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]

"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.

[makesthings]

Of course he won't, he'll simply look at what Nick's working on before grabbing the jacket,

"Without getting stung again? Nick, what are you doing with a stack of my paper from home?"

[wordofa_sayre]

"Without getting stung again," he confirms.

A beat.

"Making comparisons, of course."

[makesthings]

"Its just paper and you know the stuff from here doesn't work in letters. As I've been telling you for years."

[wordofa_sayre]

Nick just looks at him.

"I know you've been telling me that. That's why I want to compare the two!"

[makesthings]

"The only difference is that mine's handmade not machine made and how are you going to compare them?"

[wordofa_sayre]

"I can tell that much," he informs Sam. "There's an unevenness to the sheets, did you know? It's a clear sign of nonstandard manufacture."

He grins.

"That'd be the first comparison."

[makesthings]

"What would be the second? Of course it is, it takes time to make it."

[wordofa_sayre]

"I'm still working on it, but I intend to measure weight, ink absorbency, all kinds of things," Nick tells him.

[makesthings]

"Then you don't need that many sheets. If you really wanted, I could show you what the letters you've sent me look like except that they're in pieces."

[wordofa_sayre]

Nick looks startled.

"You tore them up?"

[makesthings]

"No, they barely survive the journey. I always have to piece them back together to try and make sense of them."

[wordofa_sayre]

"That doesn't make any sense at all," he mutters. "Just another reason why I need to compare the paper types."