I rush to the survival room. It's down some stairs in a dark room flooded with cold air from an open door to the outside.
"Hello," a man says. "I'm Mr Mekoi, I'll be teaching you how to tough it out through cold winters and not fry in the boiling sun."
"We know," a cocky boy mumbles to his friend. "You told us yesterday."
"Maybe," Mr Mekoi lowers his eyebrows. "But not everyone from our class yesterday is here today. That's how classes work, they create a specific schedule that's different every day and suited to what we think you need to practise. Today, these is the people who happened to have survival selected for this particular moment in time, understand?"
The boy nods, then turns back to his friend.
"At least that bony freak isn't here again..."
"I will throw you into the pond if you don't shut up," Mr Mekoi glares.
The boy decides to shut up.
"We will be practising fire-starting in this lesson, in a moment, you will all follow me silently out to the forest and we will begin the lesson. Clear?"
Everyone nods. He opens the door and begins to walk outside. Everyone follows him and we gather around a small clearing amongst the trees.
"I want everyone to get into groups of four and build up a fire. You will then be asked to light it."
People bustle around to get into groups. I stand awkwardly and wait until everyone's in groups. One group only has three people so they indicate for me to join theirs.
"And... go."
The two girls go rushing off to find firewood without a word. I sigh quietly through my teeth and set to finding rocks to make a boundary with. I manage to circle off a clear surface. I kick away the pile of gravel formed from when I cleared the area and I kneel back down to the circle. We need tinder. Just as I'm about to stand up, the boy in our group comes back with some dried leaves and little curls of tree bark.
"It's a good thing that I, at least, know something about fires."
I suddenly recognise him as Alex from agility class and it takes every scrap of willpower in my body to keep quiet. He puts the tinder in the middle of the circle when the two girls come back with a series of medium sized sticks and logs. They'd better be dry.
"So, like," one of them says. "What do we even do with these?"
"Jessica," one of them titters. "Do you know anything?"
"Do you?" Jessica snorts.
"Well... no."
They both burst into laughter and I try not to throw up.
"It's kindling," Alex scoffs at them. "Obviously, it goes above the tinder."
He takes it and dumps it on top. I arrange it in a neat crisscross pattern while they bicker about who's going to light the fire. I try my best to remember everything about fires from books, my Mum and kickass animes. I arrange the kindling in a sort of teepee around the tinder and use some of the bigger logs- which work as fuel wood- to set up a stack of perpendicular branches. I have it finished on my own by the time that they've flipped a coin and deducted that Alex will light the fire. Eventually, Mr Mekoi comes over and declares that it's time to light them. Alex proudly steps forward to light ours... then his cheeks go red as he realises that he has no idea how to light a fire. I scowl under my breath and help him. I grab a soft piece of wood from the fire and create a groove in it with a stone amongst the gravel. I grab a stick and run it up and down the groove quickly. I saw it in an anime once. Sure enough, the friction and heat begins to set the wood alight. Alex scoops it up in a flash and brings it to the tinder. A flame begins to flicker into existence and he blows softly through the bundle. The flame grows bigger and soon takes over the rest of the wood. He grins, elated with himself, and Mr Mekoi smiles.
"Good job, remember this for next lesson."
He teaches everyone how to successfully make a fire and we make mental notes.