And we must go to the laundromat as well. After we’ve painted.” “Phew, that was exhausting! Laundromat then? You cycle, and I’ll pile all the stuff on here and drive down?”
“That’ll work. Don’t forget all that smelly bedding – we’ll see how clean we can get it, and if it’s worth keeping. We did it, though! We’ve painted a room!”
“And five windows. No wonder it’s taken all week.” “So you’re Fred’s son. Nice to meet you in the flesh instead of by letter. Tom Tench told me as how he’d met you. He’s right – you do have a real look of your grandfather about you. He was older’n me of course – Tom and I were at school together, and your dad was just a little below us…” It was nice, Frank thought, to be recognised, known, in relation to his parents and grandparents. There was a sense of homecoming here.
“Thanks. It’s good to meet you too.” And there was someone else was coming round the back of the building, heading to speak to Honey. The place wasn't as empty as it had seemed at first! “Hi! You must be Honey. I’m Patience Mcphail.”
She was nothing like Honey had expected – younger, prettier and more easy-going – but she got what Tom Tench had meant by the air of authority. There was a serene calmness about Patience.
“This is Barnabas…”
“Ride!” said Barnabas, very loudly.
“…and the two girls are at home with my husband. And I am so glad you’re here!”
“Ride!”
“Let Mummy sit down for a moment or two first.”
Patience was noticeably, though not hugely pregnant, and just as obviously tired. “I’ll watch him on the ride, if he’ll let me,” Honey offered.
“Ship!” said Barnabas. Loudly. Again. Frank and Artie Campbell were well away chatting, with Patience listening interestedly while Honey watched over Barnabas and stopped him from getting too carried away.
“If you’ve been painting the kitchen all day, you won’t want to be trying to cook,” Patience said. “Come and eat with us tonight instead. And you and I can talk about school stuff for tomorrow as well.”
“That would be lovely. On both counts,” Honey said gratefully. “Thank you so much.” Honey was putting the toys away as Patience came in with the food.
“You didn’t have to do that, Honey.”
“You’re cooking for us. Why not? Besides, it’s the teacher in me.”
Patience laughed. “I know just what you mean. But come and sit down now.” Euan was even quieter than Frank, Honey thought. The he spoke, and she saw why.
“I’ll sit here. B-Barnabas can g-get a b-bit messy with his f-food. This way I can shelter you f-from the f-fall-out.”
“Ah,” said Honey. “Weaponizes his food from time to time, does he?”
“And then some,” said Patience from the kitchen doorway as she came in with her meal. “This is so good,” Honey said with a great deal of enthusiasm.
“Let me guess,” Patience said. “It also doesn’t taste of paint! Tell us about yourselves. What made you decide to come? After all, you didn’t know about my spag bol when you made that decision.”
“Well…” Honey said, and began with the unexpected letter arriving. She didn’t mention Maddie, or their deeply suppressed desire to get away from her, didn’t even realise just how much of a factor that had been.
“And so we packed up and came!”
In an unacknowledged corner of her mind, she wondered what Maddie had thought when she’d turned up at their house… “So have you any idea where they went? Did they say anything to you? I know they will have written to me, but a couple of my neighbours said some of their post had gone astray – you know, letters they knew were coming…I’m so fond of my stepson…”
Maddie had gone to the neighbours’ house. They usually knew everything that was going on in the street. “It does you great credit too. No, they didn’t mention anything to us. We were just as surprised as you when the board went up. Mind you, we thought they might be planning a holiday – my sister just happened to be weeding right next to the boundary fence when they were in the garden, and we heard them mentioning something about going to the lakes. But not moving away.” “Going to the lakes? Did your sister hear anything else?” If she hadn’t, it wouldn’t have been for want of trying, Maddie thought. These two thrived on gossip, and were always grateful for anything she could pass on to them.
“No. That was all. And we didn’t see them leave. We saw the van coming for the bookcase, but we just assumed that they were hard up again – you are so good to them, the way you support them from your small pension…”
“I do what I can. And of course, when I come and stay, I can take so many of the chores off Honey’s shoulders. She’s not really very capable, you know…”
Now what was she going to do? She’d lost her rent-free lodgings for the autumn and winter. Blast!

The house and family were made for me by Hidehi as a lovely gift.
I’ve tweaked them slightly to fit the scenery of Two Lakes, so if you’re going to play them, they won’t look quite like this. I’ve tweaked Maddie’s personality too…
Link here for the house:
https://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=9351879
And for the family:
https://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=9351878

Changing Seasons. Autumn III, part 1

Autumn III. Part 1 “I did say the place would be a bit of a mess, Honey” Frank had his worried face on. “But Mr Campbell did say that the floors and roof were sound, that they’d fixed the odd loose tile and so on.” How did she explain to him that she was happy to give this a go?
“I don’t mind. This could be fun. And Mr Campbell sounded nice.”
“You’re as sweet as your name,” her mother had always said to her. It was true. She always looked for the best in everyone and everything.
“Can we go and look at the school first? It’s only next door. No-one will be there to show us round, seeing as we’ve arrived a day early, but the key’s under the rock by the front door.”
And only ten days ago, they’d been in their little rented house, far across the country… “Good morning, my honey-sweet. Here’s the mail. I think it gets saved up and only delivered once a week.”
“Any letters telling us we’ve won a million? Then we could move to somewhere nicer.” Frank bent over to have a closer look, while Honey pulled out the ingredients for a nice leisurely weekend breakfast. This was the one Saturday a month that she didn’t work, and they made the most of it. “Bill that we really need to pay, bill that we need to pay soon, a letter from my stepmother…”
Honey groaned inwardly, and then felt guilty. After all, Frank’s stepmother had had a lot of trouble in her life. But her letters always seemed to come with a plea for help of some sort attached.
“…and a letter for me from I-don’t-know-who.”
“Open that one first then! It might be our million dollars.” “It would be crazy.”
“But we could do it.”
Breakfast was forgotten. An old map that had belonged to Frank’s father was out on the table.
“Nearest town is Newborough. If I bought a motorbike, I could ride in. There’s always work for electricians, even if it’s only piece-work like I’m doing now, to start with.”
“Food, and a tiny salary. That’s what they’re going to offer the teacher. We’d have a house, food and power. And I’d be teaching again instead of stacking shelves and manning – sorry, womanning – the checkout. If you can earn as well…”
“And we’d have more time together.” “Follow the Redrock River up to Two Lakes. How well do you remember it?”
“Not at all, really. Mum dying and a lot of crying. The time at my grandparents, that’s what I think of as my childhood home. And it was very happy.” Honey leant over and kissed him. She knew his moods. His father’s second marriage hadn’t been as happy as his first one.
“Suppose we wrote back and said we wouldn’t sell, we’d come ourselves instead? And I would be the teacher? I am qualified. And I’d love to be teaching again! Do you think they’d be happy with that?”
“They want a teacher. You’re a teacher. What’s not to like?”
Honey laughed. “You’re right!” She paused for thought.
“We don’t have to leave a forwarding address, do we?”
“No. No, we don’t.”
And an unspoken sense of relief flooded over them both. Maddie wouldn’t be able to find them. Eventually they got round to cooking breakfast – “Brunch, now!” – getting dressed and eating it.
“We don’t have much to pack. We’ll sell the bookcase – that won’t go in our suitcases.”
“Let’s not tell the neighbours either. You know what gossips those two are.”
And Maddie’s as thick as thieves with them, a small voice added, in the depths of Honey’s mind. “Well, this doesn’t look too bad,” Frank said, heading through the doors ahead of Honey. And it didn’t. Old-fashioned, with that tiled floor, but clean and cheerful. This must be for the little ones, Honey thought. And it’s lovely. It would be fun to make a garden outside the window as well. And this would be her room. There were some really well-chosen books on the book shelf. We need an art space, though, Honey thought. What else was there in the building. “Wow, what a contrast!”
“I want an art room…If this is what it all looked like before, everyone’s worked so hard on it!”
Frank nodded. “We can have a go at this room ourselves, though. Doing the prep, at least. I think our house is going to look a bit more like this and a bit less like those classrooms, though. Shall we go and see?” “Candles for lighting!” Frank had been right about the contrast between this house and her classroom-to-be.
“Hey, we’ve got oil lamps downstairs! And I can get the place wired up – I am an electrician, remember?” Frank hugged her, a little clumsily.
“I remember, now – my grandparents-that-I-lived-with, teasing Dad about how old-fashioned this place was. His mum wouldn’t have it changed: she’d had oil lamps all her life, and she wasn’t having that new-fangled electricity coming into her home. I think they’d have updated it after she died, but then I came along, and then Mum died.” Honey made herself look on the bright side.
“You’re right. We can change it, and we’ll cope fine until then. And the place has been swept out for us, the bedding washed, the mattress aired…” Mr Campbell had written back to them, detailing all the preparations that had been made for them.
“And there’s milk in the fridge, and coffee, and cereal. And we have arrived a day early.”
True. Maddie’s letter had said she would call on them “sometime next week”, which might have meant Sunday morning. It had before. They’d packed as fast as they could and left on the Saturday, sleeping on the overnight coach as best they could. That bed looked very inviting.
“Bowl of cereal and bed, then?”
“Sounds good to me.” Sunday they’d met some of the neighbours! Marcus and Annette and a very cute little baby had come round in a very battered truck with vegetables, fruit and a couple of bikes in the back of it.
“People mostly cycle round here. We’ve got the truck because of getting our wine to the buyers…” There had been half a dozen of bottles of that as well.
And now it was Monday morning and they were heading off to the shop.
“You’ll want a week to settle in. Start school next week,” Marcus had said. “Patience is managing fine at the moment.”
“I reckon I could restore this car you know.”
“There’s no gas station…”
“And then sell it. To a museum maybe!” “These bikes look so good! Who was it again who did them for us?”
“Lachlan.” Honey had a good memory for names. “Lachlan McGowan. The father of all four of my first class.” Annette had drawn them a sketch map of what was where. They cycled past the laundromat (that’s useful, thought Honey. I’m not sure the two of us would enjoy washing everything by hand!), the derelict gas station, and on to a trim and cheerful red-roofed building.
“This looks so nice! We should do something about our garden too.” “Well, now, you must be Miss Glaze. I’m Minnie. Minnie Wagner.”
“Oh, please call me Honey. And this is Frank.”
“Well, I will then, but not in front of the children mind you. It doesn’t hurt them to see a teacher being given respect by everybody. You folks arrived yesterday?”
“No, late Saturday afternoon.”
“Kind of in a hurry to get here, were you? See what you were coming to?”
Kind of in a hurry to leave, Honey thought, deep down in a place she didn’t want to acknowledge. Kind of in a hurry to escape. Wonder what’s happening at our old house now? Wait! What? Up for rent or sale? But she’d been planning on staying here for a couple of months at least. They’d better be in, so that she could ask them what was going on. But no-one answered when she knocked at the door. And the house had that unmistakeable empty house look about it. The bookcase was gone, and all the ornaments from the mantelpiece. They’d moved? Without telling her? She had to find out where they’d gone.

The house and family were made for me by Hidehi as a lovely gift.
I’ve tweaked them slightly to fit the scenery of Two Lakes, so if you’re going to play them, they won’t look quite like this. I’ve tweaked Maddie’s personality too…
Link here for the house:
https://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=9351879
And for the family:
https://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=9351878
As usual, I've used things by Cyclone Sue and by Sandy at ATS3. Lots!

Changing Seasons. Summer III, part 3

Summer III, part 3 Well, this was a total surprise! What were they all doing here? What was I about to be railroaded into now? This looked like a get-Clara-organised deputation. Just goes to show how wrong I can be. And, boy, I’m glad I hadn’t said anything. Because:
“Happy Birthday!” Patience said.
“Yes!” Annette added. “You’re sixteen. You have an address now –even if you’re not living there yet. Marcus has booked your driving test. He says you’re more than ready.”
“So pour the tea,” Marianna said. “I missed Patience’s party, but I can make yours.”
I poured the tea. Feeling a bit sheepish, and that’s not me either. “Now you need to learn to trust people,” Addie had said, and I was kind of getting her point. In a very pointed way! “I forgot to ask you about the perfume,” I said to Patience, when I’d stopped blushing (and hopefully everyone thought it was just with pleasure and surprise). “Euan was debating how to present it all the way home. Down on one knee, just casually leave it around, surround it with flowers and put it on the bed…”
Patience smiled reminiscently. “He went for casual in the end. It’s kind of an in-joke between us – we used to hide little surprises when we were dating and first married. So I walked past it and did a double-take.” “He just happened to be standing there. Waiting for me to use it!” “And then it got very romantic…” “This is – really cool. Thanks, everyone.”
“It’s a girl thing,” Marianna said warmly. “And we all need girl time. When you move into your house and my four are at school, shall we have a go at that bakery/café place, you and I?” Sounded good to me, and I said so. “Ah,” Patience said from behind her teacup. “Um. I don’t want to overshadow Clara’s celebration, but…”
Annette paused with her teacup to her lips and a wicked grin appearing on her face. “Don’t tell me you ran out as well.” “No,” Patience said with great dignity. “We’re not that careless.”
“You’re pregnant again though aren’t you?” I’d caught Annette’s grin form her.
“Like they say, no method is one hundred per cent effective.” Patience sighed.
“I can teach for a bit – maybe: it depends how this pregnancy goes and how I feel. But we’re going to need a Plan B.” We all spent some time on Plan B. We didn’t manage to think of a really good one. We could cobble something together, but…
After everyone had left, I went into the shop to thank Minnie for the loan of her tea service “…your tablecloth, table, chairs and your lovely little garden. Those sunflowers are beautiful.”
“That was Lucy and Mike’s children. They had a sunflower-growing contest at school and gave their grandmother their left-over ones. I hear your school plans have hit a bit of a hiccup. Now that’s a real shame – not that Joy and Hope and that rascal Barnabas are going to have a new brother or sister, of course! – but that you’ll all have to think again. Are you still planning on doing up the building? I’m plumb-sure you’ll all come up with some bright idea.” “So Patience is pregnant again – due about February – but if it’s another multiple birth, she might be early. She’ll certainly have too much on her hands. So I wondered if you knew who owned that house by the school? We might find someone who’d come and teach…”
“Iffen there was a house thrown in? You never can tell, can you? I mean, look at them friends of Marianna’s. And this town, it’s comin’ back to life again. Ain’t like it were when you arrived.” Old Tench had got my point straight away.
“Lemme think. Artie’s comin’ round, so we can pick his brains too. Such as they are.”
“You wasted that insult. He’s not here yet. You’ll have to say it again when he arrives,” I pointed out sweetly, and got one of Old Tench’s guffaws of laughter. “Here he is, the man himself. See you put your good shirt on.”
“Glad I did, seeing as there’s a lady present.”
I liked the way these two made me feel. They treated me with a kind of… “gallantry” is the only word I can think of. Like, because I was female, I deserved extra care and politeness from them. Maybe it’s their age. There was a lot of reminiscing and “Didn’t he marry…?” and “Wasn’t that her?” It was kind of sweet listening to them both reliving past stories. Their pasts were places where they’d been happy, places they were glad to revisit.
“So we both reckon it’s the Ensteins as must still be ownin’ the place. Any way we can trace ‘em? Artie, you’re the one as is always writin’ to people.”
“I always did like writing,” Artie said a bit defensively. “And people like getting Christmas cards…”
“Keep your wig on! I was only sayin’ as you might know somethin’ I don’t’.”
“That’s not hard! Fred, now, his Lily died and they moved to be with her parents, him and their little boy.”
“And they didn’t manage to sell the place! I do remember that,” Old Tench said triumphantly. “People were beginnin’ to see the writin’ on the wall by then.”
Artie thought a bit longer, pulling up memories. I swear I could almost see him flicking through files and folders in his mind. And then his face changed as he found the right one.
“Then he married again. Remember Maddie Portland?”
“Her as married Rick Wilson? The bank manager? An’ ran through all his money? An’ drove him to work harder ‘n harder just so’s she could spend it all ‘til he just dropped down dead from a heart attack? I remember her alright.”
“She picked up Fred Enstein. Thought he was going to inherit from Lily’s parents – but of course it was all going to Lily’s sister. Nothing to Fred, nothing to the boy: they’d taken Maddie’s measure and weren’t going to leave anything she might get her hands on. Bess Preston told me that bit – said Maddie had moved on to someone else after she’d squeezed Fred dry. Divorced Fred when she saw which way the wind was blowing. Don’t think he lived more than a year after that.” “How ‘bout you writin’ to Bess then. Even iffen it’s not Christmas. An’ askin iffen she knows where that Enstein boy can be found. Seems like it’ll be his house now.”
“You could write.” There was a wicked twinkle in Artie’s eye.
“You know I ain’t one for writin’. Never was. But you can be sendin’ my regards to Bess, an’ sayin’ I was askin’ after her.” I’d never heard Old Tench speak so badly of anyone except the Lee Popeman company before.
“So, I get the feeling you weren’t exactly friends with this Maddie Portland?” I was intrigued. But it was Artie who sounded off first.
“She was a conniving, greedy, manipulating little schemer. Left trouble everywhere she went. Tried to spoil things between Tom here and his Mary, but Bess – Malton, she was then – saw straight through it and told Mary to go and ask Tom straight out iffen what she’d heard was true. And anyone that would try to do the dirty on your Mary, who was the kindest girl ever…”
There was quite a lot more, but I got the message. “There you are, Mary. You’re having a cuddle from your Auntie Clara. How does it feel?”
“I don’t think she can talk yet,” I pointed out.
“Idiot! I was asking you!”
“Kind of cool, actually. Are you really sure that you want me that involved in her life though?” I mean, Clara, local resident, is not the same as Auntie Clara.
“Yes, I am. We are. We want you in Mary’s life. And we trust you. We know that you will be good to her and good for her.”
Wow. That shut me up. “Now. Fill me in on the latest school stuff. What did Old Tench and Artie have to say?”
Annette had to ask me twice. I was still all amazed that they would want to trust me with their baby. Maybe Addie’s right about me. “Of course I’m right about you.” Gotta love Miss Adelaide Kirk’s certainty about things!
“I told you. I can see right through you. I can see the real Clara Hayes. And you have a chance to become her.”
Hang on, this was all getting a bit quantum, wasn’t it?
“This careful façade that you’ve created…”
What do you mean, façade? This is who I want to be!
“…isn’t really who you want to be. You need to let the real Clara out.”
This was going to be one of Addie’s painful-but-good-for-me conversations, I could tell.
“The childhood you had…”
“You learnt to read people, to manipulate them, because you couldn’t trust them to be good to you, to take care of you. You needed those skills to survive. Now adapt them. Learn how to read if people can be trusted. Learn how to manipulate people to bring out the best in them – it’s what a teacher does all the time. A good one. She looks for the best in her pupils and works out how to bring it out.” “But what happens when the other shoe drops? When someone lets you down? Betrays you?”
She’d got to the heart of my fears. Again. And I felt like I was five years old again. But there’s something about talking to the ghost of a bossy schoolteacher…you don’t have to be afraid of being honest with her.
“You will have to beware of resonant frequencies. You know – how you can sing a note and shatter a wineglass? People will let you down. Because they are human. And a little letdown will make all your big past betrayals hum in sympathy. You have to be smart enough to say: this little let down is not that big betrayal. This person is good. Fallible, but good. Young, but good. Old and forgetful, but good. Be – be savvy, Clara! Read people properly!” “Read people? But I’ve been doing that all my life…”
“Yes. But lose some of the cynicism.”
“So – read people for the good in them?”
“Read the good in them. Thomas Tench – you won’t find much bad in him, even if he was no scholar. And Arthur Campbell too – though he was a better scholar and had a knack for writing. Thomas’s Mary was the loveliest and the kindest girl I ever taught, and she chose Thomas. She could have had almost any of the young men, but she chose him, which tells you a lot about him.”
If a ghost could get all misty-eyed and nostalgic, I swear Miss Kirk was doing just that.
“What about Maddie Portland?” I asked. I swear the temperature dropped twenty degrees.
“Madeleine Portland was an untruthful, lazy, mischief-making spoilt little girl with an eye to the main chance. I caught her cheating more than once. And she used her influence and prettiness to the detriment of others.”
Well, that answered that question! And left me thinking, too. I wouldn’t want someone saying I used my influence to the detriment of others. And I know I can influence people. It’s how I’ve survived for so long. It’s my super-power.
But maybe I need to use it for more than just my own good. I kind of like the idea of seeing the best in little Mary and bringing it out in her. And in Patience’s three – especially Barnabas! And Marianna’s children too. Check this out! This is the school corridor. Looks good, doesn’t it? Check out the absence of Barnabas-sized holes as well. Most of the classrooms behind these doors are – shall we say, less than ideal? But two of them look great. This one’s going to be for the kindergarten. I think the little mice and rabbits are kind of cute. Patience’s three, basically, and then Mary and Patience’s next ones in a couple of years or so. And this room’s for Marianna’s four. There will be some furniture too! And those stepladders are going back to my house, because that’s where I’m painting, decorating, cleaning and gardening next. Addie approves of me having my own address. Partly because it means I can register to do exams. And I suppose she has a point. Though so far, I’ve done fine without them, I said, and she did agree. I’m going to finish painting that old dolls’ house today for the kindergarten room. Minnie’s going to shake down all three of her daughters and see if anything falls out of their toyboxes that they don’t need. Old Tench has promised a couple of bookcases, one for each room, and Artie’s giving some books and so’s Amber and Lucie. Everyone’s giving something. Patience is going to teach to start with. And later we have a teacher coming! Artie tracked down the Enstein son – the one who owns the old school house – to see if willing to sell it to us, but it turns out he’s going to move back here. He’s an electrician, and he reckons he can find enough work in Newborough. But his girlfriend’s a teacher! Can’t find a teaching job where they’re living, so she’s getting no experience, which makes it harder to get a job…this might break that cycle for her.
They know we can only pay peanuts – well, plus fresh fruit, veg and fish and a bottle of quite-decent-by-now wine every so often. But they’re fine with that, apparently.
“We’ll give it a go,” they said. “If it doesn’t work out, we haven’t lost anything.”
But I’m hoping it does work out. I like the idea of the school being used again. Eight children now, and at least one more on the way. Maybe I should repaint this hopscotch grid.
Old Tench is right. This place is coming back to life.

If you want to try Clara for yourself, she's an AlphaFen creation, and can be found here:
Not Quite A Runaway Success
A renovacy made for MamaDragon by AlphaFen as part of the Amayzing Gift Exchange
https://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=9310815
Back story here: https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/17074021/#Comment_17074021