Week 14 Day 2: Heritage

The little community on Maccaroni Island gets no other world news (the Gladiston's radio poorly transmits just one music channel), but they recently established their own little news desk. Graica G. Yea-Low (oldest daughter of Bridgette and Archie) is responsible for gathering news and to publish them. Small notes are put on a board at Town Square, the little park in front of Village Hall.

Today's big news is that all households have calculated their values, and 1.5% taxes were charged, in order to pay town of Galucca. Constance R. Hamming's household paid the most, §1.999 while Bella Black's household paid only §337. Greench Farm was mid table paying §860.

It is interesting to see that Randal Redward's household did not make it to top 3, neither did his son Yamir Redward who is supposed to bring on the pride of the Redwards. Secondly, while the richest household was found in the western region, for the first time the households of the eastern region owned more values than those in the western region. The northern region is still the poorest.

This morning Archie, Bridgette and Godrian were not starting the day with their farm duties, like they normally do. Instead they headed for the House of Law.

Inside the stone building, with a prison cell in the basement, they were greeted by the caretaker, Christopher R. Black.

Christopher R. Black was married to Bridgette's sister, Bella, the one who is a member of the village council. The story is that Christopher was cut off from the Redwards, while he as a teen escaped to be with the beautiful Bella, who back then was only a poor fisherman's daughter, way below the Redward standards. And well, she still is.

Christopher is the one who suggested the Laws that are still valid.

Graica left the farm about a simweek ago, and got §10.000. Since then the farmers worked hard and the total values to be shared between the remaining 4 siblings, was §58.353. In other words §14.588 on each heir.

The other 4 heirs still reside Greench Farm, so they will also affect and have the equal right to the farm's future value. Therefore it was easier to let the main heir temporarily handle all the values, then make a new calculation each time one of the other 3 will move out. Although all the possessions would be on Godrian's hands, it is convenient to everyone to decide who will inherit what main possession. This way the heirs could at least start planning.

Godrian got Greench Farm, valued §38.727.
Bertil got some land at the address 1 Greench Farm, valued §2.501. The vacant lot is next to the farm.
Boletta got the partnership in Greench Market, valued §7.000.
The rest of the total were cash or bank deposits, not really require assignment at this time.

Taking over the farm values would sure cause Godrian some challenge, especially because of numerous siblings. The farm is worth 38.727 while he should only inherit values of §14.588, meaning he will need to find a way to pay his siblings §24.139! Even with a maximum bank loan of §10.000 this would be very hard unless he could marry pretty quickly and his wife would bring in some good money. At the moment the only single adult woman is the mentally crazy Agnes Hawk. She is not really a candidate.

In fact, Godrian did worry quite a lot about the future, but he decided to ignore those thoughts until they heard from town of Galucca again.

It was a big moment for elderly Archie and Bridgette. They had stepped back, leaving the main responsibility to their son. Hopefully, they will still be around for a while to assist him, but the over-emotional Bridgette could not hold back those tears.

A little later they were back on the farm. Bridgette in the kitchen, about to plan today's dinner. Her younger brother Alfonso Blumington would visit them from the northern region. He lives alone with 6 cats up there, and there are no woman for him to marry.

Then Eileen appeared in the kitchen, reminding her mom of the deal they made the day before.

Eileen counted the generations and calculate their genes... so, one of granny's parents were only 25% alien, then granny was 12,5%. Grandad was also 12,5% alien, making mom Bridgette 12,5%, too! And Eileen herself was only 6,25% alien. And still she had the blue'ish skin! It had to be bad luck?

The full story that was told on Week 6 Day 1, and can still be found in the SimBasic blog.

Bridgette would hate seeing her youngest daughter move out, but she would accept it if it could be of some help to her brother, Alfonso. But, being just a teen, Eileen wasn't quite prepared to move out quite yet.

What? Were they test-subjects because they were alien descendants? Did they escape from some sort of a lab? Eileen knew she had to find out more, perhaps she should talk to uncle Albert, living just across the road, being dad to Eileen's cousin, Blanca Peel. Eileen and Blanca often hang out together, she could run over after school tomorrow.

While Bridgitte and Eileen discussed their DNA in the kitchen, Boletta had closed the Market for the day, and hurried over to 11 Rounder Lane where Rosanne and uncle Cody G. Major reside. Boletta used to babysit for their 2 kids, Rafael and Georgine. On the first little picture below, Greench Farm can be seen in the background, and on the 3rd picture the Village Hall can be seen behind Boletta. The distances are pretty short.

It really was a cold day, the coldest ever. But right now Boletta was more focused on the kids. She wants so much to have her own family some day.

If the population only was bigger, she could probably have controlled her future more easily, but right now there are only 6 unmarried men on the island, and she happens to be related to 4 of them. Yesador Yea-Low had not come to the Market today, maybe he had not really seen her after all.

Rosanne is daughter of Corinne and Randal Redward, and although she married Boletta's uncle Cody for love, she has kept a rather snobby attitude. Rosanne is awaiting lots of money (around §50.000) from when she moved out. Still their house is decent, nothing big but with a second story and a nice garden that uncle Cody has built up from nothing.

Rosanne's brother, Yamir Redward, has inherited the family's main property, the Redward Ranch. He was set to become the next big Redward thing after Randal Redward, but had still not married and age-wise he is pushing mature adult.

Boletta found it scary to become a Redward - the thought alone made her feel sick.

That sounded like a good point. Are they all cut off from the other world again, just like before?

Food was prepared and finally uncle Alfonso knocked on the door. He was a little delayed, but on the island nobody owns a functional watch, and everyone know that walking from north to south took a while. Because of this, dinner is mostly to be served during the hour when daylight is being replaced by darkness.

Because they were so many, a garden work table had been carried inside. Now they all rushed to the counter, and to everyone's surprise Bridgette, who had prepared the food, grabbed the first plate.

Bridgette realized that the fish she had served, was from the market and could very well have been caught by their guest, Alfonso. No big deal, he never tasted fish prepared this way.

Alfonso owns 3 smaller lots up north, in addition to the main Blumington property where he lives.

Eileen had just realized that there would be no better place to learn to know what granny Bianca had said and done, than in granny's own house up north. Eileen had just thought to herself that, maybe, just maybe she could have volunteered. Spending more time with her cousins Bonita and Carla Black, who live near uncle Alfonso, would be great, too!

But then, her brother Bertil stood up...

Everyone knew that the families up north could never afford a windmill, and therefore have no electricity. Alfonso owns an old fridge, but fish would get spoiled in it within a day. Bertil felt like he was tricked into this awkward situation, moving in with uncle Alfonso, while Eileen was sort of grateful that she had not volunteered. She could always stop by to investigate a little, without really living there.

I hope you enjoy the story so far! The coming days will contain many changes, I can hardly wait! :-)