| 📑 Table of Contents |

◤◢◣◥◤ ◢◣◆◢◣◥◤◢◣◥

With just $1,800 simoleons to her name, Jen decides to use that money to buy some camping equipment. Nothing fancy – just a tent, an outdoor shower, and a cooler, along with some seeds. This left her with just $415 simoleons. It’s not a good situation, and she worries about what will happen to her. Despite being an avid lover of the outdoors, most of her time had always been spent indoors, reading or playing video games. She’s never even been camping before. How is she going to survive?

Taking the seeds from her pocket, she carefully plants them in several straight rows, hoping that they will grow quickly so she’ll have fresh food to eat and to sell. Aside from work, her best money-making opportunity will come from these plants.

As she starts to water them, she feels a presence behind her. Glancing over, she sees an elder woman talking to the freshly planted plots. Who is she? And where the heck did she even come from? Jen hadn’t heard a single noise to indicate the woman’s approach. She bit her lip thoughtfully.

Should she say something to the woman? That would be the polite thing to do, she supposed, but she’s never been very good when it came to interacting with other sims.

“Hello,” Jen spoke softly, cursing herself when her voice cracked.

The woman tilted her head. “Hello, dear. The plants say you’ve just moved here,”

‘The plants said that?’, she frowned. “Um, yeah. My name is Jen Winchester.” Quickly wiping her palm against her jeans to get rid of the nervous sweat, she held her hand out.

The woman slipped her hand into Jen’s. “Keala Hoapili. The plants say you have no house.”

A bead of sweat rolled down Jen’s cheek. “Um, you know plants can’t talk… right?”

The woman’s soft expression quickly changed to one of annoyance. “How dare you say such a thing! The nerve of you young people these days!”

Jen frowns as the woman turns back to the plant, ranting angrily about her. Feeling awkward and sad, Jen thought it best to leave the woman alone. She turned around to explore only to jump back in surprise.

‘Where in the world did this scarecrow come from?’, she wondered, stepping closer and peering under its hat.

Surprisingly, it lifted its head, its carved mouth growing wide. “Hello there!”

“Um, hi…” She felt as if her head was beginning to spin. First, she meets a woman claiming to talk to plants and now a talking scarecrow? She’s beginning to wonder if she made the wrong choice choosing this plot of land.

“I saw you planting so many things!” He chirped. “I like people that like to garden.”

She rubbed the back of her neck. “I’m not very good, but I’ve always found it to be kind of relaxing…”

“Say, would you like a tip?”

“A tip?” Her ears perked up. Did he mean simoleons?

“A gardening tip, silly!”

“Oh…” ‘Of course it wouldn’t be simoleons, idiot.’ “Sure, that’d be really helpful.”

‘Is he… serious? I don’t know how to respond to this…’

The scarecrow continued to stare at her with lifeless eyes, his smile never dropping. It was honestly kind of unnerving.

“Thanks… I think,” she forced a smile.

“Of course! My purpose is to spread the love of mother nature and teach sims how to properly garden~ Do come back if you have any more questions.” He yawned dramatically, the crow on his head taking flight. “Now, I must rest.”

She didn’t say anything as she stepped away from him, her hand wrapping around her left arm – a nervous habit she had developed many years ago. With a sigh, she turned her eyes to the clear, azure sky above.

‘There’s no way I’m going to survive… Dear grim, what did I do to end up like this?’

◣◥◤◢◣ ◥◤◆◥◤◢◣◥◤◢

|» Next Chapter |