Page 39 of Sass in the Grass

“Ew. That’s not cheese.”

Kathy whispered, “Shh, Jovian, just listen.”

“Right. Go ahead.”

Get a hard piece of wood. With a pointed rock, make a grove in it, and set your tinder there. Then, get your bow and spindle, and—”

“Spindle?”

Kathy told Alan, “Forget the technical words.”

“Okay, get your long straight piece of wood and wrap the shoelace around it, like this,” he said, showing Jovian to wrap it once around the round branch. “Then, hold it upright with another piece of wood or rock,” he said as he stood and held the straight wood onto the flat piece, using yet another flat piece.

Jovian knew he’d never remember. “This is just…too much.”

“I’m making notes, Jovian, and sending them to your phone,” Kathy said. “So watch, really close, and then when you read over the notes, you’ll remember what it looks like.”

“Fine,” he said, getting angry he had to act like he was back in school. He’d hated school.

He watched Alan leaning on the tall stick while moving the bow back and forth in a sawing motion, pressing it down onto the wood. Jovian didn’t understand how that could ever possibly make a fire.

“How does this even work?”

“Friction,” Mike told him.

Friction…thinking of Dixon and friction in the same moment only made him squirm. “That’s not the friction I like,” Jovian said with an exaggerated wink.

“Actually, sex can save your life too. If you’re going to freeze to death, it raises the body temperature,” Mike informed him.

“Yeah, uh, way to make even sex sound boring, Mike.”

Mike chuckled, but Alan called Jovian over. “Real quick, lick your finger and touch the bottom where the spindle…I mean the stick, where it touches the wood.”

Jovian rolled his eyes but sucked his finger for a second and then touched where Alan told him to, and he pulled his hand back quickly as he felt the heat almost burn him. “That’s hot! Why would you make me touch that?”

“You asked how it could possibly make fire, Jovian, remember?”

“Oh! Oh, right,” he said, then laughed. “I forgot.”

As Alan moved the bow back and forth again, Jovian watched as smoke appeared. “Look!”

“Yeah, now move some of that tinder over to it.”

“I don’t want to get burned!”

“Not onto it, just nearer.”

“’kay but be careful with me. I may not look like it, but I’m delicate.”

“No! You’re joking,” Alan teased sarcastically.

“Cheeky bloke,” Jovian said, then realized the three may not be as cultured as him, especially pop-cultured. “That means—”

“I know what it means, Jovian. You’re not the only one that watches Downton Abby.”

“Oh! Okay, great.”

Mike got down near the fire and started to gently blow on the tinder, but Jovian pulled him away from it. “Why are you blowing it out?”

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