Chapter 29: The Plan
Trip smiled as he started to explain his plan. The plan was quite simple, all they had to do was make sure that all the children in the abandoned house got a new place to stay, which was either with a new family, or just a safe place to live.
Trip had looked at the issue in depth. The issue was that a lot of children were homeless because the city had become unaffordable to live in for many people. Some adults would even throw away their children so that they could survive with the money they had. Since this was the only city for many kilometres people had nowhere else to go, so anyone homeless was forced to live on the streets of Cuvin. The city was rich, so solving this would not be a problem, but the city was not ruled by charitable people. They did not even attempt to hide away any of the problems with homeless people, they just left the situation as it was.
Trip knew that the government could change it, but they didn’t because it was not profitable. Trip liked to dream big. What good would it do if he could help a couple of children? Probably not very much. But to help an entire population of homeless people, that would be written in history books. The only thing that Trip had to do in order to make history was to make fixing the homeless issue profitable.
This was a difficult part of the plan. However Trip found an answer quite easily. The Spearwood trees were the answer. There was a massive forest of Spearwood trees, but they barely cut anything due to there not being enough workers. The city never made an active effort to get workers to cut down trees, because they were making so much money from trading. Trip knew that this would solve only half of the problem. Only men would be able to cut down trees, women and children would not be able to do anything. However women could help sell Spearwood in shops to blacksmiths and people from other nations. Trip believed that children should not work, but then who would take care of orphan children? This was where everything tied together. All these homeless women and men could stand up to the government; they just did not have a leader or organisation to help them achieve this. If Trip could find someone to pose as a rebellion leader, then they could threaten the government into not only giving men and women jobs, but also rebuilding all the abandoned streets in the city. All the originally homeless people would then be able to live comfortably in this new neighbourhood. They would basically build a new section within the city. This would be the lower class section.
When Trip explained his bright idea to Alesha and Alex they seemed in disbelief. They could not believe Trip was ready to change the entire city, but what was even more unbelievable was Trip’s naivety. Why would the government say yes to a 10 year olds demands and threats? It simply did not make any sense.
After several minutes of silence Alex spoke up. “Look, Trip. While I know that you are very talented and ambitious, this is ridiculous. How are you going to convince the government to follow your orders?” He said
Trip smiled and said “You should have listened more carefully. I am not convincing any government, we need other people’s help.” Trip pointed to the unconscious man.
Alesha screamed out in anger “HIM!? HIM!? Of all the people to represent the homeless population you want HIM!?” She clearly did not want to see this despicable man become the man to represent the homeless people in Cuvin. It was an insult to her, her friends, and any decent homeless person ever to exist. This man wasn’t even homeless!
Trip was surprised to see her act this way, but he kept his cool. “He is not going to be the representative of any people other than scumbags, but we need his help.” He said
“For what!?” Alesha said
“Look at him. Do you think that you are the only homeless people he collects money from? He’s got to know a lot of homeless people. This is a good way to spread our initiative.” Trip said
Alesha looked at Trip for a while. He was really crazy, but a good kind of crazy. Somehow she felt that he might actually be able to pull this off. Her heart started to beat rapidly as she thought that she might be able to go to school and live a better life. However maybe this was not the only reason her heart was beating so rapidly.
Seeing that the other two had no objections to what he said he walked over to the unconscious man. He sprayed water over his face until he woke up.
“What the hell!?” The man screamed while coughing
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“Good afternoon, sir.” Trip said, smiling maniacally
And thus the interrogation commenced. By threatening the man, who ended up being called Dern, they received information about three different places where homeless people tended to group up. They then started to make posters about the idea of a revolution, and then they hung them up in the three areas. The poster detailed information about the place where they would hold the first meeting for this new group, called Homeless United. Most homeless people were incredibly excited and interested by the prospects of a better life. In the end more than 1000 homeless people showed up to the meeting.
Trip was to be the host that evening. He wasn’t nervous, but he was incredibly uncomfortable. He disliked being around so many smelly and sweaty people. Trip was not someone who backed down from a challenge, so he decided to just go for it and try to ignore the smell.
When Trip went up on stage many homeless people were angry, disappointed, and lost hope. If a child had organised this meetup then there was no hope for them. They were angry that they got their hopes up only to be disappointed.
Trip could only smile at this. In truth this was not that bad. It was better to start low and work your way up with nothing to lose rather than start high and have everything to lose. Most people were about to leave, but then Trip started to speak.
“Dear citizens of this city. We have all come here with a common goal. To get out of our miserable situation. We are all homeless here, but there was once a point where we were not.” Trip then pointed to a man and asked “You, sir. How did you become homeless?”
The man hesitated for a second. He felt as if he was being talked down to by a child, but when he saw the rest of the crowd looking at him he had no choice but to answer. “I was a waste collector, but then my boss said that they did not need me anymore. Since I had no money I had no choice, but to become homeless.”
Trip shook his hand and said “Thank you for sharing.” Before going on to other people. Everyone had a similar story. They had a decent job and life, but unexpectedly they were told they were no longer needed so they had to become homeless.
After a while Trip spoke again. “Do you see a pattern here? I do. What I see is a government that it completely neglecting a large part of its society. We are all in this situation because of the government! No longer shall we stand for this! We must no longer just stand there as we see our lives and others be ruined by this government of ours! They are little and we are many. There is nothing to be afraid of. We have one message for the government! Give us opportunities or…” Trip used his hand to demonstrate an action of slicing ones throat.
Somehow everyone there was incredibly moved by this child’s words. They stood up and cheered. They were ready and willing to fight. The kid was right! They were many and the government were only a couple little people sitting in offices. Such little people could not shut down the strength and spirit from these cheers.
Alesha was looking at Trip as she was cheering as well. Inside she felt that the situation was quite funny, Trip kept repeating that he was part of this homeless crowd, but she knew that he wasn’t homeless. However in a way this made his speech even more incredible. He was able to completely relate to people he had no experience with. He was only ten years old as well!
Alex looked at Alesha, who was still staring at Trip in awe and smiled. He still believed that Trip liked Alesha, and now that he saw Alesha looking at Trip that way he was sure that they were a match made in heaven. Instead of being a rival, this time he would become the matchmaker.
The rest of the night was spent addressing the plans for the future of the rebellion. While everyone thought of Trip as a great leader they also agreed that they could not have a 10 year old as the leader for such a big organisation. This made the priority of the organisation to find a good leader. Because most people felt bad for Trip because he couldn’t be leader they decided that they would give him full authority when it came to choosing the leader of the Homeless United.
Trip was very happy with how things were going. He had to find a leader who listened to his every word, and then all he had to do was watch as the group grew into a force worthy of scaring the government.