Chapter 6
OMNIVORE
~~~~~~~~~
Back in the picnic area, Daria carefully opened one of the potato chip bags until she had a flat plastic sheet, aluminized like a mirror on what had been the inside. This should provide more than enough reflective surface to toast some mushrooms. But how to support it in the needed shape? Her eye fell on a cardboard box with fitted lid that had held hamburger buns. Yes, that would work.
Reaching for her Swiss army knife, her fingers encountered several small packets in a pocket. She pulled them out and found they were butter, salt, and pepper packets from their breakfast stop. Excellent. She repocketed them for the time being.
Removing the fitted top, Daria carefully cut a shallow curve out of one side of the box, and used it as a template to cut a similar curve out of the other side. She slipped the box into its top so that it was open and laid the potato chip bag over the opening. It overlapped all four sides slightly. Good. Using the back of her knife blade, she tucked the edges of the bag in between the edges of the box and its top, and replaced the curved cutouts over the bag to help shape its curve. They wouldn't stay by themselves, so she pinned them in position with thorns. She smiled a little. This was fun.
Propping her solar cooker up against a post in the sunshine, she tested it with a small dead branch that had a few leaves on it. She found the hot spot to be a little less than two feet from the reflector. The leaves started smoldering at once, and the branch was ablaze in less than two seconds. Wow. That worked really well. She stomped the branch out thoroughly in the parking lot. Melody Powers could use a bigger, focusable version of this to assassinate the Mad Mullah, say, or evil Commisar Spazzasski from a rooftop a mile away as he stepped out onto his balcony, then break it down into innocuous-looking trash in a few seconds and be long gone before a search could get underway. Daria filed the idea away for later development.
She set her solar death ray off to the side of the picnic area behind a bush, making sure it was out of the sun, and pulled the two fishing rods out from beneath the holly bush.
Looking at them side by side, Daria thought that hers was definitely the better outfit. It was easier to use, seldom got tangled, and, she thought, was a lot prettier. Of course, she was somewhat prejudiced because she had a fair amount of sweat equity invested in her rig.
She'd acquired it when they'd gone to that pay-to-fish lake last fall. Some brat who could've been Quinn but for being two years older and male, had thrown it into a trashcan, while reciting a long list of its flaws, shortcomings, and sins at the top of his annoying voice. After they left, she had pulled it out, more from a desire to prove Quinn-boy wrong than a yearning for fishing gear, and had taken it home.
Quinn... what are you doing now, Quinn? What's being done to you? No, don't dwell on things you can't help, she told herself. She refocused on her fishing outfit.
Daria had implemented her usual first step toward solving a problem- a trip to the library. She'd found a book with a section on care and repair of fishing gear, and stumbled onto a book about custom rod building. Daria had never imagined that such an activity existed, but the book showed in great detail how to put line guides on a rod, and she would need to do that, so she'd checked it out.
The rod was old, but that was partly a good thing. It had cork grips of good quality, something all rods used to have, but that now was only found on expensive ones. The line guides were broken, bent, and/or rusty, and it had only come with four. The rodmaking book said a six-and-a-half-foot spinning rod should have six, and showed her how to locate their proper positions. Daria had wrapped the new guides on with purple over gold thread in a moderately fancy pattern, with narrow accent wraps, just for looks, between the guide wraps. It had turned out to look sharp, indeed.
Quinn had, of course, ridiculed her for trying to repair trash. Which was logical from her point of view, Daria supposed. All Quinn had to do was ask, in that darling precious way she had, and she'd get a brand new one. No need for her to work, or learn anything. Daria wondered how far through life that approach would take her sister. Which led to the question: would it get her through today? Damn, there she went again. Daria jerked her mind back onto her previous train of thought, but not before she felt her stomach knot up once more.
Wiping the grit and old grease out of the reel, and dabbing in some fresh grease as per the care and repair book, had restored it to as-new operation. Cleaning the cork grips with soapy water and an old toothbrush completed the job, leaving Daria the proud owner of a custom spinning outfit. And, as infrequently as the Morgendorffers went fishing, it would probably never need any further maintenance.
It wouldn't be hard to catch a few of those little bait-stealing sunfish that hung out in small schools near the bank. They had a great flavor, but were annoying and time-consuming to eat because of their small size. "Well, I've got the time," she thought. She picked up a piece of hot dog bun from the concrete bench of a picnic table, still damp from last night's dew, and blew a few ants off it. Just about any bait would catch the small, always-hungry sunfish. They were in a race to eat and grow big before they were eaten, a race most of them would lose. They'd even bite a shiny bare hook.
A hook. Daria didn't have one. She'd have to find a hook small enough to go in a small sunfish's mouth; or else she'd have to go after something larger and harder to catch. There were plenty of hooks and sinkers on broken-off bits of fishing line all along the riverbank, snagged on trees and bushes and rocks or just lying where they had been dropped. She should be able to find a small one.
Removing the crazy whatsit from her line, she attached it to her dad's line and hid it again under the holly bush. Then she headed for the river. Pausing by a young boxwood bush, what Gramma Morgendorffer called a 'switch bush', she cut a small branch just below a fork, cut off one arm of the fork to a length of about two inches, cut the other branch to eighteen inches, and stripped off the small oval leaves. It would make an adequate stringer for a few small fish.
~~~~~~~~~
NEXT--- Will Daria get naked in the woods and pleasure herself? Find out in Chapter 7- 'And Then Along Came Jim Bob'!
OMNIVORE
~~~~~~~~~
Back in the picnic area, Daria carefully opened one of the potato chip bags until she had a flat plastic sheet, aluminized like a mirror on what had been the inside. This should provide more than enough reflective surface to toast some mushrooms. But how to support it in the needed shape? Her eye fell on a cardboard box with fitted lid that had held hamburger buns. Yes, that would work.
Reaching for her Swiss army knife, her fingers encountered several small packets in a pocket. She pulled them out and found they were butter, salt, and pepper packets from their breakfast stop. Excellent. She repocketed them for the time being.
Removing the fitted top, Daria carefully cut a shallow curve out of one side of the box, and used it as a template to cut a similar curve out of the other side. She slipped the box into its top so that it was open and laid the potato chip bag over the opening. It overlapped all four sides slightly. Good. Using the back of her knife blade, she tucked the edges of the bag in between the edges of the box and its top, and replaced the curved cutouts over the bag to help shape its curve. They wouldn't stay by themselves, so she pinned them in position with thorns. She smiled a little. This was fun.
Propping her solar cooker up against a post in the sunshine, she tested it with a small dead branch that had a few leaves on it. She found the hot spot to be a little less than two feet from the reflector. The leaves started smoldering at once, and the branch was ablaze in less than two seconds. Wow. That worked really well. She stomped the branch out thoroughly in the parking lot. Melody Powers could use a bigger, focusable version of this to assassinate the Mad Mullah, say, or evil Commisar Spazzasski from a rooftop a mile away as he stepped out onto his balcony, then break it down into innocuous-looking trash in a few seconds and be long gone before a search could get underway. Daria filed the idea away for later development.
She set her solar death ray off to the side of the picnic area behind a bush, making sure it was out of the sun, and pulled the two fishing rods out from beneath the holly bush.
Looking at them side by side, Daria thought that hers was definitely the better outfit. It was easier to use, seldom got tangled, and, she thought, was a lot prettier. Of course, she was somewhat prejudiced because she had a fair amount of sweat equity invested in her rig.
She'd acquired it when they'd gone to that pay-to-fish lake last fall. Some brat who could've been Quinn but for being two years older and male, had thrown it into a trashcan, while reciting a long list of its flaws, shortcomings, and sins at the top of his annoying voice. After they left, she had pulled it out, more from a desire to prove Quinn-boy wrong than a yearning for fishing gear, and had taken it home.
Quinn... what are you doing now, Quinn? What's being done to you? No, don't dwell on things you can't help, she told herself. She refocused on her fishing outfit.
Daria had implemented her usual first step toward solving a problem- a trip to the library. She'd found a book with a section on care and repair of fishing gear, and stumbled onto a book about custom rod building. Daria had never imagined that such an activity existed, but the book showed in great detail how to put line guides on a rod, and she would need to do that, so she'd checked it out.
The rod was old, but that was partly a good thing. It had cork grips of good quality, something all rods used to have, but that now was only found on expensive ones. The line guides were broken, bent, and/or rusty, and it had only come with four. The rodmaking book said a six-and-a-half-foot spinning rod should have six, and showed her how to locate their proper positions. Daria had wrapped the new guides on with purple over gold thread in a moderately fancy pattern, with narrow accent wraps, just for looks, between the guide wraps. It had turned out to look sharp, indeed.
Quinn had, of course, ridiculed her for trying to repair trash. Which was logical from her point of view, Daria supposed. All Quinn had to do was ask, in that darling precious way she had, and she'd get a brand new one. No need for her to work, or learn anything. Daria wondered how far through life that approach would take her sister. Which led to the question: would it get her through today? Damn, there she went again. Daria jerked her mind back onto her previous train of thought, but not before she felt her stomach knot up once more.
Wiping the grit and old grease out of the reel, and dabbing in some fresh grease as per the care and repair book, had restored it to as-new operation. Cleaning the cork grips with soapy water and an old toothbrush completed the job, leaving Daria the proud owner of a custom spinning outfit. And, as infrequently as the Morgendorffers went fishing, it would probably never need any further maintenance.
It wouldn't be hard to catch a few of those little bait-stealing sunfish that hung out in small schools near the bank. They had a great flavor, but were annoying and time-consuming to eat because of their small size. "Well, I've got the time," she thought. She picked up a piece of hot dog bun from the concrete bench of a picnic table, still damp from last night's dew, and blew a few ants off it. Just about any bait would catch the small, always-hungry sunfish. They were in a race to eat and grow big before they were eaten, a race most of them would lose. They'd even bite a shiny bare hook.
A hook. Daria didn't have one. She'd have to find a hook small enough to go in a small sunfish's mouth; or else she'd have to go after something larger and harder to catch. There were plenty of hooks and sinkers on broken-off bits of fishing line all along the riverbank, snagged on trees and bushes and rocks or just lying where they had been dropped. She should be able to find a small one.
Removing the crazy whatsit from her line, she attached it to her dad's line and hid it again under the holly bush. Then she headed for the river. Pausing by a young boxwood bush, what Gramma Morgendorffer called a 'switch bush', she cut a small branch just below a fork, cut off one arm of the fork to a length of about two inches, cut the other branch to eighteen inches, and stripped off the small oval leaves. It would make an adequate stringer for a few small fish.
~~~~~~~~~
NEXT--- Will Daria get naked in the woods and pleasure herself? Find out in Chapter 7- 'And Then Along Came Jim Bob'!