Who We Are by Samantha Marsh Read Free Book Online Page A

meat pies, and every vegetable they could grow, including every type of prepared potato: mashed with garlic, fire-roasted with onions, scalloped with cream, and baked with chives An entire table would be dedicated to freshly baked rolls, cheese breads and sourdough biscuits. Who could even sleep in anticipation of the sweet table? Every kind of cake, pie, tart and square one could imagine would be available, not to mention fudge, taffy, marshmallows and peanut-butter buddies. Desire hoped there would be a tray or two of hand-poured chocolate bon bons and lollipops.
                  The adult table would have fine wines, beer and liquor to go along with the stinky cigars that the men would smoke all night.
    This year, Desire’s mother was appointed head of the Food Committee. Desire had also been given a special job by the church elders; she was in charge of planning the fun and games for the school children. She could hardly believe it. Not only were children normally not invited to the Celebration, Desire felt surprised that she had been given such a big responsibility, especially after all that had happened. She wondered why the Elders had changed their minds about children attending, and, even more so, why they had chosen her.  Desire would just have to wonder, as asking too many questions would only bring her trouble. 
    There would be a social tea after church this Sunday so that all the women could all gather together and plan. The heads of each committee would recruit volunteers. The Food Committee would divvy up the cooking and baking. The Hall Committee made up of men would co-ordinate who would set up the hall and hang the decorations as instructed. Desire couldn’t wait to see who would line up to join her Fun & Games Committee. Her committee sounded like so much fun, she imagined that she would have far more volunteers than she needed. She sat at the kitchen table and started to design a beautiful sign-up sheet.
    Maybe it was the gaiety of the celebration, but Papa seemed a little bit happier and more relaxed these days. Surprisingly, when he saw Desire designing her registration sheet, he went into his office and brought back a little box. He handed it to her. “Here, Desire. These will assure you have the loveliest poster of all.” When she looked inside the box, she saw that it contained a brand new supply of beautiful coloured pencils. There were so many beautiful colours, twenty-four in total. She was speechless by this kind gesture! After she had finished school last year, she had given her own coloured pencils to the church so the children could do artwork during Bible school. She beamed at Papa and thanked him sincerely. When she was done, she felt sure all the other girls and boys her age would run to sign up.
     
    Desire had spent so much time on her poster, she almost missed her afternoon chore of picking vegetables for dinner. Mama’s quick goodbye as she left to go to the church reminded her. Desire left the poster on the table and stuffed the coloured pencils back into their box. Hastily, she put on her shoes and grabbed her basket. She desperately wanted to run out into the field, but she also didn’t want the neighbours to take notice and see her sneak behind the bushes so she concentrated on walking steadily as though nothing was out of the ordinary. She quickly yet calmly filled the basket with peas and carrots, hid it under the bushes and then slipped into the forest.
    After several minutes, making sure she was out of sight, Desire took off her shoes and socks and lay down in the grass facing the sky. The tree line was so thick she could only see the blue sky through the gaps in the high tree branches. She breathed in the beauty of the forest. It wasn’t the scary or evil place everyone was taught to believe it was. To her, it was her oasis where she could relax and be free.
    It had beautiful green trees, thousands of wildflowers and a creek running through the centre; the one