Bam Bam Rubble's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Bam Bam Rubble had split wood for this new town for two weeks, but he still had no ground of his own. He slept on a cot in the corner of a borrowed garage behind the dorm. His axe leaned by the door. Every night he fixed to find a plot. Every night the fires went cold, and he lay awake missing the warm fires of Bedrock, where neighbors stayed close and no one slept in a borrowed corner. At dawn he swung his legs off the cot. Tinker crouched over his buggy on the garage floor, tightening a bolt. Tinker had let Bam Bam sleep here after Bam Bam cleared the junk from the shed so Tinker could build. They were square that way. But a man can't stay square forever on another man's floor. "I need my own land," Bam Bam said. "A place to stand." Tinker didn't look up. "Then go stand on some." Elroy leaned in the doorway, arms crossed. The young pilot lived next door and had a fast eye for a gap. "East ridge," Elroy said. "Flat ground. No one's claimed it. First one to build a hearth owns it. That's the rule here." Bam Bam grabbed his axe. "Then I build today." "Others want it too," Elroy said. "Move now or lose it." The three hiked to the ridge. Bam Bam found a patch of level grass with gray stone scattered nearby. He drove his axe into the dirt to mark it. "Mine," he said. But marking wasn't building. The rule said hearth. So he worked. He hauled stone and stacked it. Tinker rolled rocks over by hand. Elroy fetched water and dry grass. By midday the stone walls rose. They cut poles and wove the grass into a roof. A small hut took shape, rough stone walls under a soft grass top, a chimney climbing one side. Two strangers crested the ridge, carrying their own tools, eyeing the flat ground. Then they saw the hut and the smoke rising from the chimney. They turned and went back down. Bam Bam stood in the doorway of his own hut. For the first time, the walls around him were his. "Come night," he said, "this fire stays lit." Tinker wiped his hands. "Nice roof. Won't last the first big wind, though." Elroy grinned. "He's right. Grass roof, open ridge. One storm and you're sleeping under stars." Bam Bam looked up at the woven grass. The wind already pulled at the edges. He had his land. He had his hut. But the ridge was bare and high, and the sky over SkyRock did not stay calm for long. He had traded a borrowed corner for a home he now had to keep standing.