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the water. The rocks were in a small circle, large enough to fit a fish going in but tall enough to keep it from simply swimming out. True, it might jump out, but at that point Merek would be there to catch the fish and eat it.
                  “Now to work on the ‘catching’ part,” Merek said, shifting through the rocks to find the perfect one. Several fish swam into his trap, and they stared at the rocks barring their paths in obvious confusion. Merek smiled, but then felt bad because of how scared they must be.
                  “I’m feeling bad for the fish,” Merek said to himself as he raised his eyebrows. “I’m going to die out here if I can’t bring myself to kill a fish.”
                  He continued his search, trying to ignore how bad he felt. It wasn’t that he any special affinity for fish. Up until today, the only ones he had seen were the few his father brought back to the cottage, purchased from a friend.
                  “I wonder how he got them?” Merek thought, but that thought was blown away as he finally found what he was looking for.
                  It was a rock that resembled an arrow head, edged nice enough to be sharp. The tip came down to a point that looked like it would pierce flesh.
                  Merek hoped it did. His stomach was growling terribly.
                  The fish weren’t completely stupid, and once they realized they were swimming into a wall of rocks they turned around and swam away. But, as Merek observed them, he saw they hesitated for a fraction of a moment, confused. In that moment, Merek would have to strike.
                  It still wasn’t easy.
                  Merek had no method of attaching the rock to the staff, so instead he ended up stabbing recklessly at the fish. That turned out to be even less effective than his previous attempts, and only served to scare off more fish.
                  “And bears make it look so easy.”
                  Then he realized that bears waited for the fish to come to them, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.
                  “I need a better trap. Well, tomorrow I need a better trap. Today, I need to catch some fish.” Looking around again, he decided he needed to attach the rock to the staff. He looked down at his wounded leg, which had been scrubbed clean by the rushing water. His leaf-bandage had been washed away too and the water stung a bit, but that didn’t bother him much.
                  “I wonder if I can’t tie you up with leaves?” he asked the two items he had in his possession.
                  Thirty minutes later, he had done just that. It wasn’t a very stable connection, but it should at least last long enough for him to snag a fish.
                  “Let’s test you out, shall we?”
                  The good news was that it worked perfectly. He stood still, waiting for the first fish to swim into his trap. The moment it did, the moment it stopped to wonder why there were rocks in its way, Merek plunged his makeshift spear into its body.
                  The bad news was that the force of the blow broke the leaf-tie, so staff and stone split apart.
                  Merek simply rolled his eyes before collecting his prize. It looked like he was going to need a lot more leaves.
                  “First things first, however… how do you build a fire?”
                  This time, no easy answer came to him. Of his many sojourns into the forest, making fires had never been a practice he used. With an exasperated sigh, he began to pace as he tied up more leaves, thinking hard.
                  “Well, what did Mother and Father use? Wood, obviously. I need dry wood. A lot of dry wood. But how to make the wood burn? Father uses a piece of