The past few weeks had seen Flora miserable—not only was her home being eaten alive by fog, frogs, and now bugs, apparently, but this whole fiasco was putting a damper on her summer! She'd spent the entire last year mapping out her plans for school supplies shopping, but now she was stuck here with none of her friends to keep her company! Mama could find a way to keep herself entertained, but what was she—an idle eleven-year-old girl—to do?

There were, admittedly, a few options, but none of them were capable of capturing her attention for very long. While other children might be allowed the freedom to roam in packs, Flora was a lady, and that meant she always had someone on her tail. If she was predisposed towards trouble-making, she might have run off to seek a new source of entertainment; however, she was decidedly not, and thus had resigned to her boredom.

Except today was different, at least compared to the last few ones.

They'd gone to the shore today to look out to the sea, and there were people—children even! Though she'd stuck by her chaperon's side for the majority of the walk, it was nearly impossible to ignore the passerby after while. She took a deep breath, gathered what courage she had, and approached one of the other children with a smile.

"Excuse me," she prodded, looking up at them with wide blue eyes. "Everyone I've passed has one of those candies." She pointed to what looked like a taffy in their hand. "Do you know where might I get one?"

---