Day 3

When Jiho and I woke up, we both had a headache and felt nauseous. We ate some breadfruit, and I thought I might throw mine up, but I didn’t. Even though we had very little energy, we returned to the beach and decided to try building a fire again. I was convinced a plane would fly over that day, and I knew a fire was our best chance to make sure they spotted us.

“We did it all wrong yesterday,” Jiho said. “I was thinking about it last night, before I fell asleep, and I remember watching a show on TV where the guy had to make a fire. He spun the stick instead of rubbing two of them together. I have an idea. I’m going to see if I can find what I need.”

While he was gone, I gathered anything that would burn if we actually managed to produce a flame. The air was so humid, and the only thing on the island that was dry was the inside of my mouth. Everything I picked up felt damp, but I finally found some dry leaves on the underside of a flowering plant. I also pulled the pockets of my jeans inside out and found a bit of lint which I added to the pile in my hand.

Jiho returned with a stick and a smaller chunk of wood.

“Do you have any lint in your pockets?” I asked him. He turned his pockets inside out, found some, and handed it to me.

“Thanks.” I formed the lint and leaves into a little nest. I also gathered small sticks and collected a mound of damp, green leaves we could add to make plenty of smoke.

Jiho sat down and held the stick upright, perpendicular to the chunk of wood it rested on.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

“I’m trying to figure out a way to spin the stick.” He studied it for a minute. “I think the guy used a string. I wish I hadn’t kicked off my shoes; could have used the laces.”

He twisted the stick back and forth with one hand but he couldn’t spin it fast enough to get any friction. Sweat ran down his face.

“This is ing impossible,” he said, resting for a few minutes.

With renewed determination, he used both hands and rubbed them together, with the stick in between them. It spun much faster, and he quickly found a rhythm. After twenty minutes, the spinning stick produced a little pile of black dust in the notch he’d worn in the chunk of wood.

“Look at that,” Jiho said, when a wisp of smoke drifted up.

Shortly after that, there was a lot more smoke. Sweat ran into his eyes but Jiho didn’t stop spinning the stick.

“I need the nest.”

I set it down next to him and held my breath, watching as he blew gently on the notch in the wood. He used the stick to carefully dig out the glowing red ember and transfer it to the pile of dry leaves and lint. He picked the nest up and held it in front of his mouth, blowing softly, and it burst into flames in his hands. He dropped it on the ground.

“Oh my God,” I said. “You did it.”

We piled small pieces of tinder on top of it. It grew fast and we quickly used up the sticks I’d collected. We hurried to find more, and we were both running toward the fire with an armful when the sky opened up and poured. In seconds, the fire turned into a soggy pile of charred wood

We stared at what was left of it. I wanted to cry. Jiho sunk to his knees on the sand. I sat down next to him, and we lifted our heads to ca