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stare Chapter 3
Money Matters

Lauren stared out into the blue-green sea, stretching for miles and miles before her. Everything here was so beautiful. Everybody was getting along, they were working out small problems as they came up, and they were all living toegther peacefully. Everything was working out.
She watched as waves piled over eachother on her small island. She walked over to the rowboat that she was working on, and started tying the twigs together with seaweed that she found along the shoreline. She dug up more clay for filling in the cracks in the clay mine she had found behind the cave where she lived. At this rate, she would be finished within a matter of days.

Betty Sue looked at the horizon with deep worry. Things seemed to be going well, but how were they really going to exist here? Some things people just needed money for, and none of them had any. What if they needed to get something that they didn't have on the island? Nobody outside of Granite Grave used trade.
They needed a way to get money. But how? It finally came to her, after many hours of thought. It was simple, really. So simple that she couldn't beleive that she hadn't thought of it sooner.
All that they needed to do was send people out to work in the real world. Every month, 10 of the members would gather up food, and go into Canada, and pick up temporary jobs to earn money for the tribe. After a month, they would switch with another clan. They had around a hundred people. This way, everybody would only have to spend around 1/10 of their time in the outside world.
Maybe they could have 20 or so volunteers, that would be in the outside world half of the time, making money. They would get to keep some of it, of course. That would be what made the job worth it. They could buy materials for clothing, materials that would work better then seaweed, and many other things.
This would be complicated, but it could work.

Lauren rushed to the main island. She heard that Betty Sue had an announcement to make. When she got there, she found that the founder was just starting to speak.
"So, if a few of us get jobs in the mainland, we can live seperatly from the rest of the world, but still have money so that if we need to, we can trade with other people, outside of the island. We could get cloth to make cloths, food when or if we run out of it, and anything else that we might find we need. Now, we could either have a few of us volunteer, or we could get a few of the people who supported the creation of this place but couldn't leave their lives behind, and get them to donate some money. We would just need a few people to take some quick trips to the rest of the world to visit people."
Everyone agreed with the latter. A few people decided to go to the mainland, and visit some people asking for donations. The next day they left, with the entire community seeing them leave, wishing good luck.

Two weeks later, Betty Sue smiled for the first time in a few days. The volunteers returned, and they had money! Things would work out now, she knew that.

And things did work out, in that little cluster of islands called Granite Grave. At least for awhile....