Dougal, Brian and Daisy returned to the house at around mid afternoon to rest their young bodies and have a cup of tea before returning to the fields for the rest of the day. Dougal gave a cry of delight when he saw Tala waiting for him in the kitchen, and Brian and Daisy sniggered while giving each other knowing looks.

     Tala had to explain all over again about the fire that had taken her cottage, but she consoled herself with the knowledge that it would be the last time. Everyone who needed to know now knew. Once again she had to give reassurances that she wasn't hurt and listen to their words of thankfulness and relief. "You are so lucky," said Dougal, but there was happiness on his face that he was unable to hide. And so am I, his face said. This is the best thing that could possibly have happened. Tala found herself hating him just a little.

     She had another cup of tea with them, to be sociable. "I'd like to spend the rest of the day in the fields with you," she said, "but these are the only clothes I have." She turned to Sarah. "Do you have any rough clothes I can borrow? Something that doesn't matter how dirty they get?"

     "I've got a whole chest full of clothes I was keeping for when Daisy was big enough for them," Sarah replied, "but it's looking like she's never going to be my size so you're welcome to them. Go have a rummage around and pick out something you like. Then leave your good clothes in the washroom for when you come back in."

     "They're hardly good clothes," said Tala, looking down at herself. "I had a whole outfit of good clothes, my Sunday best, but they all went up in the fire."

     "You'll have a new set of Sunday best before long," Sarah assured her. "Until then, those are just fine for the clean rooms. Daisy, why don't you take her up to my room and show her my chest?"

     Daisy grinned, showing a wide mouth full of white teeth. "Sure," she said, putting down her half finished drink. "Come on, Tal. Let's go."

     Tala took the clothes into her own room to change, and as she took her clean clothes back down to the washroom she wondered whether they took turns to wash and get changed. There were several sets of indoor clothes sitting in alcoves in the wall, male and female clothes side by side, and four tin baths were standing against the far wall. It looked as though they were untroubled by thoughts of modesty and Tala felt a moment of apprehension as she thought about getting undressed in front of her new family. I'll get used to it, she told herself. I've got no choice.

     Daisy took the time to finish her cup of tea, even though it must have been no more than luke warm by then, and then the three youngsters got ready to go back outside. "We're collecting acorns," said Dougal as he pulled his coat back on. "For the pigs. They'll eat anything, but why pay for food when there's a whole forest of oak trees out there just dropping acorns on the forest floor?"

     Tala nodded. Everyone knew that pigs loved acorns. "I always assumed the pigs found them for themselves," she said. "That you just let them roam around the trees."

     "The forest's full of bracken," Dougal replied with a smile. "They love to eat it any chance they get, but it's not good for them. They get sick, and then we have to pay the pig doctor to give them medicine. Better to keep them in their pens and take the acorns to them. Come on, I'll show you how we do it."

     Outside, they'd left three acorns sieves, three shovels and a wheelbarrow standing against the side of the house. Brian and Daisy picked up their tools, Dougal put his in the wheelbarrow and then Tala followed them along the muddy path to the tool shed where Dougal picked out a fourth seive and a shovel for her. The seive was a large bucket that was covered by a latticework of rusty wire that she guessed would let acorns through but keep leaves and twigs out. The acorns were then tipped into the wheelbarrow for transport back to the storage bins beside the pig pens.

     "How many pigs do you have?" asked Tala as they headed out towards the oak woods. Looking down at herself, she saw that her legs were already covered by a layer of mud. There was a misty rain hanging in the air that soon made the hair stick to their faces but they all ignored it. Like most country folk, they didn't call it ruin unless it hammered on their heads hard enough to hurt.

     "Four adults," Dougal replied. He laughed as Brian jumped into a puddle making a splash large enough to threw water onto his sister. She swung her shovel at him and he ducked out of the way, still laughing.

     "Oinker, Grunter, Snuffler and Squealer," Dougal replied. "Tommy Rankins gave them to us as piglets ten years ago in exchange for a wagonload of cabbages. Every so often they have piglets of their own and when they're big enough we eat them."

     "They've got piglets now," said Brian, still splashing in puddles. Daisy was taking care to keep well clear of him. "Twenty of them."

     "What do the pigs think of you eating their children?" asked Tala.

     "They don't know and probably wouldn't care if they did," Dougal replied. "Pigs are fiercely protective of their piglets when they're small. Whatever you do, don't make a pig think you want to hurt them. They're big and they're dangerous. A pig can kill you just like that, and then it'll eat you afterwards. When the piglets are grown, though, they go off to make their own way in the world and their parents don't care what happens to them after that. A few more weeks and we can start having pork dinners for a couple of months and we'll reap the rewards of all this hard work.

     "But you can't possibly gather enough acorns to feed that many pigs for a whole year," said Tala, confused.

     "No, they mainly eat turnips. We grow them as well in the north field, but they're just for the pigs. Not to sell. No, the acorns are just a tasty little extra snack. The pigs love them so we put a scoop or two in their food every day and they gobble them up like you wouldn't believe."

     "They eat all our rubbish," said Brian cheerfully. "Anything we don't eat, they will."

     "I'm gonna feed you to them one day," said Daisy as she dodged another spray of water kicked up by her brother's boots. "That's if they'll eat anything as stinking and rotten as you."

      "The more stinking and rotten, the more they like it," Brian called back, "so you'd better be careful when you're near them."

     "No-one is feeding anyone to the pigs," warned Dougal in a stern voice, making Tala laugh. "Save your energy for gathering acorns."

     It took just half an hour to fill up the wheelbarrow and Dougal pushed it back to the pig pen while the others stood around waiting for him to return. Tala looked around at the trees and saw a squirrel half way up one of them, staring at her with its glittery black eyes. <Stealing our food,> she heard it thinking unhappily. <The big things are stealing all our food.>

     Tala almost called out an apology but stopped herself just in time. Talking to animals was such a strong habit that it was hard to break. There would still be plenty of acorns left on the ground when they'd finished, she told herself. Even with the seives, they could only gather them up where they were lying the most thickly. Most of them were lying in hollows in the undulating ground where a bucket could be half filled with just a few scoops of the shovel, and then it only took a few bucketfulls to fill the wheelbarrow. Most of their time was taken just standing around waiting for the wheelbarrow to return, therefore, so Tala and the children had a lot of time to talk.

     "So what's Dougal like?" she asked, digging her shovel into the ground so she could sit on the handle.

     "He snores, really loudly," said Brian seriously. "You won't be able to get any sleep."

     "Pay no attention to the pig food," said Daisy, though. Brian stuck his tongue out at her. "The snoring's not nearly as bad as the farting," she continued. "Loud enough to make the whole house shake and it smells like a month old dead fox."

     Brian nodded soberly. "Sometimes we have to evacuate the whole house until the smell goes away," he added. "What it'll be like lying right next to him..."

     "I won't be lying next to him for a while yet," said Tala quickly. Reputation was important in this world. If she began sharing a bed with him too soon, people might start wondering what other young men she'd been sharing her bed with. She'd been living all alone in her cottage for two years, after all. Who knew what had been going on under that thatched roof?

     "Reckon he'll have a use for his hand for a while yet, then," said Brian with a smirk. "I wonder if he knows that we can hear everything." He turned a sly look on his sister. "We can hear you too, you know," he said. "We all know what you do with your fingers."

     "I do not!" cried Daisy in horror. She glanced across at Tala in fear, then shot her brother a look of pure hatred.

     "Look at her right hand," said Brian, still grinning. "Long nails on all her fingers except the two middle fingers of her right hand. I wonder why that is."

     "You steaming pile of pig shit!"

     Daisy was hiding her hand, though, and Tala made up her mind to have a talk with her later. She wondered whether Sarah had had the same talk with Daisy as her mother had had with her a few months before her death. She had also kept the same two nails trimmed short, and for the same reason. Tala kept all her nails trimmed short. She did the same thing as Daisy whenever she felt the need, but she didn't want it to be obvious to the parents of the children she tought. They tended to be rather prudish for the most part and might decide they didn't want their children tought by someone with such nasty, dirty habits.

     Then Dougal returned with the wheelbarrow. He glanced curiously at the furious, killing glare Daisy was giving Brian, but then dismissed it as he positioned the barrow between the three of them. Tala gathered that such exchanges were common among the three of them. Brian was still tittering as they emptied their buckets into the barrow, and then they picked up their shovels and began scooping up more acorns from the forest floor.

☆☆☆

     Tala took the next load of acorns back in the wheelbarrow. It was hard to push it across the muddy ground but she was young and strong and she was only gasping a little from the effort when she arrived at the bin. She opened the lid, pushed the wheelbarrow up the plank of wood that was leaning against it as a makeshift ramp and then, with a grunt of effort, she raised the handles, tipping the acorns inside to fall onto the conical pile already there. Then she carefully backed the barrow back down the ramp and closed the lid again, letting it fall with a bang.

     She turned the barrow, ready to take it back to the woods, but then, suddenly filled with curiosity, she left it there while she went around the corner to the pig pen. All four of the adults were lying contentedly on the muddy ground, and Tala was astonished by how big they were. As long as she was tall and easily twice as heavy, if not more. She'd never been this close to a live pig before. Somehow she'd had the idea that they were smaller, but these creatures were huge. Scarily huge.

     The two females were lying on their sides while their piglets sucked noisily at their teats. They seemed to be asleep, but then one of them opened an eye and looked at her with a look of such cold malevolence that Tala staggered back with shock. <You come near my children and I'll have you,> it said, although it must have been talking to itself as it had no way of knowing Tala could hear it. <I'll mess you up bad. I will eat your face.>

     Your children will be bacon and pork pies in a few weeks, thought Tala, a little surprised by the satisfaction the thought gave her. I may even have a slice of bacon myself, even though I don't generally eat meat. What do you think of that, you big, bad pig?

     She was careful not to speak the thoughts aloud with her green voice, though. The fence around the pig pen didn't look very strong and she thought the pigs would probably be able to break through it if they became angry enough. She definitely didn't want those creatures to be angry with her. Instead, she returned to the acorn bin, opened the top and grabbed a fistful of acorns which she took back to the pen and threw in, aiming towards the head of the big female. The pig's snout twitched as it sniffed at them, and then it climbed back to its feet and ate them up. <Good human,> it thought happily. <Nice acorns.> It then lay down again so its piglets could continue feeding.

     Feeling better, Tala went back to the wheelbarrow and began pushing it back towards the oak forest. She hummed a tune to herself as she went.