Claire pulled Paddy away, but the dog refused to let go of his chosen lunch.
"Paddy, this is business not dinner!" she exclaimed in horror. "Drop it."
Paddy pretended that he couldn’t hear her. Like it was the first time he was hearing the instruction ’drop it’ in his four years of life.
Claire opened the lunch bag and found a chicken sandwich. She turned to Paddy, waving half of it in the air. "Paddy, look...yum."
Paddy turned and looked in the opposite direction. No amount of sandwich waving or temptation convinced him to drop the abalone. Eventually, Claire gave up and decided to save the rest of her catch.
"Today is your lucky day, Paddy." She muttered, storing her catch in one big cooler that turned out to be too small for her total catch.
Paddy settled down with his abalone, covering it with his legs, and watching Claire warily. The dog seemed to be on guard against a thief. The ridiculous sight made Claire roll her eyes.
"I don’t want your abalone, Paddy." She laughed.
The look Paddy returned translated to ’I don’t believe you,’ in human language.
She shook her head and looked at the shore again. The pearl seemed to be warming up, as if encouraging her to go closer. Claire could make out three figures walking to the edge of the water.
As much as she wanted to take a closer look, she knew better than to blindly set off in a strange land. If she were to explore this place, she had to take proper measures and ensure her security. She started the boat and turned it around.
I need to go home first, she thought.
In the blink of an eye, she was back in the real world! Claire blinked a few times and squinted. "Did that just happen?" She asked herself.
One second she was in the strange world, and the next she was home! Did it mean thinking of going home instantly brought her back to the real world? If it was possible, then it made things very convenient.
"I want to go to the strange world." She said loudly, thinking of the castle she had seen.
Within a second, her boat was back in strange waters again. She thought of going home, and then she was transported back once more.
A fit of happy laughter, mixed with squeals erupted from Claire’s chest. Her hand found the pearl at her neck. She had noticed that it warmed up whenever she thought of crossing from one world to another.
"This must be it," she whispered. "I knew this pearl was special." If she had left it with Ritah, would this opportunity have gone to her cousin?
Paddy barked anxiously, drawing Claire from her thoughts. Claire calmed her mind and took a deep breath. From now on, she needed to plan her fishing trips better. Every journey had to yield fruit.
When she returned to the pier, Claire quickly noticed her grandfather. He was sitting on a wooden stall, with a blue hat on his head. In one hand he had a fishing rod, and by his feet was a cooler.
"Grandpa," Claire called out, waving eagerly.
Her enthusiasm was in competition with Paddy’s barking and tail wagging. As soon as she tied her boat, she started showing off what she had brought from the sea.
The old man’s eyes bulged in surprise. "Well, I will be damned! You have your grandmother’s gift it seems."
Claire beamed like those were words of praise. As they loaded her cooler on top of his, she tattled on Paddy, reporting his abalone theft like a teacher telling a parent about their naughty child.
Donovan laughed. "Your grandmother should have warned you about that. I always let Paddy choose his pay from our catch. I guess he assumed you would follow the same rule. Our catch is not usually as pricey as what you have brought home."
Her grandfather pushed the trolley on which the coolers were sitting and they all walked back home.
Home turned out to be a busy place. Relatives from Donna’s side of the family who wanted to meet Claire had come by with gifts and smiles.
Wilder pulled Claire from one place to another, introducing her to cousins, uncles and aunts, most of whom were kind, warm, and very welcoming. Grandma Willow, who was her grandmother Wilder’s younger sister, even suggested that she host a welcoming party for Claire.
The suggestion was welcomed by everyone, even Claire herself, who was already warming up to her maternal family. If she had to compare, they were far more human than those from her paternal side_ even her father would agree with that without missing a beat.
But all that had changed when her mother’s older sister, Delia, drove in with her daughter, Lemon.
Claire could tell that something was wrong because most smiles started to dwindle. Suddenly, everyone seemed to find a reason to return to their work or home.
"My husband is about to have a baby." Grandma Willow claimed, pushing herself to walk faster than she usually did.
At any other time, Claire would have laughed but she heard her mother whisper furiously, "Who invited them?"
Wilder shrugged.
Claire pursed her lips, analyzing the situation. It seemed these guests had turned up without calling first or being invited over.
"Oh, my sweet lord," Delia gasped the second she stepped onto the porch of Donna and Victor’s house, dabbing her nose with a silk handkerchief like the air itself was beneath her. "Donna, darling... is this a house or an oversized garden shed? I almost told the driver to keep going because I assumed this was where you kept the lawnmower. When you said that you bought a house, I figured that you were upgrading, not downgrading."
Donna clenched her jaw. Victor patted her back, whispering reassurances in her ear.
Delia lived in the Angel View Estate, the richer side of Fallon city. This was all thanks to her wealthy husband Trent Clinton, a low-level member of an oil family. But the way Delia acted, one would think Trenton was the heir to his family or held a high position in their businesses!
In truth, Trent managed a warehouse and lived off dividends and what he inherited from his grandfather.
Delia took her sister’s hand, looked at her sadly, "Sis, if you have nowhere to live, why don’t you move in with me?"
"You want Donna to live with you?" Grandma Wilder said as she opened Claire’s cooler and snapped it shut before Delia could see what it held.
Delia turned to look at her mother and scrutinized the clothes she was wearing_ baggy jeans, a faded graphic T-shirt, and a chunky chain around her neck. She shook her head in sheer horror. "Mother, what on earth are you wearing? What happened to those lovely, classy floral dresses I bought for you?" Her eyes found Donna’s, loaded with accusations. "Did you take them? I understand that you are poor, but you should have some limits!"