Hang in There Bozo

by Lauren Child

  ‘I just thought to myself, hey, what if I was Ray Max? If I was him, I could jump that roof no trouble.’

  Ray Max was a Twinford hero: he was now the best long jumper in the whole state and was no doubt destined to become a world champion. Failure was not in his vocabulary.

  Clancy had made it by less than five millimetres: but when jumping a roof, a millimetre or four counts for a lot.

  So I’m not saying that pretending to be Ray Max will get you jumping a roof safe and sound, no trouble at all – you could end up splat on the sidewalk, of course you could, but what I am saying is that you are more likely to make that jump if you have the confidence and belief that you will. Belief is a big part of success.

  WARNING FROM THE PUBLISHER:

  don’t actually jump off a roof.

  THINK SIDEWAYS

  By thinking sideways what I mean is looking at the problem from a different angle. Sometimes what seems like the natural, obvious or even ONLY solution is not such a great idea. RULE 12: ADJUST YOUR THINKING AND YOUR CHANCES IMPROVE.

  Here’s an example:

  You break down in the desert; you have little in the way of supplies and no one knows where you are. If you stay put, the question is, will anyone find you? Will you slowly die of thirst? Naturally, you want to start moving, to get back to base, to a safe place – why wouldn’t you buster? But if you’re looking to live, you gotta think again.

  Stride off into the desert, and do you even know what direction to head in? Even if you do, how far do you think you’re gonna get in this extreme heat, the blistering sun burning down? A few miles maybe, but what good is that when you need to cover a hundred or so to even be halfway home?

  No: think sideways and stay with your vehicle. It’s a shelter from the heat and the cold. It’s also a large object in a vast expanse of nothing. It has much more of a chance of being spotted than you do – you will look like an ant to a passing aircraft. Your chances are greater if you just do nothing.

  WARNING: DON’T GET IN YOUR VEHICLE IF YOU’RE IN A DESERT AND IT’S DAYTIME. THE METAL MAY BECOME VERY HOT AND YOU MAY DEHYDRATE.

  DO shelter in the shade BESIDE the vehicle until dusk. Then build a more permanent shelter in the cool to preserve fluids. If your car or plane has crashed, use the wreckage to create your shelter. Oh and keep your trap shut: you’ll conserve more moisture with your mouth closed and therefore stand less chance of dehydration.

  WARNING: OFTEN THE THING YOU MOST WANT TO DO IS THE VERY THING THAT IS GOING TO ENSURE YOU WIND UP DEAD.

  REMEMBER: Battle with instinct and think sideways, think consequences. Above all, THINK.

  BE RESOURCEFUL

  If you’re missing something that you urgently need, don’t whine about it – find a way of getting it.

  So you got no matches? Doesn’t mean you can’t light a fire. Making fire is right up there with man’s greatest discoveries. If a Neanderthal can make sparks then surely you can too bozo. (See ‘Making a fire’)

  NEANDERTHAL FIRE LIGHTING TOOLS FROM THE PLEISTOCENE PERIOD

  NEVER GIVE UP

  Be determined. So you’re lost, abandoned, marooned? Big deal: you gotta make it home because what’s the alternative? Not making it home, that’s what.

  You are always hearing about these people who are trapped under car wreckage and somehow manage to get themselves out, lift a boulder, run to hospital with their own severed arm tucked in their jacket, etc. You too can surprise yourself.

  Do or die, as Mrs Digby would say. I found myself in just such a tricky predicament not so long ago and here I am to tell the tale.

  Trapped underneath something…

  Ruby felt herself slipping. She reached out, hoping to catch a branch, a tuft of grass growing out of the rock face, anything, but she was not to be so lucky. Her face, her hands, her knees, all made contact with the mountainside.

  She slid and slid for what to her body felt like an age until, stop, she found herself wedged in a narrow crevasse. She tried to move but couldn’t: a large rock had dislodged itself and had tumbled above her to make a badly fitting lid.

  The first thing that occurred to her was: This cannot be happening.

  The second thing was: No one will ever find me.

  She was wrong about the first, but quite correct when it came to the second.

  She was going to have to get out all on her own.

  Let’s face it, in this situation your chances of getting outta there alive are dwindling. No one’s coming looking for you; no one seems to notice that you’ve even gone missing. What do you do? Stand there and blub? Blub all you like bozo, but it ain’t gonna help get you back to home sweet home (though there are benefits to having a good boo hoo: it can clear the head and alleviate tension, but that’s about all).

  No, what you gotta do is jump back on your metaphorical horse and get on with the job at hand – surviving.

  And that’s just what I did when that rock landed on top of me. I got out because I had to get out. I don’t know how exactly – all I know is I pushed and pushed against that rock, and even though it musta weighed about a thousand tons, it moved just enough and, with the help of some suntan lotion that I had in my backpack, I managed to sorta squeeze and slide out from under it.

  REMEMBER: The human being is capable of superhuman strength.

  IT’S WORTH GENNING UP ON A FEW SURVIVAL SKILLS RIGHT NOW – you never know when you might need them.

  RULE 11: LIKE THE BOY SCOUTS SAY, BE PREPARED.

  MAKING A FIRE

  Fires are a must for survival. They can keep you warm, signal your location to passing search parties, allow you to cook food and distil seawater, or even keep bugs away.

  Preparation…

  You need A FIREPLACE (obviously), TINDER, KINDLING and FUEL.

  A FIREPLACE

  You’re gonna need a fireplace so that you can contain and control the fire.

  Clear away all the dry leaves and wood from the immediate area – you’re starting a fire, not a forest fire. Make a shallow fire pit and surround with stones.

  You wanna find a sheltered place, but make sure it’s a ventilated one bozo, where fumes are free to escape. If the ground is marshy or snowy, build the fire on stones or logs covered with earth.

  WARNING: DON’T BURN ANYTHING YOU MIGHT NEED… UNLESS, OF COURSE, YOU HAVE TO.

  TINDER

  Tinder is step one of any good fire. Basically, you wanna find stuff that burns real easily and quickly. Tree bark, dried grass, paper and cotton (from your clothing if you can spare it) make good tinder. Or you could crush up pine cones or birds’ nests.

  KINDLING

  Kindling is step two: this stuff burns a bit slower, letting your largest logs catch and burn. Small twigs make the best kindling. If the outside is damp, shave the twigs with your penknife until you reach the dry part inside.

  FUEL

  Use only dry wood as your fire is getting going – once it’s hot, you may be able to use greener stuff. Hardwoods like oak, ash or beech burn well and give off a lotta heat – softwoods like pine or bamboo burn faster and give off sparks. But in an emergency buster, you take what you can get!

  In the tropics, you may need to shave wood down as everything tends to be damp. In polar regions, engine fuel can be used (for instance, if you have been in a plane crash then you may well have engine fuel at your disposal. Hey, you’ve got to look on the bright side.) Animal blubber can also burn, if you find a willing seal. And in forested polar places, birch bark and branches burn nicely.

  FIRELIGHTING

  Make a bed of tinder, then a wigwam of kindling to go around it. Light the tinder. Once the kindling is burning, add larger sticks. Of course, it goes without saying that matches are best for lighting. But what if you don’t have a match? At a push you can light fires in other ways. For instance:

  DAYTIME: USE THE MAGNIFYING GLASS FROM YOUR KIT

  Focus the sun through the lens onto your tinder.

  FRICTION


  The principle here is simple: get a piece of hardwood and a piece of softwood (see ‘Fuel’, above) and rub them together to generate heat that will ignite tinder. In practice it’s not so simple ’cos it takes about a million years – but hey, at least the exercise will keep you warm till the fire’s lit.

  REMEMBER: You’re not looking for sparks, you’re looking for the wood to start glowing red, so you can use the heat to start a fire.

  THE HAND-DRILL Make a baseboard of hardwood. OK, so this isn’t strictly speaking easy. But hey, you’re the one who lost the matches. I don’t know, look for a fence you can take a board from, or something. Improvise! Use your noodle. (I’m talking about your brain!)

  Let’s assume you’ve got your base. If possible, cut a triangular notch in one end to collect your tinder and keep it dry and ready for ignition. Then gouge a little hollow in the board right by the tinder.

  Now you need a softwood stick with a sharp end. Put the sharp end in the hollow you just made, and use your palms to spin the stick, pressing down as you do to make as much friction as possible.

  Repeat one million times.

  When the tip of the stick is red (and you are about to fall over from exhaustion), apply it to the tinder and blow gently.

  WARNING: THIS METHOD WILL ONLY WORK IN DRY CONDITIONS. EVEN IF YOUR WOOD ISN’T WET, YOU’RE GONNA BE SPINNING THAT STICK FOR A LONG TIME, BELIEVE ME, AND YOU’RE GONNA GET A REAL ACHE IN THE ARM. YOU ALSO NEED SOFTWOOD AND HARDWOOD, WHICH IS A PRETTY BIG ASK IF YOU’RE IN THE DESERT OR STRANDED ON A BEACH. MY ADVICE? DON’T LOSE YOUR MATCHES.

  FINDING SHELTER

  In pretty much any survival situation, you wanna get out of the wind and the sun as soon as possible and find some kind of shelter. Be careful where you set up camp though: you could wind up in a whole lot more trouble.

  WARNING: DO NOT SHELTER: ON TOP OF A HILL, BECAUSE OF EXPOSURE TO WIND; AT THE BOTTOM OF A VALLEY, WHERE COLDER AIR GATHERS; NEXT TO A RIVER THAT IS PRONE TO FLOODING (LOOK FOR HIGH-WATER MARKS); UNDER A WASPS’ NEST; NEXT TO A WHOLE PRIDE OF LIONS; ON TOP OF A SLEEPING ELEPHANT. OK, SO THE ELEPHANT’S UNLIKELY, BUT I’M NOT KIDDING ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE. YOU GOTTA KNOW WHAT YOU MIGHT BE SHARING YOUR BED WITH.

  Sheet shelter…

  A groundsheet or your polythene survival bag can be used to make a bunch of shelters in an emergency. For instance, you can make a triangular shelter with the narrow end pointing towards the wind, the edges weighted down by stones and the ‘roof’ raised with a stick or, even better, two sticks lashed together. Or you could make a lean-to against a rocky ledge or similar.

  WARNING: USE A SLEEPING BAG OR DRY GRASS FOR THE FLOOR – DO NOT LIE ON COLD GROUND.

  If you don’t have a sheet: use anything available. RULE 40: IF YOU AIN’T BREATHING, YOU AIN’T SURVIVING.

  WARNING: ALL NATURAL SHELTERS WILL HAVE PLACES WHERE AIR CAN GET IN. DO NOT TRY TO COVER THEM ALL. SOME VENTILATION IS ESSENTIAL. YOU GOTTA WORRY ABOUT OXYGEN BEFORE YOU WORRY ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE.

  Good places to shelter…

  Under a cliff overhang. WARNING: check that the ground is not about to give way underneath you or indeed on top of you.

  Natural hollows. Any depression in the ground can protect you from the wind. Make a roof of branches if you can.

  Trees. Use large branches that sweep to the ground to shelter under – you can weave small twigs and branches into them to make them more waterproof. Or shelter in the natural overhang under the roots of a fallen-down tree, if it is at the correct angle to the wind. Don’t get this wrong, or you’ll be shivering in a draught, bozo.

  You can also shelter and sleep up a tree. You may consider this a good thing to do if there are wolves or any other non-tree-climbing dangerous animals in the area. Do be sure to secure yourself to a branch or the tree trunk. Tie a scarf or piece of rope round your waist and then round part of the tree. WARNING: DO NOT TIE YOUR LEGS, ARMS OR NECK, BECAUSE IF YOU SLIP FROM YOUR PERCH, YOU MAY END UP AT A GREAT DISADVANTAGE OR EVEN DEAD.

  In your own vehicle. Shelter under the wing of your plane or by the side of your car. Make sure you shelter on the side that is out of the wind or you will get pretty cold pretty quick.

  FINDING WATER

  Water is essential for obvious reasons. Remember the rule of three: generally speaking, you’ll survive for three minutes without air, three days without water and three weeks without food. So, unless you find water quick buster, you’re not gonna last more than three days.

  Animals…

  Mammals, birds and insects can all lead you to water if you follow them, as they all need to drink often. Try not to follow lions, tigers and so on, as they will most likely attempt to eat you.

  WARNING: DO NOT FOLLOW REPTILES, AS THEY COLLECT WATER FROM THEIR PREY AND SO ARE NOT GOOD INDICATORS OF WATER SOURCES. SO, IF YOU FOLLOW A LIZARD, ALL HE’S GOING TO LEAD YOU TO IS A FLY. ESPECIALLY DON’T FOLLOW CROCODILES. THEY WILL EAT YOU TOO.

  Condensation…

  Tie the plastic bag from your kit over the leaves on a tree or over ground vegetation, and it will collect condensation for you. Neat, huh?

  Solar still…

  In a desert and no trees around? Don’t panic. Dig a hole in the sand about a metre across and half a metre deep. Place a can in the middle of the hole, then cover it and the hole with a sheet of plastic formed into a downward conical shape. Vapour from the air and soil below will condense on the sheet, then run down it into the can. Hey, I didn’t say survival was easy bozo.

  Distillation…

  Only got seawater? Fill a can with it and put it over a fire. Place a tube in the water and the other end of the tube in a second sealed can. You’ll wanna cool the second can, maybe by putting it in some kinda bucket of cold water. That way the vapour coming down the tube from the boiling water will condense in the second can. If you can light a fire and do this then way to go buster. You deserve to survive.

  Water from ice…

  If the ice comes from rainwater then you can just go ahead and melt it. If it’s from the sea, you wanna try to find blue ice – the older sea ice is, the bluer it gets, and the less salt it has in it. Newer sea ice is milky-white and very salty – this will need to be melted and distilled before drinking. (See ‘Distillation’ above.)

  THE PLANETS AND STARS ARE UP THERE IN THE SKY and able to guide you free of charge to where you got to get. OK, so they ain’t gonna be able to tell you where the nearest public facility is, but the restroom ain’t gonna be top of your priorities for a while – and what the stars can do is tell you the general direction to head in.

  TRYING TO FIND YOUR WAY IN DAYTIME?

  The sun is your friend. The sun is also your compass and your clock. You just gotta remember it rises in the east and sets in the west, and it’s at its highest at noon.

  IT’S NIGHT AND YOU NEED TO KNOW WHERE TO GO?

  Then just thank your lucky stars bozo.

  In the northern hemisphere, you wanna look for the North Star – that’s in the north, genius. First, find the Plough, otherwise known as the Big Dipper. Then trace a line up the right-hand side of it and you’ll find the North Star:

  Note how you form a line between, and then beyond, the two stars on the right-hand side of the formation – this will lead you to the North Star.

  In the southern hemisphere, you need the Southern Cross, which is found, and you’re not gonna believe this, in the south.

  WARNING: THERE ARE TWO OTHER CROSS-SHAPED CONSTELLATIONS THAT WON’T TELL YOU ANYTHING USEFUL. YOU’LL KNOW THE SOUTHERN CROSS ’COS IT’S SMALLER, AND HAS TWO ‘POINTER STARS’ TO ITS RIGHT (SEE DIAGRAM).

  Find the Southern Cross by looking for the Milky Way on a clear night – the band of milky white stars that goes right the way across the sky. In the middle of the Milky Way you’re gonna find a little dark patch, and on one side of that dark patch is the Southern Cross, with the pointer stars on the other side.

  Once you have found the Southern Cross, you just need to know that it’s not exactly in the
south. No, to go due south, you’re gonna want to keep the Southern Cross in front of you and just to the left. To be precise about it: take the width of the Southern Cross and count four times that width – then go that far to the right of the Cross.

  Sound simple? It isn’t, bozo.

  MY ADVICE: If you’re gonna get lost at night, make sure you do it in the northern hemisphere. The North Star is much easier to find. Or, even better, make sure you have a compass.

  USE A COMPASS, GENIUS.

  What more can I say?

  DON’T HAVE A COMPASS?

  Don’t worry buster – you can make one.

  You will need:

  A needle.

  A magnet,

  (if you don’t have one, you can use silk instead. OK, I get that silk isn’t a whole lot easier to find in the wild, but what can you do?)

  Some thread.

  Stroke the needle repeatedly along the magnet in one direction only. This is gonna magnetise the needle. Then hang the needle by the thread – make a loop in the end of the thread for the needle to balance in and swing freely.

  WARNING: THE MAGNETISED NEEDLE WILL POINT ALONG THE NORTH-SOUTH AXIS, BUT UNFORTUNATELY BOZO THERE IS NO WAY OF KNOWING WHICH END IS NORTH AND WHICH END IS SOUTH, AS IT DEPENDS ON THE DIRECTION OF MAGNETISATION. LONG STORY SHORT: YOU WANNA USE THIS METHOD, YOU’D BETTER HAVE A ROUGH IDEA OF WHERE NORTH IS ALREADY.