At Somersby-Taking Things Apart and Putting Them Back Together

[makesthings]

Somersby doesn't have that many good places to hide and most of the boys know them all by their last year.

After a few bribes and Nick using his charm, they convinced the groundskeeper to let them use a shed as long as nothing broke.

Over the few years that Nick and Sam have had access to it, its become a fairly serious workshop which at the moment is full of the sounds of metal as Sam waves something that was once a clock at Nick,

"It won't work if you do it like that."

Comments

[wordofa_sayre]

He makes a neat catch.

"Thanks."

Nick turns back toward the cage, muttering,

"Now all I need is something to make smoke..."


It looks as though he's on the verge of setting a corner of workbench on fire, if need be.

[makesthings]

"Nick, forge, grab some gloves and a piece of wood."

At times Sam really wonders how someone so smart can be so stupid.

[wordofa_sayre]

"You can't seriously mean you're going to let me rummage around your forge."

[makesthings]

"I'm going to let you near the fire with gloves to remove a piece of wood. If you start rummaging then I won't let you."

[wordofa_sayre]

His grin flashes, bright and delighted.

"You don't have to tell me twice."

It's not exactly rummaging. It just takes him a few moments to find all the pieces.

It's not like anything that Sameth's working on actually gets disturbed, or anything...

[makesthings]

Except for the spring that sets a small piles of gears going as Sam is by the forge is a quick stride,

"Charter, what did you do?"

[wordofa_sayre]

"Nothing! I didn't do anything!" Nick protests.

[makesthings]

"Of course you did."

The gears are finally stopped but a spring has escaped to somewhere,

"You can never leave well enough alone."

He's not annoyed just exasperated.

[wordofa_sayre]

"I didn't," he insists. "I just brushed against the edge of that spring there--"

He points, not quite touching it.

"-- just barely, just to adjust it the slightest bit--"

[makesthings]

"It didn't need adjusting. Fine, how do you think it needed adjusting?"

[wordofa_sayre]

"The tension's all wrong. Look here."

Nick shifts the gloves and wood to his other hand, and points again.

"See how it's twisting under the strain?"

[makesthings]

Sameth bends down and grabs some small pliers so he can get a better look,

"Its not that great a strain and imagine what it can do when it goes."

[wordofa_sayre]

"It'll either set things moving with a lot of force, or break entirely once the metal weakens," Nick says, dryly. "Your call. Maybe you can flip that wiggly coin of yours to find out."

[makesthings]

"Its not going to break at least I don't think so. Hand me the spring in your hair, its stronger."

Carefully he starts to take it apart and reposition things as he gets a different idea.

[wordofa_sayre]

"In my--"

He reaches up, bemused, only to become even more so when he finds a spring exactly where Sam had said.

"Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle."

Beat.

"Here you go, old chap."

[makesthings]

"This is why you shouldn't rummage, you never know what will get set off. Could you make sure the fires a little bit hotter, I'm going to have to completely redo this."

Sam is already getting lost in his work again and wishing once again that Somersby were closer to the Wall or the wind was blowing from the North, things would be so much easier.

[wordofa_sayre]

Nick winces at that. Without saying a word, he sets everything else down and moves to the fire, where he applies the bellows with a will.

[makesthings]

Sam doesn't notice since its small delicate work and though its hard to do, he still pulls on the Charter when he can. After about ten minutes he stops and gives it a critical look, the gears and spring have changed design,

"That should work better."

[wordofa_sayre]

He's still diligently working the bellows, but he looks up at this.

"Excellent."

[makesthings]

Gently he sets one of the gears going,

"I think in time that will work."

[wordofa_sayre]

"Then while you're waiting..."

Nick grins at him.

"This time you can bring the wood over, and we'll smoke the bee."

[makesthings]

"What? Oh bees, right."

He pulls on a glove and the smoking piece of wood and waits to see if Nick actually knows what he's doing.

[wordofa_sayre]

"Yes, bees. Or one bee, at least."

Nick looks ruefully at his arm.

"Although there were quite a few of them, weren't there?"

[makesthings]

"Yes, I think the hive must be nearby. So you want to smoke it asleep. We should cover the cage then. Where's your jacket?"

Sam starts poking around on Nick's side of the shed since its not that big a deal.

[wordofa_sayre]

As long as he doesn't disturb anything on the top of the workbench, the rest of Nick's area is really more of a controlled mess than anything else.

"... brilliant." Nick's beaming, now. "I should have thought of that before! We can track the bees back to their hive, smoke it, and collect several of them to compare weights and wing measurements!"

As an afterthought, he waves a hand toward one corner, where his jacket lies in a crumpled heap under a pile of books.