Free Sarah Tries to Save the World by Noah Porter Page A

back corner), she practically inhales her food.
     
    “Why are you eating so fast and rushing through everything?” I ask.
     
    Instead of responding, she shovels more food down her throat and motions for me to do the same. I finish eating at the same time as her, partly because I had a smaller portion of food and partly because she kept motioning for me to go faster.
     
    When we’re done, she again mumbles a hasty ‘blessings of Ajuhn’, etc. (now referred to as ‘BOA’ for the sake of shortness, with no relation whatsoever to the boa constrictor) to the elders before alternately shoving and pulling me all the way to the crop fields (which I forgot to mentioned are half-enclosed by roofs), where she grabs a set of tools and a bag of something.
     
    She plants some unidentifiable things, motioning for me to try after she does it.
    She gives a different set of tools to me, watching with hawk eyes as I follow her instructions. After she’s watched me do the first row, she gives me a perfunctory nod, marks off another three rows for me to plant crops in, then continues making even more rows for me as I begin work.
     
    It’s tedious, but I’m used to tedious jobs from digging in the tunnels to move from city to city. After about four hours working, the dirt is caked under my nails, my hair is all over the place, and sweat is dripping off me, but we completed so many rows of crops, I won’t bother to count them.
     
    “Not bad, for a newcomer,” says Arcya, surveying the land with a half-smile. “Lunch time!”
     
    We walk to the food hall, giving the BOA (blessings of Ajuhn, for those unfortunate enough to forget abbreviations rapidly) to the elders before stacking our plates with tons of food.
     
    I eat quickly, as does Arcya, before I follow her out of the food hall (which, by the way, I think I’ll skip writing about eating at all as much as I can) and she walks to a smaller hut, walking in and coming back out with two items that somewhat resemble towels and a package.
     
    “Meat for the tigers and materials to dry ourselves off after we jump into the water to feed the tigers,” she says in response to my questioning look, and we set off on a walk.
     
    “They get three meals a day?”
     
    “No, six, of course! Only humans get three meals a day,” she says with a deadpan look on her face as we continue walking.
     
    “Really?”
     
    “Of course not, idiot, they get two meals a day. I just change up when I feed them depending on what happens every day. For example...” she says as we reach the cliff and jump off.
     
    I’m flying and flying until… I splash into the water, sinking to the bottom immediately. When I resurface, she doesn’t bother to finish her sentence. After she’s fed the tigers and gotten her hair out of her face, she continues her sentence.
     
    “Tonight we have the races. Men go against men and women go against women. I’m not competing, but you and your friends are welcome to.”
     
    I gasp. “Races? For real?”
     
    She nods. “That’s why I’m feeding the tigers now instead of later.”
     
    This is just all so surreal. Races and swimming in waterfalls and farming like we did in the olden days. Not even to mention taming and talking to tigers.
     
    I’m so caught up in thought that I almost don’t pay attention when she speaks next until I realize she said the words ‘practice’ and ‘swimming race’.
     
    I jump into the water, looking at the long river, which goes off into the distance farther than I can see. The tiger enclosure (if you can call it that) is humongous, and the stream runs along all of it.
     
    “I suppose I’ll take that as a yes,” she says, and we’re off.
     
    The actual swimming race is just a blur of moving arms and legs and taking breaths and glints of sunlight until we reach the end of the river, where she stops immediately and I slam into the dirt at the edge of the stream. She laughs hysterically as I stumble out of the water,