a war whoop. Scott had remembered, and he’d performed, and the result was a hell of a lot better, even, than what he and his dad had put together for the class. Maybe it wasn’t all a lost cause, after all. Maybe he could actually pull this thing off. Wouldn’t that be a kick?
As he pulled his sweater and parka back on, Scott forced himself to return to his mental checklist. What was he forgetting? He had short-term survival taken care of. Sort of. He had shelter. Now he needed food and water. Eating snow was not an option, even though it intuitively seemed like a solution to thirst. Sven had made the point repeatedly: frozen liquids cooled you from the inside out, thus inviting hypothermia. As for food, well, he didn’t have an immediate answer for that, either. That left him with the remaining priority of rescue.
He’d read Lord of the Flies and he’d seen Cast Away, so he knew even without dredging up the lessons from his survival class that he needed to focus his energy on building a fire. Problem was, Ralph and Piggy and Tom Hanks all found themselves on overheated islands. How the hell was he supposed to get things to burn in the snow? Even if he had matches (which he didn’t), how would he sustain the flame once it ignited? Seemed to Scott that even if he got something to catch, it would put itself out as the ground around it melted.
Hell of a thing to leave out of the lecture, Sven.
One thing at a time. Find a source of fire, and then worry about keeping it burning. He’d been all through Cody Jamieson’s pockets, and found nothing remotely resembling a match. Or flint and steel or even two sticks to rub together. American Cancer Society be damned, why didn’t people smoke anymore?
There had to be a way. There’s always a way; you just have to look at things from a different angle. Kind of like those find-the-word puzzles where turning the sheet upside down sometimes made things more obvious.
Scott hiked back to the wreckage for another look. The arcing from the night before had stopped, so he figured that the battery had died. Not that he’d know how to convert electricity to fire anyway. Seemed to him that as they were taking off, he remembered seeing a box about the size of an automobile first aid kit, marked Emergency in red letters, attached to the bulkhead just behind the pilot’s seat.
That’s what he was looking for. Surely, whoever manufactured an emergency kit for airplanes must have foreseen the possibility of a crash, and the need to signal somebody. That only made sense. With any luck at all, the emergency kit would be manufactured out of the same stuff that they made black boxes out of for airliners.
Snow hadn’t accumulated much inside the cockpit, thanks to the smallness of the openings, and the compartment’s orientation away from the wind. The place was a mess of papers and scattered debris, though, among which he found another flashlight, a dog-eared topographical map that he figured might come in handy, and there, wedged under a piece of the backseat, the emergency kit. He carried it back outside and sat in the snow to open it.
The kit was bigger than he’d remembered, maybe eight inches by twelve inches, and about three inches deep. Inside, he found some bandages, and a sheathed survival knife not unlike the one he remembered from his father’s collection of Vietnam stuff. (Scott figured that the knife must have been a personal addition to the kit from Cody; the knife by itself was worth more than everything else combined.)
Nestled in the bottom of the kit, wrapped in its own little Baggie, was the best discovery of the day: a flare gun. Smaller than the ones he’d seen in movies, the Day-Glo-orange pistol came with its own instruction sheet, which explained that the manufacturer had preloaded it with a single flare. He read through the rest of the instructions, finding nothing beyond the obvious. Huge block letters across the bottom of the sheet warned: KEEP OUT OF
As he pulled his sweater and parka back on, Scott forced himself to return to his mental checklist. What was he forgetting? He had short-term survival taken care of. Sort of. He had shelter. Now he needed food and water. Eating snow was not an option, even though it intuitively seemed like a solution to thirst. Sven had made the point repeatedly: frozen liquids cooled you from the inside out, thus inviting hypothermia. As for food, well, he didn’t have an immediate answer for that, either. That left him with the remaining priority of rescue.
He’d read Lord of the Flies and he’d seen Cast Away, so he knew even without dredging up the lessons from his survival class that he needed to focus his energy on building a fire. Problem was, Ralph and Piggy and Tom Hanks all found themselves on overheated islands. How the hell was he supposed to get things to burn in the snow? Even if he had matches (which he didn’t), how would he sustain the flame once it ignited? Seemed to Scott that even if he got something to catch, it would put itself out as the ground around it melted.
Hell of a thing to leave out of the lecture, Sven.
One thing at a time. Find a source of fire, and then worry about keeping it burning. He’d been all through Cody Jamieson’s pockets, and found nothing remotely resembling a match. Or flint and steel or even two sticks to rub together. American Cancer Society be damned, why didn’t people smoke anymore?
There had to be a way. There’s always a way; you just have to look at things from a different angle. Kind of like those find-the-word puzzles where turning the sheet upside down sometimes made things more obvious.
Scott hiked back to the wreckage for another look. The arcing from the night before had stopped, so he figured that the battery had died. Not that he’d know how to convert electricity to fire anyway. Seemed to him that as they were taking off, he remembered seeing a box about the size of an automobile first aid kit, marked Emergency in red letters, attached to the bulkhead just behind the pilot’s seat.
That’s what he was looking for. Surely, whoever manufactured an emergency kit for airplanes must have foreseen the possibility of a crash, and the need to signal somebody. That only made sense. With any luck at all, the emergency kit would be manufactured out of the same stuff that they made black boxes out of for airliners.
Snow hadn’t accumulated much inside the cockpit, thanks to the smallness of the openings, and the compartment’s orientation away from the wind. The place was a mess of papers and scattered debris, though, among which he found another flashlight, a dog-eared topographical map that he figured might come in handy, and there, wedged under a piece of the backseat, the emergency kit. He carried it back outside and sat in the snow to open it.
The kit was bigger than he’d remembered, maybe eight inches by twelve inches, and about three inches deep. Inside, he found some bandages, and a sheathed survival knife not unlike the one he remembered from his father’s collection of Vietnam stuff. (Scott figured that the knife must have been a personal addition to the kit from Cody; the knife by itself was worth more than everything else combined.)
Nestled in the bottom of the kit, wrapped in its own little Baggie, was the best discovery of the day: a flare gun. Smaller than the ones he’d seen in movies, the Day-Glo-orange pistol came with its own instruction sheet, which explained that the manufacturer had preloaded it with a single flare. He read through the rest of the instructions, finding nothing beyond the obvious. Huge block letters across the bottom of the sheet warned: KEEP OUT OF
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