Pail was excited, more than excited. He was ecstatic. He had been told that they weren’t getting a house, yet here they were, being led around by a real estate agent. He didn’t know what the adults were talking about, but he didn’t really care. He was more interested in running around the properties and imagining how they would look if they moved in. Would his room be big or small? Would there be a staircase? A backyard? He couldn’t reign in his excitement.
Whenever he was asked about his opinion, he always responded, “This is a good house!” because, to him, any house was a good house. While that was sweet, it didn’t help Norman decide. Primrose was also happy with everywhere they went, though she probably didn’t understand what was happening. Rowboat insisted that she was just an employee and shouldn’t decide something so important.
As it turned out, by the end of their tour, none of their opinions mattered. Only one of the properties met all of Norman’s criteria. It had a main house with over three bedrooms, a stable, a large storage room that could be used as a workshop, and a smaller side house for employees. It was expensive, but it was within their budget. The only problem was that it was a fixer-upper and needed a lot of work done. It used to be priced much higher, but as time went by and the house fell into disrepair, the price plummeted with it.
It was a home for people with money, but it wasn’t a mansion. It was a two-floor wooden house with four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a kitchen. The smaller house for servants was a single-story house with two rooms and a shared bathroom. It was a lot fancier than 90% of peasant houses, but it wasn’t fancy enough for a noble, even a lower one.
Norman told himself that he would earn more money and that this was an investment in the business and his children’s future, but that didn’t make forking over the money any less painful. Norman cringed as most of his funds disappeared, and he was handed the keys and the deed to the house. The amazed look on Pail’s face when he told him they had a house did make up for it a little bit, though.
The Persson family (and Rowboat) had gathered in the fenced-off courtyard of their new home. They were dressed in the cheapest clothes they owned, the kind ones they wouldn’t mind getting dirty. The children’s pants were tied up to their knees, and their hair was tied up with old bandanas. They were going to spend the day cleaning their new home. Wooden basins of water had been laid out next to the courtyard well, and Norman had bought as many cleaning supplies as he could. He had always been very cleanly, and the thought of sleeping in a dust-covered room made his skin crawl.
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Rowboat was in charge of the heavy lifting. Her job was to gather all the old boxes, furniture, and other items out to the courtyard. The house had sat abandoned for so long that all of the furnishings were unusable, and the decorations that weren’t rotting or falling apart were better used as exchange fodder. Ideally, Norman wanted to use exchange on the furniture, too, but there was no way he would be able to make a double bed fit in his palm.
Pail was given a rag and a bucket of water and told to go wild. He held the wet rag against the floor while his legs propelled him forward in a crouched run. He looked like a winged dog as he darted through the rooms at a surprising speed. He was using his wings to propel himself forward quicker and making horse noises to go extra fast. He would have made car noises if he knew what a car was. The stairs had to be cleaned in the regular way, though. One step at a time.
Norman did the brunt of the work. He had a very specific way of cleaning, and he wouldn’t allow anyone to help until he taught them how. Every room was subjected to his 100-step cleaning regimen, perfected through over 30 years of research. The children's bedrooms, the bathrooms, and the kitchen were all subjected to the patented 100-step cleaning regimen twice. Norman moved with such grace while he cleaned that he almost looked like another person. That illusion was broken when he got water on his sleeve and instantly ran off to change.
Despite everyone telling her that she was a great helper, Primrose wasn’t very helpful. She just kind of walked around with a dry rag, occasionally rubbing it on a wall or a cabinet. She got bored halfway through the day and spent the rest of her time picking flowers in the courtyard. By the end of the day, everyone had gotten a staggering amount of gifts in the form of little wildflowers and weeds. She kept the prettiest flowers for herself, though.
It took two weeks to make the property livable. The courtyard had been weeded, the door hinges fixed, and the buildings had all been freshly painted. The place went from looking abandoned to being a property fit for an upper-class family. The horses had their own stable to hang out in, the kids had plenty of space to run around, and Rowboat had her own space. What Norman liked the most, though, was the iron gate at the front. It looked like his image of success.
They weren’t successful in the slightest, though. They were on the verge of running out of money. Norman was out of Earth items to exchange for money, so he had to start earning Lapis the old-fashioned way. Before that, he needed to improve his skills. [EXCHANGE] was his biggest priority as it would remove the need to purchase materials. He also wanted to improve [GOLDEN EYE]. He had extensive knowledge of Earth’s economies, but he didn’t have a clue what things were worth in Silvae. The last thing he wanted was to accidentally sell an expensive product at a low price.
It was time for a training montage!
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