Free Apophis by Eliza Lentzski Page B

jump-start this morning.”
    “I’m making water right now,” I said, poking at the copper kettle sitting in the hottest part of the fire.  “It’ll be a few minutes though.  I don’t have a fancy solar-powered hot plate like you.”
    “I wish I would have thought about a solar-powered air compressor,” she openly complained. “I don’t know why it died so quickly.  The batteries were brand new.”
    “Cold temperatures decrease battery life,” I said.  “You should keep your batteries in your sleeping bag with you at night.”
    “Oh.” Her pretty features crinkled in thought. “You don't suppose we’ll be stopping at a store soon so I can get more batteries?”
    “I wouldn’t hold my breath,” I snorted.  The way she’d phrased her question made it sound like a routine errand to Costco. “My dad's philosophy is to stay as far away from cities as possible.”
    “But we’ve got to replenish our supplies sometime, right?”
    “Nope.” I shook my head. “Besides, nothing guarantees that bandits haven’t already looted every store we come across.  It’s safer to stay away.”
    “We’re going to die,” Nora said stubbornly.
    “We’ve got all the water we could ever want,” I pointed out, “and we can hunt.  My dad has small animal traps. That's where they are right now – checking on the traps he set out last night.” I didn’t like my dad’s plan any more than Nora did, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.
    She sat down heavily next to me, looking sour.  I regarded her out of the corner of my eye.  She seemed to be massaging the lower half of her face. 
    “Are you okay?”
    “Not that you actually care.”  She made a pained face.  “My jaw hurts,” she complained.  “I was blowing up my air mattress most of the night.  It kept deflating.  I think it has a leak.”
    “Your breath is different from the air that comes from an air compressor.” I grabbed the handle of the copper pot with a gloved hand and shook the kettle, slurring around the slowly melting snow. “The moisture in your breath is warm and when it cools, the molecules shrink, causing the air mattress to deflate, too.”
    Nora blinked a few times as she stared silently at me.  “How do you know that stuff?”
    I shrugged and kept stirring up the fire, shifting hunks of dead wood to make the fire burn hotter and faster.  “It’s common sense,” I said.  “It’s not that hard to figure out.”
    “There’s no such thing as common sense,” Nora argued.
    Despite my vow to be nicer, she was quickly chipping away at my resolve. “Do you argue just to hear the sound of your own voice?”
    “No,” she scoffed.  “I just think the phrase ‘common sense’ is overused.”
    “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said drolly.
    “How do you and your grandma manage to sleep on the ground without an air mattress?” Nora asked.  “Isn’t it cold?”
    “I have a sleeping pad.  It’s like sleeping on a roll of insulation without all that itchy pink fiberglass.  I’ve also got a liner inside my sleeping bag, which is already rated for negative ten degrees Fahrenheit.  The liner adds another ten degrees of warmth.”
    She stared at me for so long that I started to become self-conscious.  “What?” I said, annoyance creeping into my tone.  I shoved my hat back a little on my forehead.
    She shook her head.  “Nothing.  It’s just that I think this is the most you’ve ever said to me in one sitting.”
    I looked away from her and stared into the fire. “Yeah, well…” I cleared my throat, “don’t get used to it.”
     
    +++++
     
    Traveling that day was miserable.  It was cold.  Freezing.  Possibly the coldest day to hit us since leaving Williston.  The sun refused to budge from behind a giant cloudbank, and I worried if this was the new normal to which we’d have to adjust.
    “Dad.” Nora’s clear voice cut through the icy weather. “I can’t feel my toes.  They really