“Yeah, right,” Deke says dismissively. “What about the food? I’m starving.”

“First things first,” Mia says. “We need to make a fire so we can boil water.”

“Why can’t we just eat it out of the package?” Tony wants to know.

“Because you can’t. I read the instructions, okay? We have to add two cups of boiling water to the package, let it sit for ten minutes, and then we’ll have rice and beans with chicken.”

Imani stands up. “The rain is starting to taper off. I’ll look for dry leaves and firewood.”

It’s kind of shocking, because those are her first words since the flood.

Mia smiles her approval. “You should all help Imani,” she suggests. “I’ll check out the fire-starting kit.”

Deke snorts. “Who made you the boss? I mean, seriously, what makes you think you can tell me what to do?”

“I’m not telling, I’m asking. Don’t help if you don’t want to.”

“I’m not helping, either!” Tony chimes in. “You’re right on, Deke. Totally. Who made her boss? Nobody, that’s who!”

I stand up. “This is stupid. I’m cold and I’m hungry. We all are. After we’ve had a hot meal, we can argue about who should be in charge.”

At first, it’s just me helping Imani search for dry firewood, but eventually Deke and Tony pitch in. And still it takes us hours, because everything is soaking wet, even though the rain has stopped for the time being. Eventually, Imani comes up with the idea of looking under overhanging rocks. Which sounds goofy, but it works, because the ground under some of the rocks is still dry, and we’re able to gather pine needles and leaves and small twigs.

It takes forever before we have enough to try starting a fire. The hot meal that should have been breakfast or lunch is going to be supper, if we’re lucky.

When we finally have enough kindling and wood, Mia opens the tin fire-starter kit. It contains a box of waterproof matches, a half dozen self-igniting fire-starter cubes, and a flint for striking sparks when the other stuff runs out.

Mia asks which method we should use. Deke responds by grabbing the matches. Five minutes later, we have a small but warming fire and two cups of rainwater boiling in the pan.

Waiting ten minutes for the freeze-dried meal to soak up the boiling water seems to take forever. My stomach is growling so loud it sounds like I swallowed a puppy. We don’t have any plates, so we have to take turns spooning the rice, beans, and chicken chunks out of the pan.