The Apocalypse Survival Manual (Three Days Before Doomsday, I Stockpiled Billions) novel Chapter 596

Chapter 596

Brandon made stuffed bread rolls for me,” Poppy said, “but Sven’s terrible with dough, so I had to help him. We made some with cured meat and others with pickled vegetables. They still weren’t as good as the ones we make at home.”

People could be hard to read, so Nicole asked Poppy, “Did they ask you anything about what we have at home?”

“No.” Poppy took another bite of steak, then frowned. “But when I covered Zeph’s patrol shift, a few people kept trying to chat with me. Then they started asking what kind of supplies we had.”

Poppy might have been only ten, but she wasn’t naive.

Nicole and Zeph had taught her well, and she had already seen more than most adults ever would. She didn’t have much life experience, but she knew enough to understand when someone was fishing for information.

She had a pretty good sense of who could be trusted.

Those people didn’t manage to learn anything useful from her. If anything, Poppy turned the conversation around and found out far more about them than they did about her.

Villa 12, Villa 19, and Villa 23 were the three households Poppy had pegged as trouble, and she knew to keep her distance from them from now on.

The girl might have looked sweet and innocent, but she was sharper than people gave her credit for. From now on, Nicole suspected Poppy would be the one outsmarting others, not the other way around.

That was one less thing to worry about.

As a reward, Zeph peeled a shrimp for her, and Poppy immediately brightened.

“Woof!” Cola clearly thought one shrimp wasn’t enough to buy his approval.

Nicole laughed. “Yes, Cola. You did great, too. You were one of the stars of the whole operation.”

Cola immediately nudged his bowl forward, clearly asking for more.

Once everyone had eaten their fill, they turned off the lights and went to bed.

Curled up under the warm blankets, Nicole was so comfortable that she barely wanted to move.

Poppy, on the other hand, was up early and insisted on taking the patrol shift by herself so Nicole and Zeph could sleep a little longer.

Zeph agreed. The sooner kids learned to take care of themselves in the apocalypse, the better their chances of surviving.

He reminded Poppy to dress warmly, wear sturdy shoes, and be polite to people, but never let her guard down or trust anyone too easily.

Poppy took every word seriously. “I know, Zeph.”

Once they had caught up on sleep and gotten out of bed, Zeph went to tend to the poultry in the backyard while Nicole checked the medicinal plants in her storage space.

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