“Listen up, y’all.” She reminds everyone to keep the room clean, to be respectful of the school and each other, and that all science-class rules apply after 2 p.m. like they do before 2 p.m. Then she goes to her office. She closes the door part of the way.
“My co-founder is Eleanor Dross,” Mack picks back up, and I do a little wave. “Who else is here? Introduce yourselves.”
“I’m Spencer.”
“Hey, Spencer,” Mack replies.
“Dominic Miller.”
“Hi, Dominic,” Mack says.
“Ajay Finley. Seventh grade. I’m in Mr. Furman’s homeroom.”
“Thanks, Ajay, for all the information,” Mack jokes.
“Wyatt McClure,” another boy says. I don’t know him. He’s tall, white, and dresses like my dad in khaki pants and a blue collared shirt.
“Oh hey, Wyatt. Thanks for coming.” I can’t tell if Mack knows Wyatt or if he’s just being friendly Mack. He probably knows him. Mack knows everyone.
The white girl with long blond-and-pink hair speaks. “I’m Jade Gilchrist, and she’s Izabell Medina-Flores.”
Izabell is Hispanic, with shoulder-length black hair, and she’s tiny. She could pass for a fourth grader easily. Both girls wear well-worn matching friendship bracelets. I can imagine they’ve had them on for years.
“Hey, Izabell. Hey, Jade. I’m glad you came,” Mack says to the girls.
There’s a pause.
“Is that everyone?” Mack asks.
“Yep,” Spencer answers.
“Okay. Nature Club is a very special club,” Mack says. “It could literally save your life.”
The girls exchange looks. I can’t tell if they’re confused or scared or maybe even amused.
“We will talk about ways nature can hurt us and harm us,” Mack continues. “These might be the most important lessons you’ve ever learned in a school.”
I pull out my dinosaur notebook with my ideas. It’s not going to be easy to teach a class on survival without explaining that’s what I’m doing.
“Can we get to the good stuff?” Dominic asks.
“Yeah,” Spencer agrees. “Like how do we build a bunker?”
I glance back at Mrs. Walsh. She’s staring at her computer.
“That’s for my co-founder to address.” Mack adjusts his dark glasses. “Take it away, Elle.”
I can’t move. I might pee myself if I try to stand.
“Um…” I look at my notebook. Everything is blurry.
“Come on. Tell us how to build a bunker,” Spencer whines. “I haven’t bothered you at lunch all week.”
“We’re not building bunkers,” I mumble. “That’s not the purpose of Nature Club.”
Izabell raises her hand, which is weird because I’m not a teacher. “Isn’t this the secret club to get ready for the end of the world?” she asks, her voice even softer than mine.
“Um…where did you hear that?” I ask.
She points at Mack. Of course.
I turn to Wyatt. “Is that why you’re here?”
“I guess,” he says. “My goal is to join every club at Hamilton Middle. I’m building my résumé.”
“How can you join every club?” Ajay asks. “Some meet at the same time. Chess Club meets on Wednesdays too.”
“I was in Chess Club in seventh grade,” Wyatt explains. “I don’t need to be in everything at once. I need to join each for a school year. I even joined the Girls in STEM Club.”
“You did?” Jade asks.
“Yeah, my father threatened to sue the school if they didn’t let me in. I was the treasurer. Do y’all need a treasurer?”
“No,” I answer.
Mrs. Walsh still isn’t paying us any attention. I wave for everyone to come closer. Spencer leads Mack over. We form a tight circle.
Expect it to be great, and it will be great. I take a deep breath.
“Okay, officially, this is Nature Club. Don’t call it anything else.” I look around for nods of agreement. “We won’t be building bunkers. That’s not realistic. We’ve got to keep it real.”
“I always do,” Mack says.
“And don’t invite anyone else. This is enough.” Maybe I should get these rules in writing. “Everyone knows about the asteroid, right?”
The boys from lunch nod. Wyatt, Jade, and Izabell look lost.
“I guess we need to start there.” I review everything I know about 2010PL7, which is still very little. But it’s kind of amusing to watch everyone’s reaction. Spencer has a big, goofy grin. Wyatt’s eyes are enormous. Izabell nods her head like it all makes complete sense.
“I don’t believe this,” Jade says, throwing up her hands.
“Then why are you here?” I ask.
“Two words.” She holds up her fingers. “Global warming.”
“Oh.”
“Oceans are rising. Extreme weather events are happening all the time. Greenhouse gases are choking our environment. By 2080, half the plants are going to be gone, and one-third of the animals!”
“All true, I think.” I’m not going to argue with her. “But this asteroid will be here well before 2080. It’ll be here next year.”
“Are we all going to die?” Dominic clutches his heart dramatically, like we’re acting out Shakespeare scenes in language arts class.
“No, assuming it doesn’t hit close to North Carolina. We will live, and we will be prepared. This is natural selection. The prepared survive.”
“I don’t think that’s what Darwin meant,” Mack says.
“Who’s Darwin?” I ask.
“Dude, he came up with natural selection.” Mack laughs.
“That’s right.” I feel stupid for a second, but then I make a joke. “I thought he was that new kid from Portland in our homeroom.”
“Get to the point, please,” Spencer says. “I know about the asteroid. What do I need to do to survive?” He takes out a composition notebook that I know is meant for journaling in language arts class, because I have one just like it.
“Okay, okay. Let’s start with basic needs. We all know what those are, right?”
“Food, water, and shelter,” Ajay says, giving the standard social studies answer.
“Yes, sort of. But we need clean air first. Oxygen,” I explain.
“You can’t breathe, game over.” Mack slumps in his chair like he’s a goner.
“Our air already has too much carbon,” Jade says.
“This will be worse. Depending on where it strikes. I’ve been reading a lot about the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. The K-T extinction. If this hits land, like the dino asteroid did, it will throw rock and dirt and dust into the air. But it’s not only rock. The pressure and speed will make them flaming rocks—flaming glass, really. As they rain down, forest, fields, buildings will catch on fire. Then we will have dust, dirt, and smoke. So, yeah, clean air might be a problem.” I don’t bother to tell them that, over time, oxygen levels could decrease if plants are deprived of light and can’t photosynthesize. That’s down the line, not a problem to discuss at our first meeting.
“Did you know that every year an asteroid bigger than a car strikes Earth somewhere?” Ajay adds.
“Is that true?” Izabell asks, staring at me.
I shrug. “I don’t know. Ajay is smart, so I assume he’s right.”
“I am right! I love astronomy. Ask me anything about our universe. I can name all the planets and most of their moons.” Ajay takes a breath like he’s about to drown us in space talk.
“Don’t get him going!” Dominic puts a palm in Ajay’s face.
“I don’t care about other planets,” Spencer says. “I care about surviving on this one. I’m going to buy a gas mask off Amazon or eBay, just in case.”
“Do what you want. Back to th
e other needs. Clean water is at the top of the list. You can go for days without food, but water is super important. The sinks in our homes might not work, and if they do, the purification plants won’t be running. So the water in your house could be contaminated. Drink it, and you’ll get sick.”
“Our oceans are already contaminated! They’re more acidic than they’ve ever been in human history.” Jade’s wearing an aqua-blue shirt that says ONE EARTH, ONE OCEAN. I wonder if she wore it specifically for today’s meeting. Or maybe she cares about the environment all the time.
“You can’t drink ocean water, anyway.” Spencer turns his back on Jade. “How can we tell if the sink water is clean, Eleanor?”
“Assume it’s not,” I say.
“Get a water purifier,” Mack says. “Do it like today. I got one.”
“After water, we need food and shelter. The food should include ready-to-eat meals and stuff to cook, and even seeds to grow. As for shelter, it’s not just your house.”
“Yeah, it should be a bunker,” Spencer says.
I ignore him. “Your house needs to be protected, and you have to remember there won’t be any electricity. You’ll have to cook without a stove or microwave. You’ll need to heat the house without the thermostat. Shelter isn’t only the building. It’s all this stuff.”
Izabell raises her hand again. “How do you know all this?”
“I’ve read a few books.”
“And her grandfather is a major prepper. He does have a bunker, sort of,” Mack says. I should elbow him in the ribs, but he’s too excited. Nothing short of a gag is going to keep him quiet.
“He doesn’t have a bunker, but yeah, he’s really into this stuff.” I was worried my prepper grandfather would be an embarrassment, but in Nature Club, he’s kinda cool.
“I think Eleanor should be president,” Spencer says.
“I’ll be treasurer,” Wyatt offers again.
“She doesn’t want a title,” Mack answers. “No titles!”
“I don’t know.” I shrug. I’ve never been president, captain, or boss of anything. No one has ever suggested that I could be. “Maybe being president wouldn’t be so bad.”
We hold a quick election by raising our hands. I’m unanimously selected as president. Mack is vice president. Wyatt takes the treasurer spot (I don’t know what funds he’ll be tracking), and I’m also assigned secretary because of my neat handwriting.
The rest of the meeting flies by as we randomly talk about first aid, gardening, building fishing nets, bartering, and dogs. It probably would have been better if we went in some kind of order, even alphabetical, because most of the group looks overwhelmed.
“That’s a lot to think about,” Ajay says.
“I know.” I close my notebook. “We’ve got some time to figure this all out.”
“When’s the next meeting?” Jade asks.
“In two weeks,” Mack answers. “Same time. Same place.”
“No,” she whines.
“That’s too long to wait,” Spencer adds. “Can’t we meet every Wednesday?”
I smile and say, “I’ll think about it.”
Starting this club might be one of the smartest decisions I’ve ever made. Right behind adopting Bubbles (I picked her out) and agreeing to be Mack’s special helper in kindergarten. Or maybe I should wait for the next meeting before declaring myself a genius.
On Saturday, Mack and I go to Grandpa Joe’s house for a class on tying knots and starting fires. This lesson was my idea, but I didn’t realize we’d be doing it outside in the freezing cold. We sit on his back deck in our warmest coats and the wind still cuts through.
“These are skills everyone in my generation learned when they were knee high,” Grandpa Joe says as he untangles various ropes.
I tilt my head and stare at him. “I thought your generation invented fire. Ya know, when you were living in the caves and hunting mammoths.”
Mack laughs and then blows on his hands to keep them warm.
“Soldier, this is serious. No more jokes.” But Grandpa Joe isn’t being serious either. He smiles and winks at me.
“Yes, sir.” I salute him.
He holds up two bundles, one white and one blue. “This is rope.” He gestures to the white one. “And this is cordage.”
“What’s the difference?” I know it’s not the color.
“This isn’t an English class, but here’s how I think of it. Rope is made of natural fibers and it’s thicker, at least a quarter-inch diameter.” He hands me the white bundle and I share it with Mack.
“And cordage is synthetic, smaller, and usually has an outer layer called a mantle. This is military five-fifty cord, or parachute cord.”
“We going skydiving?” Mack asks.
“We’re trying to survive, not die.” I give him the parachute cord to check out.
“And I got you these.” Grandpa Joe reaches into a plain plastic shopping bag and pulls out a handful of braided rope. He gives me a brown-and-green version and a gray one.
“A paracord bracelet. Thanks!” I’ve had these before but always seem to lose them. “In case of emergency, you can unravel it and have about two yards of strong cordage. To pitch a tent or tie a bear,” I explain for Mack’s sake. I place the gray bracelet in his hand and put his finger on the plastic-dipped end that you pull to unravel.
“You can also use them to tie up your britches.” Grandpa Joe yanks his pants up under his giant belly. “Got one for each of the boys too. Don’t want ’em feeling left out.”
I fasten Mack’s around his left wrist before clasping my own. In a way, they’re friendship bracelets, like the ones Jade and Izabell have. But these have an even bigger purpose.
“Now let’s get movin’ on knots, soldiers. We’ll use the rope, not cordage, ’cause it’s easier to work with. We’ll start with a slipknot.”
“Can we build a fire first? It’s so cold out here.” I hold up my gloved hands. My fingers don’t feel like they’re able to cooperate.
“Private Eleanor, we’ve got to toughen you up.” Grandpa Joe shakes his head but can’t hide his grin.
He launches into a lesson on fire that starts with the reasons we need it—cooking, protection, warmth. The easiest way to start a fire is with matches or a lighter. Of course, he’s not going to let us go that route. He takes out a flint-and-steel set from a nylon bag.
“To start a fire we need a starter, oxygen, and fuel.” We have the starter and oxygen, and he teaches us how to build a “bird’s nest” for fuel. I’m relieved when we don’t have to snatch one from a tree. We build our own with twigs and grass and bits of rope.
“Good job, soldiers,” Grandpa Joe says when we have our nests ready. He demonstrates how to use the flint and steel. He holds the C-shaped piece of steel in his right hand and quickly runs the piece of flint over it. Sparks fly with each strike. Then he moves his tools over his bird’s nest and ignites it.
I give Mack a play-by-play of the demonstration.
“I smell the smoke,” Mack says. “We should have s’mores.”
Grandpa Joe makes fire-starting appear easy, and I’m excited to try. I hit the flint against the steel. Nothing. I do it again and again, turning the rock in my hand, trying to find the sharpest edge. I might as well be hitting my head against a tree. It would have the same outcome.
“Ugh.” I throw down the tools after I hit my knuckles for the tenth time.
“This is why we practice,” Grandpa Joe says.
Mack is anxious to try too. Grandpa Joe guides his hands so he gets the motion down, and I’m jealous when I see a spark. But it’s not enough to light the bird’s nest. Mack gives it several more attempts on his own. No fire.
“I think we need to stockpile matches,” I say.
“Dude, that’s a good idea.”
&nbs
p; Grandpa Joe takes pity on us and lights my bird’s nest. He uses it to start a bigger fire in his outdoor pit. Now I really am in the mood for s’mores. We’re about to turn our attention back to tying knots when Mack’s phone joins the conversation.
“Text message from Mom. Do you want me to read it?” Siri asks.
“Yes.”
Siri speaks again. “I need to pick you up early. Gavin Smithfield is coming over this afternoon.”
Mack tells Siri to text his mom “Okay.” And he gets a reply that Mrs. Jefferson will be here in fifteen minutes.
Grandpa Joe shakes his head. “I’ll be glad when cell towers go down. I’m tired of these blasted phones.” He chuckles.
“Who’s Gavin Smithfield?” I ask Mack. I usually like cell phones, but now I kind of agree with Grandpa Joe.
“He’s a student from the Conrad School. He’s in town for the weekend, and my mom wants me to meet him.”
My heart sinks. “Why?”
“Obviously, Mom is trying to find me a new best friend,” Mack says. “Better watch out, Elle—you’re being replaced.”
“Ha ha. Like anyone else could put up with you.” I try to make it sound like I’m joking around and don’t care.
“You’re not replaceable,” Grandpa Joe butts in. “You’ll always be Mack’s number one girl.”
“Ew, Grandpa. That sounds gross.”
Mack laughs. “Mom thinks talking to this kid will help me make a decision about Conrad. It’s my chance to ask questions that I wouldn’t ask a teacher or counselor. What are the parties like? How much homework do you get? That kind of stuff.”
Decision?
“Mack, you’re wasting your time. The world is ending.”
“I know, right? This asteroid is messing with all our plans. We won’t be going to any schools next year, or the year after that, or the year after that.” He rocks in the lawn chair.
“Then why talk to Gavin?” I ask, trying to keep my voice from sounding jealous or annoyed.
“Makes Mom happy.”
“Smart man,” Grandpa Joe says. “Now we’d better wrap up this exercise, soldiers. We have enough time for a slipknot and a bowline.” He hands us each about three feet of white rope. I’m not as interested as I was two minutes ago. Still, I watch and repeat.
The World Ends in April Page 7