The outside looked pretty normal to Sylvia as well. This was the place she had grown her entire life with her mom. A very run down area with handful of houses here and there at quarter of a mile radius. Some houses were larger while other were smaller, while Sylvia could swear that their house was the smallest of them all.
Sylvia saw her mother checking a big barrel filled with lid on top of it. There was a hose attached to it connected with a big funnel that was on top of a tree that it hugged. Mary was opening the lid and took a two mouthful from with a laddle spoon that hanged from the side of the barrel. Sylvia saw that her mother was hand waving her to drink from it. Sylvia felt quite thirsty, ran next to her mother and sipped the water as her mother hold the laddle.
"And for breakfast I'm going to cook us some tuna straight from the can." Mary said as she walked back at the house and came back outside while holding two tunafish cans, some paper and her trusty zippo. Sylvia watched from the side as her mother opened the tin cans on top of a dirt filled with sand. Both of them had fish soaked in some sort of oil. Mary put some cheap looking toilet paper on top of them as it soaked a little bit of the oil and then lit the paper on fire. Sylvia was a bit confused but looked in awe as the top of the tuna can was on flames.
"Now we wait for 8 minutes until all the oil is gone." Mary said as she looked at Sylvia. "In the meantime kiddo. Could you bring my phone next to the bed as I seemed to forgotten it inside?"
Sylvia ran back inside and heard a car parking outside of the house.
"Good morning Miss Mary. Breakfast in the making?" A somewhat older and bassy male voice asked.
Sylvia peeked from side of the door as he saw two unknown man talking with her mother. Both of them looked a bit overweight and maybe even twice as old as her mother. They had some "salt and pepper" in their beard or that was her mother called it. Both leaning on the pick-up truck and eyeing at her mother as they were fully clothed. The one next to the driver seat wore a trucker hat, very tight looking t-shirt with suspender holding his jeans. While other had a sleeveless shirt and similar looking jeans.
"Morning to you too Mr. Johnson and Johnson, and yeah, times are tough as I have two pair of mouths to feed." Mary replied back.
"That's a shame Miss. I was just wondering that if there was way we could, umm, help you? For a small compensation of course." The man continued.
Mary gave a bit side eye and replied: "Sure. What you had in mind?"
"You see. Me and my brother here heard that you provide some "services" by this... by this... what did they call it Mike?" The man rambled.
"Smart phone." Mike replied back to his brother.
"Ah yes, indeed, the smart phone. And as we've seen men entering and exiting your premises we thought that if you scratched our back. You'd..."
"Yeah. I could, but I'm telling you straight away that I ask at least 300 per customer. Which means you better have twice that much." Sylvia explained.
"Ah, but we do. Mike, show miss Mary the money." The man laughed.
Sylvia could see the other guy fanning the hundred dollar bills in front of him and flashing them to her mother. Mary looked at the tuna for a while but agreed to offer services to the gentlemen.
"Yo Sil!" Her mother shouted. "Instead of the phone put some warm clothes on and come outside. I have some customers here."
The two men looked at the shack and asked if they could instead invite Mary to a scenic drive by the mall instead. That way if she needed to buy anything they would offer to pay for the items.
"Scratch that. Stay inside while I come and grab my stuff!" Mary shouted again as the two men smiled.
In a short moment Mary put some clothes on her and took the phone and her wallet with her.
"Kiddo. I might be away for a while, so if you want, eat mine too." Mary said while giving a kiss on Sylvia's forehead and placing both of the warm tuna cans in front of her daughter. And just like that her mother hopped inside the pick-up truck's backseat and they were all gone in a second. A small gut feeling told Sylvia that something weird was going to happen as she begun to eat the cooked tuna.