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"Pull!" Lyza's fists clenched tighter. She waited, waited, waited. When the force of the sound hit her, she felt it stop her heart and shove the breath from her lungs, like someone had jabbed her in the gut. Kval pumped the shotgun and readied it against his shoulder, which was now aching tremendously from the shock of the first shot. He lined his eye with the sight, and told the host he was ready. "Pull!" The skeet shot into the air, the orange discs blazing like a cold fireball in the pastel-blue sky. Kval trailed the sight of the shotgun toward the center of the flock, and squeezed the trigger, keeping his eyes open this time. The blast echoed, barely muffled by the suppressive headphones. But nothing would suppress the kick-back; his arm felt like it was trying to jump out of its socket. Lyza did not like this at all. She placed her hands across herself and clasped the meat of her arms, her fingers whiter than normal. Guns scared her. Not like drugs scared her; she had no bad history with them, except for the bluff that her brother had one. She didn't like them because...they were guns! Loud and dangerous. When the shotgun barked for a third time she about wanted to fall over, crippled and beaten just from the sound waves alone. It didn't help that her long ears were meant to pick up every sound possible. She could hear a pin drop in a room full of sewing machines. A fourth report blasted her head, making her ears visibly straighten. People clapped and whistled at her brother, cheering him on. There was nothing cheerful about this event. But he had done archery all morning with her so she couldn't say no when he wanted to fire something more boyish on the grounds of fairness. She just wished he had picked the rifle range. Those were still intimidating but they didn't try to push you over and give you a gigantic headache. Kval fired the fifth shot but he trailed too much in-line with the skeet and so he missed all but one. It shattered in the air, popping into a dozen pieces like a bubble. The yard ahead, back-dropped by the side of a cliff-wall, was littered with hundreds of orange shards just like the ones he added. He readied his last shot, the pith of his shoulder begging for it all to be over, and traced the path of the skeet even before they took flight. Faster than any other time he pulled off the trigger, almost too fast for his own body to prepare, and after he recovered from almost falling backward, he glimpsed one orange dove thumping to the ground. With a compliment from the host of the range he handed off the shotgun for the next person to try. "Come on," he said, taking off his headphones, "let's go." "You don't wanna go again?" She asked, although she didn't really want to. "Nah, my arm will choke me in my sleep tonight if I do." Relieving her ears of the headphones as well, they quickly moved out of the danger-range for hearing loss. "So, should we go back to doing archery?" Lyza rolled her right shoulder. "My arm kinda hurts too...I think I might wanna wait." She heard the shotgun go off again, and had to consciously keep herself from flinching. "You're a really good shot," she said with a smile, giving credit where it was due. "Thanks," he said. "I swear I've never fired a gun before, though." "Still, I'd hate to be a robber and walk in on you with one of those." He patted his aching shoulder, sure that he was going to get a bruise. "Hey, we're still here to find you something to be good at too. I just wanted to try that." "I know." She nodded. "I was watching you, though. If you can be good at stuff without knowing how to do it, maybe I can be, too." He smiled. "Well that's a nice thing to think," he sighed. "Man...being good at stuff kinda hurts..." "Do we need to go to the medical station?" "Nah," he said, shaking his arm, "I'll be fine. If you don't wanna shoot some arrows what do you want to do? It's still three hours till dinner." "Hmm...didn't that lady say there was 'metalworking' in the arts and crafts area the other day?" Her brother nodded. "Yeah. You wanna try that?" "Sure."

The cooking and metalworking posts were very different from the other arts and crafts. For one thing, the cooking station was near a circle of large tipi style pavilions. It was like being an ant in an Indian camp ground; the tipis were large and covered concrete slabs. These tipis were not used for cooking, but rather for lectures and classes, and just happened to be where the cooking post was, as the actual cooking took place outside. Metalworking was an open area that was roofed only by trees, the very edge of the woods before the field and a small portion of Lake Connalake. It was weird how you had to say 'lake' twice in Lake Connalake. Lyza very quickly learned that there was a nice advantage to having pre-made pieces that you just had to put together, like Legos or some of the models her dad worked on at home. Metalworking was completely free-roaming, definitely an art and a craft. There were tons of items to use: cans, tin-foil, old metal scraps of varying sizes and shapes. She wondered if this was how recycling worked. They just took all the cans and stuff people threw out and had kids make more stuff out of it. Because of the nature of the stuff they were using, safety rules were abound. Goggles, aprons and gloves had to be worn. Kids had to monitored at all times, and Lyza was just barely the age where she was allowed to do things somewhat on her own. Not that she wanted to. All of the tools used were very scary. Pliers, punchers, benders, shavers, nasty-looking cutters. She was beginning to regret coming here. She began to worry that at some point a metal sheet was going to go flying and catch someone right in that vein in your neck that everyone talks about...the jaguar? "Still not sure what you wanna make?" Lyza stared at her pile of metal scraps. She had taken a can and cut it halfway from the bottom all the way around. She meant to cut it straight but it was terribly uneven, mostly because she was terribly afraid she would cut a finger off. "I was gonna make a crown," she said with dismay, picking up the disfigured shape, "But I kinda messed up." She looked at her brother through the hole. "It kinda looks like a crown," her brother said a with a smile, taking some strips of foil, "You could line the top with this, that way it looks pretty and makes the edges not so sharp." She shook her head, gently setting it back down. "Nah. I think metalworking is definitely something I won't be good at," she pushed the half-can pieces away from her a bit. Someone came by their table. "Hey...are you gonna use that?" He asked, pointing to Lyza's not-crown. Lyza shook her head. "Nope." "Sweeeet," he snatched it up, and went back to his spot a few tables away. Lyza smiled. "Maybe I'm good at making stuff other people need?" Her brother smiled too. "What are you making?" Kval looked at his pieces. "I'm making a tire." She lifted a brow. "A tire?" He nodded. "Yeah. A present for mom and dad. Something they can put on display at the chop-shop." She giggled at the joke. "That's neat! Maybe I can help?" "Sure," he handed her a sheet of thin metal, "Cut that into strips, like this," he showed one. It was about an inch big, and about as long as two of his fingers put together. She gingerly took the cutters and got to work. The 'chop-shop' was the siblings' name for their parents' business. Even before Kval was born, mom and dad had started up a maintenance and repair shop in town. Their father was always a tinkerer; before he learned division he learned how to repair a lawn mower for his neighbors when he was a kid. He had a propensity for the intricacies of mechanisms. The car was his ultimate joy--aside from his wife, or so he would have everyone believe. Their mom was much the same way, but not quite as passionate. She had a brother who was a racecar driver, so while she did not particularly like the intricacies of the vehicle, she did like them and knew her cars like some women know their soap-operas. She mostly did the book-keeping of the business, often from home, but she was no stranger to being under the hood and getting greasy if ever she needed to be. Kval had, on many occasions, pondered if their parents ever resented him because he had no desire to carry on that business. He had no heart for it; to him, cars were just vehicles. There was no future for him in mechanical engineering. For reasons that his parents would never ever-ever understand, his passion had long ago been decided on child development. "How many do we need?" His sister asked. "Huh?" He glanced over, thoughts dissolving. Fifteen strips were set on the table. "Oh, that's plenty," he replied. "Now let's see, we just need ten of them..." he sifted through, "Hmm...well they're all really good. I guess it doesn't matter which ones we pick." She giggled. "It was easy." "Yours are a lot straighter than mine," he complimented, comparing the sample he gave her with one of hers. "I used the edge of the table to help keep it straight," she replied, bowing her finger upon the helpful spot. "Let's go rivet this thing together," he said, and handed her two cylinders. The smaller cylinder could fit around four of her fingers, but the larger cylinder could easily fit both of her hands, not that she did that. They were also kind of wide, their edges smoothed since Kval had to make them that size himself. Kval retrieved a drill. He set to work preparing everything, picking out ten strips and making sure they were the right length, cutting them if they were too long and, unfortunately, rejectinga couple that were too short. He took the selected strips and went to a clamp, where he clamped each end of the strip and bent it to a right-angle. After he did a few, he had Lyza take a turn. She pinched the metal strip between her fingers and pushed downward; she was surprised at how easily it yielded to the pressure. It was almost easier to do than pulling the string back on the bow. With the pieces of metal bent, Kval had her hold the strips down while he drilled small holes into the ends. He offered to give Lyza a turn but she declined, because the drill looked really mean and she didn't like the noise it made. Along with the strips, Kval drilled several pairs of holes into the cylinders, sputtering his lips when he realized that a few were mismatched. "Ah well, it was bound to happen. I think we're ready to rivet this thing together." With all the holes drilled they traded for the rivet-gun, which to Lyza looked more like the world's most intimidating cashew-nut cracker. She was given a bunch of tiny little things that looked like weird nails, which Kval informed her were the rivets. She put the rivets in her pocket and Kval had her fit one of them through the holes on the little cylinder. He also let her place the first strip on that hole, too, so that the hook went over into the inside of the circle. Kval took over, sliding the rivet-gun onto the shaft of the rivet, which took a bit of brainpower because it didn't quite fit against the strip. But he managed, and then called for his sister's attention. "Take your hands around the handles," he instructed, allowing her to do the first rivet. "I'll help too. Now we just have to squeeeeeeeeze;" the word carried as they did so, until Lyza gasped as she heard a snap and felt the rivet-gun jerk suddenly. She giggled. "Wow, that was cool!" "Look, see?" Kval lifted the cylinder and showed her the accomplishment. She could see the doughnut-shaped piece of metal that essentially fused the strip with the cylinder. But when he turned it so that the object faced her face-on, the merger was hidden behind the strip. "We're going to do that all the way down on both sides, and then for the big circle. When we're done it'll look like the metal part of a tire." She giggled, and they set about doing exactly that. After the first few rivets, they had it down to a science, and, to her surprise, Lyza was doing most of the work. Not that she minded. She liked fitting the rivets into the holes and then squeezing the gun. It was simple. She got used to the sudden snap, and it helped that Kval squeezed along with her. Very soon, they had the inner-circle done, so that their creation looked like some kind of weird UFO. As they proceeded to do the same thing for the other cylinder, Lyza heard someone shouting from somewhere far off. It was a scream, but she didn't really pay it any mind; a lot of kids screamed and shouted with excitement, especially since there was a field nearby for them to run in. But then suddenly another scream hit her ear, and another. Curiously, she glanced in their direction, which was over at the cooking station several yards away. First she noticed the smell. Then she saw the smoke. Then, amidst the running kids, she heard a splash, a roar of air, and saw the bright orange flame rocket up one of the strings at the base of the tipis, as the fire began to feast.