Journal Entry 1
8th of Running Deer, 1783 S.C.
This is the jernel jurnal of Druadaen u’Tarthenex. I am nine years old this past Adamant. I am keeping this jernel jurnal because my father said it would be a good idea. He says he wishes that he could go back and read what he did and thought when he was my age. Also, he encurrejjed encuorjed urged me to start now, since I will want to remember what I see and hear during my first trip to a big city!
We are leaving for Aedmurun tomorrow. Mother says it is not as big as the capital at Tlulanxu, but it is still one of Dunarra’s most importent cities. The juorney trip will take a week, maybe more. It depends on how we travel there. If we take an omni, we will go faster but will also have to stop each night, so we will spend less time moving. The barge goes more slowly, but since we would stay aboard, we will cover more leagues since we will only have to change the team of titandrays twice a day. Of course, if we were on the wallway itself, we might reach Aedmurun even faster, despite the overnight stops. But my parents say the wallways are mostly reserved for official bisiness.
My friend Heyna thinks we might be allowed to travel on the wallways anyway. Even tho we live beyond the Dunarran border, she says she knows more than I do about such things. Even more than Dunarran adults. I’m not sure about that, but Heyna is almost twelve and is certain about many things. Even things that happen in other countries.
Heyna’s older brother and sister (their mother is Connæaran, so their family is very large) didn’t seem to believe her. When she spoke about the wallway, they just rolled their eyes and kept working with my parents. They are learning how to take care of our farm while we are gone. I don’t know how my parents can afford it. The other farmers nearby call us “the gardners,” since we grow so few crops. But I think father and mother earn a lot of billon when they go back over the border to the closest wallway tower every month. I ask questions about what they do there, but they always change the topic. I act like I do not notice when they do that. But I know that they are trying to distract me. I also know that if they could tell me, they would.
I think whatever work they do at the wallway tower may be the reason we have been invited to the big gathering—or “progress”—that will take place in Aedmurun. Honestly, the farmers who live near us are right: we make just enough food for ourselves, and neither father or mother are very good at growing it. But we seem to have money when we need it and new books to read when we finish the ones borrowed from their friends back in Dunarra.
I’m just excited to see a real city, although I will miss our mastiff Grip and all our cats. And Shoulders, our draft horse, and Mama has told me to snuff out the candle, that we have a long day of travel ahead of us, and that if I’m tired, I might miss all sorts of things. So I am putting out the candle right away.
But I’m not sure I will sleep. I’m still too excited.