"Now I've Got a Great Idea!"

“I vow that I never again set foot in this building!”

Christina sat and laughed at the thought of having them over again - and, a little, at the thought of leaving the mentioned building herself for any long time. It was not her house, but she felt it was hers, in the sense that she couldn't predict that she would lose her relationship with it. Therefore she felt that Matilda's comment was awful, but she still laughed at that, too, since she didn't feel that the building was anything that Matilda would decide over.

“I swear,” she answered, “that there's no way for us to lose this house; no matter how we tried; we wouldn't easily, at least, lose it! Besides, where are you going to live, if we don't pertain here, in this building, which is after all our home!”

“I'm gonna live in the forest!” Amanda answered. “I'm gonna live there and I'm gonna shoot wild animals for a living!”

“Oh! Then I shall see to it that you get a handgun with you! But I, I'm gonna live here, and there's not enough sense in it for me to follow you out into the forest for that!”

“I'm gonna live in the forest, and you come with me! I'm gonna teach you how to swim, there! I'm also gonna tell you about all the mushrooms I can eat, and which ones are to be thrown away! That way we can both eat mushrooms, and there are also so many berries and stuff that we can eat!”

“I will follow you there on one condition! It is that I don't have to spend my time trying to understand the way the principle of nature seems to work for ya! Because I don't want to know about such things!”

“Okay! You just come with me into the forest and then we'll be together with our animal friends, and tell them all about those other human beings, so that they don't like any more than we do!”

“I see! When you're out in the forest you tell the animals they aren't geing to be taken as friends by the other human beings! That's clever! But how come will they seem to be on your sinde when you have to kill some of them for the meat we're gonna have for survival!?”

“I guess it's by telling them that I don't have to kill them unless the other human beings are bad, but hey are! I go for trying to substitute the essence of being into them as friends by the essence of survival! That they will understand me for!”

“Okay! I guess the theory about their minds works for the sake of us being there for some time without there being a mistake on our part due to that they have it we wildness-friendly people are fatal.”

“Then how will I survive without being here every now and then, I who never have set my foot in the forest before!?”

“You will survive by having us seem mature enough to be able to be ready to be smart at being part their society! I will teach you how to deal with them that way!”

“But how will I survive the forest, I mean?! I, who can't even climb a tree!?”

“I'll teach you!”

“But how?! I mean how long will it take form me to learn all those things!? I who only have been out in the cultivated gardens and parks around here!?”

“I will teach you how to survive in the forest, and that's final! You will not see to it that we return to this building, not now after my sister has died in what they call a “tragic accident,” but which was in reality just their trap for her that worked and thus killed her!”

“I know! But how come they will not follow us out in the forest!? What do you feel they can do once we get there?!”

“I feel they will do nothing but believe we are gone because some others have killed us!”

“Oh! That's the plan! Then I can follow, and I will come along to learn the forest as you will teach me!”

“Good then, Christina! Since you're only three, you will be able to learn much more than I ever have about the forest and how to survive there! I have not learned anything of it before I was five! Now you will start at an even earlier age than I!”

“Then I will learn to ride a horse! Because I have always envied a horseback rider for that they can't fall off in the forest!”

“No! I don't think we can take any horse with us there! I'm afraid they would follow us then! But I will see to it there is a horse there in say a couple of years! And then maybe you can learn how to ride without falling off!”

“Okay! Then I will learn when I'm nine or something! I will learn how to sit and how to not fall of, then, and I will be happy, because when I fall off I never can be happy with a horse!”

“Okay, you will be happy then, once I get a horse to my forest! But you will come with me tomorrow, and don't forget it's I who am in charge, because it's I who know everything about the forest!”

“I will have to come with you! Because if they come here when I'm alone here, they will kill me too! That's why I will follow you out in the forest!”

“Okay! You follow me there! But for now, let's just settle for that we brush our teeth! Because out in the forest, there's a long time without a toothbrush in anyplace!”

“Okay! I'll brush my teeth real well!”

“Good!” she said, and with that they settled for the decision to leave the next day. When it arrived, they walked out into the, as it happened to be, then foggy forest. They got lost and they never came back, not even for a horse to go riding on!

But their bodies were found near a swamp by the lake they had probably planned to fish in!