It’s Write on Wednesday time again. I was hoping this would help me with NaNoWriMo, but it didn’t really help with my current book, but took me back to the original Jimmy James story…
I started rewriting it based on feedback from friends, especially a couple of amazing people on PlanBig, and this prompt helped with this.
This weeks prompt is: We are learning to make fire. This took more than 5 minutes, but I was interrupted and was on a roll. My gorgeous boys also helped with this, including research at the school library after school today.
Jimmy James rubbed his eyes. He thought he saw the figure move, but that sort of thing only happened in the movies. He took another look and he was right. The figure was beckoning him to come closer.
He took a look around, the rest of his class had moved on in the exhibit, so he ducked under the rope and moved closer. All of a sudden, he was in the Australian bush and not in the museum any more.
The large black man beckoned him to come closer. The man knelt down and took a stick in between his two hands, Jimmy James knelt down near him to get a better look. The man gestured to Jimmy James to pick up the stick in front of him and copy what he was doing.
The stick was sharp and fitted in a hole on a piece of wood. Inside the hole was some sawdust. The man spun the stick backwards and forwards between his hands. Jimmy James tried to copy what the man was doing, but he wasn’t very good at it. The stick didn’t move as fast as the man’s and it kept slipping out of his hands.
Suddenly, or at least it seemed like it, the sawdust in the man’s piece of wood started to glow. The man poured the sawdust into a nest of dry grass that was nearby. He then blew on it until the grass burst into flame! Jimmy James was totally amazed. He had been so distracted watching the man that he forgot about his stick.
The man added some leaves and sticks to the burning nest of grass and he soon had a fire going. Jimmy James was excited, he had just learned how to light a fire without using matches. The man gestured that Jimmy James should take the stick and wood with him. He put them in his pocket, waved good bye and turned away. He wondered where he was going to go next.
Instead of seeing the Australian bush, Jimmy James saw the museum. Maybe it was just an awesome daydream… He could hear his classmates around the corner. He ran to catch up with them, then he reached in his pocket and felt the stick and wood. It wasn’t a daydream after all. Then he remembered, he had put on his orange and purple socks this morning. That explained everything.
