Listen. You need to think clearly. It’ll hurt to do it, but you need to make yourself.I frowned at that voice, wondering what it was talking about. ...t seemed like the response to a riddle and if I thought in the right way, I could think of the answer.But then I got distracted with the sight of the little black fairies that seemed to dance around me. They guarded me and protected me, I knew, and they spun through the air like little pinwheels. On the walls, there were symbols painted. Well, they. Or tried to. It had been years, not since Boy Scouts, since he had tried to do anything like this. Back then he had sharpened his jackknife, dulled after whittling. Now he was trying to bring an edge back to a tool important to their survival. It had become clear, by the third fish, that while he was indeed rusty, the blade was causing most of his problems. He needed it sharp. Not just for cleaner cuts. Dull blades catch, slip. Tom did NOT want to slice himself out here, with three non-drivers. She started dressing different for one thing. Around me she had always worn jeans and flannel shirts, or cutoffs and T shirts, or overalls, stuff like that. Now she started wearing skirts and blouses a lot. And her cutoffs got shorter somehow. She cut the sleeves off of her T shirts and cut some off the bottom off them too, so her navel showed. And she didn't wear bras when she was around me. I checked, a couple of times. I'd find an excuse to put my hand on her back, and there was no bra. I was in ecstasy!“Seems like somebody is getting frisky!” she remarked, but she did not try to stop what I was doing. Instead, she reached back with her right hand and slid it between the two of us and grabbed my bulge through the front of my jeans, squeezing on it.“That feels interesting! Can I see it?” she asked, surprising me by being so forward. I could hear Matron dealing with a commotion in the boys’ room, so eager to show off my equipment, I rolled onto my back, pushing the bed covers.