“Mom! I’m going to the river with Gye and Torin!” A young boy calls out through the open shutters of his sloping home.

“The river?” His mother mutters from where she stirred at a pot of rendering animal bones and water. Turning to peek out the window at the anxiously hopping boy she relented with little thought. “Don’t go in deep and listen to Torin if she tells you something.”

“Okay!” The boy nods turning on his heel and racing off to where he had left the small group of neighborhood kids he’d spent much of his time with. Startling a pack of chicken-like birds as he scrambled past them, he rounds a corner and hurtles under the legs of an unexpected tourist. “Sorry!”

Continuing without a glance, he eventually scoots to a halt gasping for breath as he tosses a thumbs-up to Gye, the red-headed eleven-year-old who often leads their adventures.

“Sweet!” Gye says with a nod, turning to look at where the bus typically picked him up for school. He was the only one of the trio who went to the newly set-up school, so when he heard about the chance to get a couple of coins for barely any work he quickly informed his friends so they could pool their labor.

“There it comes,” Torin says quietly, pointing her slender hand at the dust cloud formed by the distant bus.

“Okay, the guy said we can ask the bus driver and he’ll…”

“We know, you said so already.” Torin interrupts without allowing him to go through it for the fifth time.

Blushing a bit but not willing to acknowledge it, Gye says nothing as he waits for the familiar sound.

*PSH* The brakes of the bus hiss as it locks to a halt and the doors swing open.

“Okay, let's go,” Gye says, waving his friends to follow.

Stepping up onto the bus, Gye waves to the familiar wrinkled man sitting behind the wheel. “Hey Mr, the guy said you have the rocks we can use in the river.”

“Oh?” The man asks, sending a wave of worry through all the children’s spines. “Y’mean these?”

Holding his hand out, he clutched a long segmented rod of magnets. One by one he flipped them from the stack and handed them off to the trio.

“Did Mr. Gus already tell ya how to use them?” The bus driver asks with an exaggerated raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, I brought an old sock and everything.”

“Alright, alright.” The man relents after waving away the sock the boy presented. “Good hunting.”

“Thanks!” The trio shouts as they leap from the bus and race to the pathway leading towards the river.

The shoreline was already abuzz with activity as they apparently weren’t the only ones who’d taken the security guard up on his offer.

In the shallows of the river around twenty children ranging from eight to fourteen were up to their knees with cloth-wrapped magnets, fishing piles of black sand from between the stones of the riverbed.

Once a magnet was loaded fully with the black sand, the children would carefully remove the magnet and catch the fine sand in small bags or sacks they carried tied to their Sachi’s or belt loops.

“Gye, you made it!” A voice announces from the deeper section of the river a short distance away. “Ask TJ where to start, a lot of this is already done.”

“Okay.” Gye nods, turning to his friends and waving them towards the unfamiliar boy directing a few children on the side of the shore. “He’s a friend from school. Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

The wiry fifth grader had a poorly drawn map with a series of grids drawn across it. Different smiling faces were placed on the grid as the amount of black magnetite was compared and eye-balled.

Based on the trend in happy faces, TJ sent the three new arrivals to try a section of promising pebbles near where a small creek met up to the river.

To no one’s surprise, the boy’s strategy worked flawlessly to minimalize wasted effort. When a couple of children turned up with less than a tablespoon of black sand from the outside of a river bend it was marked with an angry face, and many of the squares around it were ignored as work was focused on better-yielding sections of the river.

By noon the group began to dwindle as exhaustion set in and worry about the ability to carry their haul became increasingly real.

Each carried a bulging sack likely weighing more than five pounds, with some luckier carrying twice that. As more and more headed back to the bus to retrieve their payments, by the first-afternoon bell, only TJ and a few of Gye’s classmates remained.

“Come on Erich we can come back tomorrow,” Gye says as he fishes up his sock and checks the bottom with no visible specks of black sand.

“Alright.” The boy eventually relents after coming up with a similar result.

Offering a hand to help the younger boy fight the slight current of the river, the two make their way past the deep section of the river and back to the shallow sandbar leading up to the path.

Receiving their result and marking it on the heavily expanded map, TJ takes another long glance over the map comparing it to the river in front of him as if to find some additional conclusion but eventually finding no further insights he rolls the map up with a satisfied smile.

He hadn’t needed to set foot in the river the entire day but he still got to play with his friends. As someone severely afraid of swimming, he considered today an enormous success for that alone.

Glancing at his watch as the group trudge up the path, he compares the time to his memory of the bus schedule.

“We should make it perfectly.” He reports as the group compare their hauls proudly.

Just as predicted the moment they set foot at the bus stop, it glimmered into view and sped towards them.

Returning the magnet as they greet the driver, they graciously accept the towels he offers them each and wrap themselves up as they make their way to their seats.

A handful of bumpy minutes later the bus halts once again and they leap from their seats to exchange their day's work.

The small guard post that straddled the pair of lanes entering the Arna and Reynolds complex had a window on either side, but on the right, a small set of stairs had been built to better handle walk-up visitors. One by one they approach the window and hand off their makeshift pouches and bags.

“6.45, awesome!” The guard reports, slapping the kid's hand with a high five. “Here you go, that’s 7 coins.”

“Woah!?” The tan teenager stammers as he carefully clutches at the handful of coins.

“And take this too.” The guard offers out a large drawstring bag made from thin cloth. “You can wear it on your back so it doesn’t stretch out your Sachi.”

“Oh!” The boy mutters, realizing his robe had loosened from the heavy bags weight. A look of fear enters his eyes as his mother’s wrath suddenly haunts his mind.

“Next.” The guard calls, as the boy hastily steps to the side to adjust his clothes.

After all five remaining children exchange their black sand and acquire a backpack while they were at it, they head back to the awaiting bus. Waving to TJ and Ian as they depart, the boys grasped at the coins in their hands greedily.

Gye had worked with his father at the bakery before, but for that, he was paid in sweets, not coins. So, for all of them, this was certainly a first.

Gye wondered how many sweet rolls this could buy him. While Torin, more rationally, wondered how many days it might cost her to buy a new needle set. Between them, however, with the smallest handful sat the happiest of them all.

“What do you wanna buy Erich?” Gye asks after the number of sweet rolls he was envisioning surpassed his calculation skills.

“A-” Erich stammers momentarily before zipping his lips with a finger. “Secret.”

“Eh?!” Gye cries out trying to pull the finger away from Erich’s mouth in hopes it might give him an answer.

“Don’t roughhouse.” The bus driver warns with a glare from the mirror.

After a round of unenthusiastic apologies, the bus eventually found its way back to the village.

The trio upon arriving back at their home splintered off towards their houses after a brief farewell.

Erich, living closest, arrived first and excitedly bounced through the door. When grilled by his mother he simply feigned innocence with hands clutching firmly behind his back.

Eventually realizing she would get nothing from him, she returns her attention to the rendered fat which had thickened heavily in the hours her son had been gone.

She expected by tomorrow it would be ready to sell if she didn’t make any mistakes. Pulling out the long stir rod from the kettle to check the consistency of the liquid, a familiar sound of coins clinking into an earthen jar, like the one she’d kept hidden in her dresser, could softly be heard from the other room.

A soft gloomy smile grazed her lips as the strong urge to hug her son began bubbling in her heart.