Serial Saturday–Diamonds in the Cave (34)

Posted on by lmkling

Strange Diet of Dreams

A loud crack and bang from an exploding log on the fire woke me. I gazed at the ratty rug, rickety boxes and motley décor of my humble hovel.

I expected Biskit to return with game from the forest. The suns broke through, first time in a week, flushing out snowcats, imported from Earth, as they emerged from their holes in search of food after a week of starvation.

Doris had used our remaining supplies in the previous night’s bread and pumpkin soup. The villagers traded minerals from the Prison mines for protein rich dectapus (a sea creature with ten tentacles) meat from the west coast of the Pilgrim continent. However, the meat was expensive, so we had to make do with what we could forage from the forest. Fortunately, the cats bred like rabbits on the Pilgrim Planet, so they were in supply most of the year. Winter was the only time when the cats were thin on the ice and snow. Even so, Biskit assured us he had ways and means of smoking them out.

After the all-night planning session, Günter suggested we have a few hours’ sleep to sharpen our minds and bodies. Doris refused and marched off to the house of Kirk with a wide-awake Phil in her arms. Babies were Maggie’s weakness and Doris hoped she could use his chubby-cheek charms to talk her way past the front door. Failing that, she’d sneak in the back door—she still had the key for the back door…

Doris hoped to smuggle out one of Maggie’s fancy outfits for Günter.

I readjusted my position in Günter’s arms and dozed. I could sleep. Wanted sleep.

Hunger, though, made my stomach growl. Spying a chocolate square in the table, I cut a slice and nibbled it.

Then, I rested my head against Günter’s chest and drifted…

***

[continued on Wattpad]

© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2024

Feature Photo: Kindertisch for Easter © L.M. Kling 2013

***

Read more of the consequences of Gunter’s and Minna’s choices, the adventure, the war against Boris. Discover the up close, personal and rather awkward relationship between the young couple and that nasty piece of cockroach-alien work Boris in my novels…

The Hitch-hiker

Mission of the Unwilling

The Lost World of the Wends

Or

Join the journey of discovery,

With

The T-Team with Mr. B: Central Australian Safari 1977

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Lee-Anne Marie Kling graduated from Adelaide University with a Bachelor of Arts majoring in English and Japanese. She also trained as a high school teacher and taught junior high school and primary school in Melbourne, Victoria. Lee-Anne worked as a Research Officer publishing three research reports of youth needs in towns in Victoria and southern New South Wales. She lives in Adelaide, South Australia with her husband and is mother of two adult sons. She is also an artist and enjoys travelling, especially exploring the Australian outback. She has travelled overseas to Japan and Europe. Her experiences teaching, travelling, and raising her sons have provided inspiration for her writing. The Hitch-hiker and Mission of the Unwilling are Lee-Anne’s first published fictional works. She is preparing more works; a sequel to Mission of the Unwilling called Diamonds in the Cave and a trilogy, The Holly Files, and most recently, The Lost World of the Wends. And then for something completely different, just to break genre rules because they are there to be broken, she has published the first of her travel memoirs, Trekking with the T-Team: Central Australian Safari 1981.