Rice Paper

Elitsa marched down the street with all the duty and purpose that could fit onto a nine-year-old’s face. She wore a red flowery dress, orange stockings, and a pair of black shoes that had seen far too much play time. Her arms were hugged tight around a paper grocery bag.

Peeping inside to make sure the contents were safe, Elitsa noted the two piles of cash at the bottom of the bag. She nodded curtly and kept on her way.

Mr. Louis was gardening in his front yard when Elitsa walked by. He waved and shouted, “Heellllooo Ellliiitttsaaa!” Mr. Louis was always such a loud man, but Elitsa thought he was funny.

“You look like you popped right out of my garden with that dress,” he said after she gave him a hello back, “Although those shoes don’t look like they quite made it out of the dirt.”

“Well Mr. Louis you look like a bear!” Elitsa retorted through a wide smile.

Mr. Louis laughed, “Now where are you going today little flower bud?”

Elitsa knew she could trust Mr. Louis, so after looking around she got right up close to him and opened the bag.

“Well Mr. Onion-Head,” she giggled, “I’m going to town to buy some things.” Switching to a hushed tone she continued, “My parents said only I would be able to get them.”

“I see,” Mr. Louis nodded with a twinkle in his eye, “Well you certainly have a lot of money there, do you think it’ll be enough to buy everything you need?”

“Mommy said it might not be, but that I’d need to be cute and charming and assersive”

“Assertive?”

“Assertive… in order to get what I want.”

“That is good advice I suppose. I’ll tell you what. You wait here one minute.” And before she could do anything Mr. Louis had disappeared into the house. He was back a minute later holding something tight to his chest. Motioning for Elitsa to open the bag, he conspiratorially dropped in a few handfuls of cash. “There you go now, see if that won’t get you a little something extra.”

Elitsa’s face brightened at the gesture, but she quickly controlled it, switching back to the serious expression which she started down the street with. Mr. Louis matched her seriousness, giving her a nod and a wink, and wishing her luck as she went on her way.

A few blocks down the road Elitsa ran into Mrs. Gambson pushing her twins in a stroller. She always looked so tired and sometimes she got angry for no reason, but today she just looked tired.

“Hi Mrs. Gambson!” Elitsa chimed.

“Oh, hi Elitsa dear,” Mrs. Gambson forced through a sigh. Elitsa knew Mrs. Gambson was only pretending to be friendly, but she knew that that’s ok sometimes. “Where are you going today?” She asked Elitsa.

Elitsa knew she could trust Mrs. Gambson even if she did yell occasionally, so she showed her the bag and explained she was going to buy some things and that Mr. Louis had given her some of the money too. Mrs. Gambson’s eyes grew wet as the sweet little girl explained her plan in hushed, excited tones. The naïve child seemed completely unaware of her situation; it nearly broke the woman’s heart. Wiping away a tear Mrs. Gambson put on a brave face. Maybe a little hope wasn’t such a bad thing.

“Well now, that is a large bundle of money,” Mrs. Gambson commented in that fake tone adults too often use when speaking to kids, “But I want to make sure you have enough. Here, I’ll walk the two blocks to my house with you and add a little something to your bundle.”

They walked to the Gambsons’ house and just like with Mr. Louis, Mrs. Gambson gave her a large handful of cash.

“Now make sure to count it all before you go spending it,” Mr. Gambson advised, “Otherwise how do you know how much you have to spend? You do know how to count that high don’t you?”

“Yeeesssss,” Elitsa huffed, offended that her counting skills had been called into question, “I’ll count out a bunch of smaller piles and then add those up into bigger piles, just like we did with the rice grains at school.”

“Good girl,” Mrs. Gambson beamed through clenched eyes, “Off you go now!”

Elitsa met one more neighbor on her walk into town. Grandpa Sue was a scary old man with lots of scars and faded tattoos on his arms. He lived two houses down from the Gambsons and he saw what Mrs. Gambson had done.

He was stepping back outside when Elitsa passed by. She tried not to notice him but he hollered out, “Hey girly!”

Elitsa turned and the old man spat off to the side. “Come here.” He commanded.

She hesitated but he hobbled on forward. “You’re gonna need more than luck today, you know that right?” Elitsa always felt uncomfortable around Grandpa Sue, maybe because he smelled funny and dogs were afraid of him. Her parents always made a point to say what a nice old man he was, so she knew she could trust him even if she didn’t really want to.

“I know that,” she answered shyly, “I’ve got money too.”

“Right,” Grandpa Sue groaned, “Well, you might need a little more than that too.”

Elitsa just looked puzzled, so Grandpa Sue gave up trying to explain. “Here ya go kid,” he said with a glare, handing Elitsa the largest stack of cash yet, “I don’t s’pose I’ve got any use for it, maybe it’ll do ya some good.”

Elitsa thanked Grandpa Sue and hurried on through the park.

In a tucked away corner of the park Elitsa counted her money. There was twenty thousand dollars! She stuffed it back in the grocery bag and went straight to the corner store across from the park. Elitsa’s parents had taken her there a hundred times in the past and she knew they had the good snacks.

The clerk, who’s name was Clark, watched Elitsa as she strode through the door and began browsing the picked-over inventory. Elitsa quickly made her way to the bakery section where she spied the last cinnamon snail.

“How much for that one?” she asked pointing to the only treat on the rack.

“How much you got?” asked Clark eying the paper bag.

“That’s not how prices work!”

“Well it is today.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Wish I was kidding. What, you haven’t you heard? Your money is worthless.”

“It’s not just MY money,” Elitsa explained matter-o-factly, “My parents gave me some and so did Mr. Louis and Mrs. Gambson and even Grandpa Sue.”

“Oh really now? Well, it’s all the same. Everyone’s money is worthless. They’re just pieces of paper with pictures on them now.”

Elitsa pondered this. “So there’s no money anymore?”

Guess not kid.”

“But…” Elitsa tried to grapple with this new information, “Nothing’s changed about them. It’s not like they went moldy. Why were they good before?”

“I guess… because we all agreed on it, everyone pretended they were worth something.”

“So keep pretending!”

“It only works if everyone pretends, and I guess everyone else stopped, so I stopped too.”

“That’s dumb.”

“Yeah, it really is.” Answered Clark as he considered how silly this very serious business was, “So, what did everyone send you down here for anyway?”

“My parents sent me here for a snack to bring home and share, the others just wanted to make sure I had enough money to spend I guess.”

“A snack huh?”

As the two spoke a group of people passed the store and went into the clinic next door. All of them wore different things, but their clothes still looked kind of the same. Clark noticed, Elitsa was facing the other way.

“Tell you what,” Clark went on, “I’ll make it a contest.”

“What sort of contest?” Elitsa asked dubiously.

“A strength contest,” Clark explained, “If you can carry a bag of rice to everyone who gave you money then run all the way back here, I’ll give you the snail.”

“Deal!” Elitsa agreed.

“But you have to carry them all at once.”

“Not fair!” Elitsa exclaimed, “I’m not THAT big… I’ll carry two at once, and I’ll run back both times.”

“Fine,” Clark nodded, “But you have to use the side door and you can’t let anyone see you when you leave. That’s part of the contest.”

“Deal, but what about my money?” Elitsa asked, shuffling her bag around.

“Throw it away, it’s worthless. Actually, let me see that.”

Clark took the grocery bag from Elitsa and dumped it onto the counter. He let out a low whistle, “You did pretty good for yourself.”

Clark bent behind the counter and produced two bags of rice which he placed in the grocery bag. Then he took some of the cash and placed it over the rice.

“I’ll hold onto the rest of this while you run your contest.”

“That sounds like a trick,” Elitsa said, “You shouldn’t let other people hold your money like that.”

“If it was worth anything, I would agree with you,” replied the slightly annoyed clerk.

“I’ll trade you,” Elitsa offered, “All this paper with pictures on it,” she mocked, pointing to the cash on the counter, “For that paper with no pictures on it,” pointing to a little black notebook resembling a diary or a journal.

“Fine,” said the impatient clerk who grabbed the notebook and stuffed it beside the rice, “But the clock is ticking and you need to hurry. Go!”

Elitsa picked up the bag which promptly sunk like an anchor. She hoisted it up and waddled through the side door. Looking around, she waited for an oddly dressed person to go back into the clinic. The she waddled through the park, down her street, and up to Grandpa Sue’s porch. She dropped off the first two bags without even a knock then ran back to the store.

The oddly dressed people had left the clinic and were now entering the store. They began grabbing things off the shelves and piling them outside. Clark walked back in from the side entrance. Elitsa asked the clerk if they were going to buy all that stuff. All he had to say was, “They’ll pay for it in the end.”

They both watched in silence for a moment before Clark turned to Elitsa. He whispered for her to play along, he told her the rest of the rice was outside and reminded her the contest wasn’t over.

Then he made a show of telling her that her money was no good. He explained loudly that she couldn’t have the cinnamon snail just because she wanted it. She begged for the snail, not fully understanding what was going on.

They went back and forth. Finally, Clark told her that the store was closing, maybe for good, so she might as well take it. But he told her she should never come back, seriously.

Elitsa took the snail snack and placed it in her bag. Then she walked past the weird people and snuck to the side of the building. She took out the snail and the money, put the last two bags of rice in, and covered them with money just like Clark had done.

Then she waddled home, stopping by all the neighbors to tell them they had rice so they wouldn’t leave it outside.

Elitsa’s parents were very impressed by how much she got from the store. They could hardly believe she carried all that rice so far. Because she did so good, Elitsa got to eat the center of the snail swirl!

The next day news came that the corner store burned down. A war soon followed.

The first entry in the small black notebook described a very exciting walk. Only a few more entries were ever made.