Bam Bam Rubble's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

The grass roof worried Bam Bam all week. Each night the wind tugged at it. In Bedrock, neighbors would have fixed it before dark, sharing the work and a warm fire after. Here, folks kept to their huts once the sun dropped. So Bam Bam decided to ask for help himself. He walked down from the ridge to find Tinker. He found Tinker in the garage, bent over his buggy with a wrench in hand. Tinker was the racer who'd helped build the hut. He didn't waste words. Bam Bam told him the grass roof wouldn't last a storm. Tinker set down the wrench. "Need wood. Need someone who shapes it." He thought a moment. "Jake's got the garage across town. He builds things right." They rode over in a strange car. The body was carved from logs, with wings like an old plane bolted to the sides. Bam Bam gripped the door as the town rolled past. The huts here sat far apart. No shared fires. No neighbors calling out. So different from the close rows of Bedrock. Jake worked under the hood of a car when they arrived. He was a mechanic, young but sure with his hands. He wiped them on a rag and listened while Bam Bam explained the roof. "Grass won't hold," Jake said. "You need planks. Cut, fit, nailed tight." He pulled a pencil from behind his ear and sketched on a scrap of wood. "Pitch the roof steep. Rain runs off. Wind slides over." Bam Bam stared. He knew stone and axe work. He didn't know wood joints. "I can split logs," he said. "I can't do this." "I'll show you," Jake said. "Once." They loaded planks into the log-bodied car and drove back to the ridge. Jake climbed up and marked each cut. Bam Bam hauled wood and held the beams. Tinker nailed. By late afternoon the grass was gone. A slanted wood roof covered the hut, boards overlapping like scales. Jake tested a beam with his weight. It held. "That'll beat a storm," he said. He climbed down and looked at the bare ridge around the hut. "Nice spot. But lonely up here." That word stuck in Bam Bam's chest. Lonely. He had land. He had a roof that would hold. But he stood alone on a high ridge while Jake and Tinker got ready to drive back to town. "Come eat," Bam Bam said. "I'll light the fire. Stay a while." Jake glanced at Tinker. Tinker shrugged. "Food's food." They stayed. Bam Bam lit the hearth, and for the first time the fire burned with company around it. But when the two climbed into the log car and drove off into the dark, the ridge went quiet again. His roof would stand. His home still had no neighbors. One warm fire wasn't a community. He needed others to settle near him, or his homestead would stay a lonely peak.