The truth was that Hickory didn't mind going to school that much, that it wasn't even him he was worried about.

"Oh, Tackle, it's just tragic that you're gonna have to go to school, I know you don't like it one bit, sitting there all quiet and still for such a long time."

Tackle didn't look like she minded as long as she was with Hickory, she just clopped right behind him.

"And it isn't like we don't spend enough time reading already, that I'm pretty much a working man, that reading is a good bit of my job with how the book puts useless things in there."

Tackle snorted and shook her head.

"Exactly, no reason at all, it's just spite."

But there was nothing for it, if Ma wanted Hickory to go to school, then he'd go to school. He carried Tackle down off the landing of his Palace. She wasn't yet good with the stairs -

Then Hickory fed his chickens -

"That I should of known the second she mentioned learnin' that she'd hired her back, and after she made such a scene quitting! And we were paying the help good, hired the best folk around but Ma wanted that witch back and it don't make no sense to have her there every day!"

The chickens chuckled at him.

"It ain't big enough to need that much cleanin' and if anything I'll have to hire more, with how bad she is at it..."

Hickory walked around the corner since the wall wasn't all the way up yet he just went around it. There in the back was his worm tub and he checked em, they din't need another melon, that he knew he was spoiling them.

"We still ain't got no bananas." Hickory told the worms, "Though once we get those nuts picked I'll let you have as many as ya like."

There had been a reckoning at the Palace, that first couple days when he'd come down and found the help doing his chores. That the chickens were hardly happy to see him, that they'd already been fed.

And they'd given the worms just regular ole grass clippings from Hickory's mulching mound, not even a slice of something sweet!

"I reckon if I wasn't quick to it, they'd be sneaking behind me to try an wipe my ass before I even had the paper folded!"

Hickory filled up his watering can from the trough while Tackle got herself a morning swallow, of course she did it all dainty and looked at him, she liked the milk more, but what Tackle liked the best were strawberries.

Gage said not to spoil her, that she'd be temperamental if he spoiled her too much, and that was maybe true, but if Tackle was going to go to school then she was gonna have all the strawberries she could eat.

That Hickory had himself a little lunch satchel now that he kept with melon balls and strawberries and carrots and all that healthful stuff and they split it. Of course the melon balls were Hickory's favorite.

Hickory walked around the Palace watering the flowers, looking for litter, and there wasn't any and normally that'd be a good thing but he wanted to be mad at something just now and he was having trouble finding something proper to be mad at.

He couldn't be mad at nothin! That wouldn't be right!

Hickory walked down to the little dock and climbed on up his Fan Boat and started up the engine. Of course Tackle couldn't ride a dirt bike, and Hunter had been thinking about that, bringing out this Fan Boat and what a Best Good Buddy he was, building the palace, the boat, and they were gonna be neighbors.

Hickory had taken the passenger seat out of it and bolted down an old claw foot bath tub. He took the cover off cause the dew would just get all the pillows and blankets wet and Tackle was particular.

She loved to frolic in that grass, but she wouldn't do it if there was a bit of water on it, she was funny about water. Hickory thought it was cause she didn't want to get her ribbons wet.

She'd picked out red ribbons today, and Hickory had worried at first but it turned out that all those ribbons and braids weren't a bit different then a trappin' knot, that he'd been able to weave em right in after her morning brushing.

He put on Tackle's ear muffs and her scarf since there was a bit of chill this early and he started up the engine and unhooked the rope holding the boat, and then he took off to school keeping his eyes open the whole way for people shitting in his river.

Lord help them if he found who was doing it! And since the river was just a bit lower today, well it just meant he kept his eyes open as well for fishing holes. That this fancy boat could get just about anywhere, that he could drive it right up on the bank and over the grass?

It was a handy thing. That he pushed it right up next to the school, that it was a college now. And that was the fine thing about them upgrades! That Hickory had discovered that if people did most of the work themselves, that they earned the upgrade and it was free.

That a building would just level on up all on it's own and he didn't have to do nothing except worry about the up keeping. In fact Weston had explained that with the Razing option, he could tear a building down and get the free points, it was a bonus...

That meant that it was actually free points when a building got bigger...that it was like a free trial, you got to have it for ten cycles without it costing you anything since most of them upkeeps were 1/10 -

That was a fraction of the cost. Hickory was working on his fractions at school. And 1/2 the time he was working on his reading.

That he knew that sometimes you had to wiggle the number and get it to a percent, he had to do that ten percent of the time right now, which was also 1/10 of the time.

And that Tackle was such a big help, that she liked to hold the pencil. They learned the numbers together and he was teaching her how to count, and it was really a nice thing because Tackle was just the smartest horse.

That she told Hickory how smart he was with those big eyes? That he could just see it there, and well he wasn't crazy about the schoolin' but nobody had ever looked at him like he was much more brighter then a tick, but Tackle?

They had their own corner of the school and nobody bothered them, he had a big pile of pillows for her. That a few people said hello to him when he walked in and he waved back, but that was the thing -

That school wasn't about just sitting there, it was about doing them tests, that Becca must of told Ma that Hickory could sit there all day and not do anything? That was maybe what he'd done at first, maybe played on the equipment testing out his stats?

It was a hoot, playing that dodge ball with Tackle! Them working together to dodge all them balls, having so much fun, Tackle cried the first time one hit her and Hickory of course had tried cutting the machine to pieces with his sword - and then the whole damn building had stopped working right!

He had to repair it to make it all work proper again, it had 4%, or 4/100 damage. And he had to pay those points from the Font and since it was a College now? It was 30 points before everything started working again...

Chase had been salty about that, that Hickory had maybe caused a deviation in some experiment or something, but deviation wasn't yet in his reading so he didn't worry about it.

That Becca had told Ma that Hickory was probably loafing, that now when he walked into the school he searched all around for where she was hiding, but didn't see her.

Now he had to rip out the tests and take em home to show Ma he was studying, but it also meant he could get the work done fast, that Ma only made him do three tests a day.

If he worked hard, if he didn't goof off -

"Are you ready for a strawberry?"

He was craving a melon ball, and that meant Tackle was hungry, too. Hickory put out the nice containers of snacks, and opened up the fruit cups and they each had a snack.

And since they were eating it wasn't quite time for studying, so he pulled out his other book, the book he didn't mind reading always as much since he had begun to understand it better.

There were some choices he was thinking over, that the way things worked it made sense to spend the points on useful things, things that only you could get from the book.

That if you could build it without the book? Why pay those awful upkeep points?

But there were things you could only do with the book. Like the Post Office.

Post Office 2000 | 200

A structure for correspondence within a settlement.

Bath House 1000 | 100

A structure for bathing with customization options.

50 Occupants.

Public Bathroom 500 | 50

A place for depositing and disposing of waste.

20 Occupants.

Foundry 5000 | 500

A structure for efficiently separating raw ore from stone and producing base metal ingots.

Stage 1000 | 100

An entertainment venue that allows for special effects to enhance performances.

Pottery Works 3000 | 300

A structure that produces a supply of raw Clay and the equipment needed to fire it into permanency.

Glass Works 4000 | 400

A structure that supplies fine sand and the equipment needed to melt, pour, and process glass.

That there were actually more and more choices each day, that when somebody started doing something with the materials it usually gave a better way. Hickory could make Blacksmith Yards, Candle and Soup yards, Rope Works, Baker's Oven, Soup Kitchens, and even a Fish Processing Facility...

The problem with doing all that was he'd have to pay the upkeep, and the way it almost seemed was like he'd be shooting himself in the foot. That if people could do those things on their own?

If he made one thing that much easier then all the rest? Especially now that they knew those Hearths were coming, did he really want to own all those things? To be responsible for them all?

Now the Order was different, the Order was for the benefit of everybody, getting that Hatchery upgraded, making it so that people could all enjoy fishing? That Hickory didn't have to think a bit about getting all those neat buddies a nice Hall for their hard work.

That's what made the most sense to Hickory, that for him to use his points on doing the things for everybody, and sure in the beginning he'd not thought to put in that Bathroom, though it was just fine to use the outhouses Hunter had built and they did work...

That at the Flag Festival he had to wait in line and ended up running to the bushes anyway? That Ladies take a good deal longer, and when Hickory had been waiting in line he'd noticed that not everybody had the proper manners to spend a marble to wash their hands!

It was those things that made a man really consider what was important that all them folk wanted to give Tackle a pet and Hickory had to tell them not until he saw them wash their hands.

That she was a baby horse and you can't go just touching a lady without a clean hand and if they were mad, well...

It was for the good of everyone, but Hickory eyed those bathrooms, that picture and he was thinking about the public good just then, that it was a gut feeling that people needed more bathrooms.

He couldn't figure out what he was gonna do, and it had nothing to do with the fact that he was sitting here eating melon balls and there was something about eating a lot of fruit...

That the school needed a public bathroom and that just made sense for Hickory to think about making people happy.

And that was when Hickory discovered something else with the book because as he was looking at the Book - had perhaps pulled out that page with the public bathroom on it like a sheet of toilet paper just as though he knew he was gonna have to go -

People did that, Hickory knew they did, they made a contract just so they could wipe their ass then washed it again! Hunter told him that, and sure he'd thought it was one of them jokes.

But just then Hickory had a feeling in his stomach, and he tore that paper and...he wasn't going to go in the river.

The shadow, the shape that formed for the bathroom. And this was what was neat - that normally the shape is red if a building can't go somewhere. That if the Hatchery wasn't right on the river the shadow had turned red...

It turned Green!

And it had never done that, a building had never turned green when he'd picked it. That it let him add a public bathroom on an existing building and it didn't cost as much?

He realized that looking at the upkeep, the new upgrade for the College that now had a bathroom - of course right then he was running through a new door off the side of the building and it had a bunch of doors and he chose one and -

Those melon balls were delicious. He was the last person that would complain about a good melon ball, and the strawberries were tasty, too, if a little more sour and that was good sometimes as well and why Tackle loved 'em.

And of course he finished quickly. So quickly in fact that he was done and reaching for a bit of paper - and noticed there wasn't any. There was instead two buttons.

Of course one would give the paper and one would flush the toilet, that was how such things worked and Hickory pushed them both.

"Ya done tricked me again!" Hickory said once his heart had slowed down and he'd finished repairing the College, "Now I know why Weston's sour half the time if that was just a taste, boy Gage must be a hell of a cook, I'm tellin' ya."

At least nobody had been around to hear him scream, that these buildings were made proper, and he'd not heard another soul enter, the rooms weren't like the cheap ones, but each bathroom was fancy - cruel, certainly, but fancy -

That he just wouldn't mention it to anybody and they'd never know, they could figure it out for themselves and he'd pretend the book had told him all along, that he'd had a pocket full of paper when he went in.

Hickory washed his hands and of course it didn't need a button to do that, that the toilet hadn't needed a button to flush either, that both those buttons had been -

Now the first button hand't felt bad, sure it'd been a cold surprise and a bit rougher then he liked but...

And the way the air had come breathing on him after, that hadn't been bad either. That those should be their own buttons.

That when Hickory walked out the door of the bathroom there was a whole crowd gathered, they all started clapping! Clapping just like that time they all had after Chase left the room him and Katie had disappeared in for a solid twenty -

Hooting and hollering, celebrating, all them smart kids, how did they even know?

"No, it ain't like that." Hickory said, "Don't get all excited."

They weren't listening to him, they were shouting, running in all wild. With the doors open Hickory could hear it, them pushing the buttons, that terrible noise, all that pressured water spraying - and them cheering for him!

"No, it ain't what ya think, it didn't happen that way, I didn't do what you're thinking I did! I don't like that sort of stuff."

Hickory knew he was beet red, as they were patting him on the back, squeezing him like he was a hero, and of course they'd done the same thing to Chase, but that was different, that was Katie, she was a looker, now -

"Well, I reckon it wasn't anything to be shamed of, I'm not saying I liked it but it's just more surprising then anything." Hickory said, as he pulled himself free, as he headed back to Tackle that had her hooves up on the table to see, looking all curious, that of course she'd had a few more strawberries and looking Hickory saw she'd saved him one...

Hickory got back to reading, got back to deciding and he'd put a few bathrooms in and that made sense...that it was the Chapel that had him on edge the most.