Solar Flare (bxb)

Chapter Two

After breakfast, they broke us up into teams to complete a compass literacy activity. My frustration with this whole trip returns when it becomes clear that I am the only person on my eight-strong team who knows how to properly use a compass for navigation.

The only other person who seems to have any idea about the whole thing is Josiah Maldin, who is inarguably the funniest person in the grade. All of us enjoy his quick wit and constant jokes, including me, specifically because they are never making fun of anybody. He is a few inches shorter than me, and his impressive muscles were sculpted by the weight room and not the pool. He always hangs around Luis, which I find weird because I can't imagine what they have in common.

Besides his humor, the other awesome thing about Josiah is that he is an absolute math genius.

He pulls me aside from the rest of the infighting group, our list of compass directions in his hand. "It's a five-pointed star," he says under his breath as the rest of our team bickers behind us.

I stare down at the directions and try to figure out how he knows this, but I give up after a moment.

"A huge pentagram," he continues. He looks up at me with a crazy grin showing in his bright blue eyes before it's visible on his mouth. "Are we summoning Satan? Is that the whole point of this trip?"

"The Elder Gods require sacrifices," I whisper.

He laughs. "Well, Clawson says that the first group back gets increased s'mores ingredient rations. I'm winning that damn chocolate, even if it means summoning the devil."

We look back at the group. Two of the girls have given up entirely and are leaning against nearby trees as they mess around on their phones. The rest of the group has divided into two opposing sides arguing which direction is 147 degrees southeast.

The rules are that we must reach a set of prescribed landmarks in order to finish and capture a picture on someone's phone of the entire group by the landmark for proof. Clawson took time to mention that there are dozens of landmarks in the forest, but only pictures of the landmarks intended for our team will count. They painstakingly engineered the game to deter cheating and for this it is brilliant, but that they had to try so hard to avoid cheating makes me sad.

"Guys, listen," Josiah says suddenly. "Rowan's done this before. He knows what we're doing. Now, if you want to OD on s'mores tonight as badly as I do, you'll follow him."

I give him a side-eye because he just blatantly lied to our classmates. I've never done this activity before. He catches my gaze and winks so our classmates can't see.

The warring half of the group comes to its senses and harasses the obstinate pair of girls into cooperating. I take the lead into the forest with Josiah at my side.

"Keep up," Josiah shouts back to the group. Someone tells him to do something with the compass that makes me look back in concern for the sanity of that individual.

I study the sheet of directions in Josiah's hands. "I wish we had Serena," I say, noting that they listed the distances in the metric system. "How the hell am I supposed to know when we've walked five-point-three hectometers?"

"Hecto- is the prefix for a hundred, I think. So it's five hundred and thirty meters, or around sixteen hundred feet," he says, looking down at the paper. "But I could be wrong. I only know freedom units."

I chuckle. "How're you liking the trip so far?"

"Are you kidding me? It's great! I just wish we didn't have to share it with these idiots," he says quietly, nodding back to the group. I laugh.

"Hey, I'm not trying to pry, but why in the hell are you covered in dog hair?" he asks, pointing to the mess of fur on my black pants.

I hand him the compass and hurry to brush off my pants. "It was weird. I found this dog out here earlier. He was really friendly, but he bolted when I tried to lead him back to the camp."