Red haired girl

Chapter 3

The other two pairs walked into the woods, while Will watched Bryan reading the exercise. He stared at the sheet of paper for a couple of minutes.
“Can I take a look at it?” Will asked hesitantly. Bryan looked angrily at him in return, before continuing staring at the exercise. Owen looked at them dubiously.
“Are you going to start today or do you prefer to wait till tomorrow?” he asked. Will shrugged. He did want to start, but Bryan wouldn’t give him the exercise. Bryan looked up irritated.
“The more I get interrupted, the longer it takes before we can start,” he said stubbornly. Owen rolled with his eyes.
“Why don’t you let him give it a try?” he suggested, with a gesture to Will. Reluctantly, Bryan gave Will the sheet of paper. While handing it over, he gave Will a threatening look. Will looked at the exercise and almost sighed of relief. Because Bryan took so long to read it, Will thought it was a really complicated exercise. But it was not complicated at all! All it said was ‘Find it, name it and judge it’. Under that line were a couple of pictures drawn. The first picture showed some kind of tree, the second one a berry or something like that and the third one showed a branch covered with moss.
“Well, this isn’t too hard,” Will said relieved. Owen nodded satisfied and went inside the little hut, which was especially build for him as a tutor. Will almost expected Bryan to get angry with him, but instead he saw him looking a little desperate or ashamed. When Bryan saw that Will was looking, he quickly turned around. Will shrugged. Whatever.
“Shall we go?” he asked and he gestured to the woods. Instead of answering, Bryan started to walk to the edge of the forest.
Will started to get a little irritated. It wasn’t forbidden to give him an answer. For a couple of minutes Will followed Bryan deeper into the forest. Then Bryan slowed down a little, so he came to walk next to Will.
“So, what do we have to do?” he asked a little shy. Will looked at him suspiciously. Why was he doing so different all of a sudden?
“We have to find these plants and name and judge them, whatever that means,” Will answered. He handed Bryan the sheet, so he could examine the drawings as well. For a couple of minutes they just walked, looking around for the plants.
“Why did you take so long to read the exercise?” Will asked hesitantly. He wasn’t sure yet whether Bryan was going to get angry or not.
“I didn’t take much time reading it!” Bryan snapped. Will almost started to apologise, but Bryan wasn’t finished yet. “I haven’t read it at all,” he continued defeatedly. Will looked at him questioningly.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I can’t read okay?” Bryan looked vulnerable, now that he had exposed his secret. He sighed. “I never got to learn it. My father… he was always busy with his fighting things. He never thought it might come in handy to educate me in some way. I barely know him, actually.” For a moment they walked in silence. Then Bryan grasped the front of Will’s shirt and pulled him closer. “But not a word to anyone, understood?” he said with the familiar threatening voice. Will nodded quickly and Bryan let him go.
“Well, uh,” Will said a little startled. “We probably should start with the exercise.” Bryan nodded and they both took another look at the drawings. They continued their search without speaking. They both only said the necessary things.
            Will was the first one to find something. The tree, which looked quite big in the drawing, was in fact just one meter tall. He found it by accident: he stumbled over a root and grasped the little tree to prevent himself from falling. Bryan found the branch with moss, in almost the same way. The berries were the hardest to find. They were guarded by a flock of birds, so at first the boys decided to not to go to that valley. But at last they outsmarted the birds.
“What would they mean by ‘judge them’,” Bryan asked, while they were taking a break. “I mean, the ‘find it’ part was not too bad, the ‘name it’ part is not so hard as well, I think, but judge those things? I’ve got no idea.” Will took a second to think. It occurred to him that his father had mentioned something about judging plants, but what did he mean with that?
“O, I remember!” he exclaimed. Bryan raised an eyebrow, but Will ignored him. “My father told me something about judging plants. He said that ‘before you can eat something, you first have to judge whether it is poisonous  or not’!” Will smiled. He remembered! Bryan nodded.
“Okay, that makes sense to me, but how do you judge that?” he asked. “Without taking the chance to poison yourself, I mean? Did your father tell you anything about that?” Will scowled.
“No, I don’t think so,” he said slowly. “We’ll have to figure it out ourselves.” Bryan threw his hands up.
“Great,” he said sarcastically. Will took a look at the exercise. ‘Find it, name it, judge it.’ He thought about what  his father taught him. He didn’t say anything about how to judge the plant. He had just pointed at some plants and he had told Will whether they were poisonous or not. Will looked up at the sun. It had already past its highest point. The boys were sitting next to the little tree. Bryan had brought some of the berries and Will dragged the moss-branch with him.
“Maybe,” Will said slowly. Bryan looked up at him. “Maybe we could squeeze a berry and put the juice onto the moss. When the moss, well, dies, we know whether the berries are poisonous or not.” Bryan nodded, but he didn’t look confirmed.
“And how about the moss and the tree? Those aren’t really squeezable,” he said doubtfully.
“You’re right,” Will said. “There must be another way. I don’t think they would give us an impossible exercise.” For a moment they just sat there, saying nothing.
“Well, just sitting here won’t help us,” Bryan said and he stood up. “Let’s get moving again.” Will nodded.
“You’re right,” he said again and he raised as well. “But don’t we need the tree later on?” Bryan shrugged.
“If you know where to look for them,” he said, “they’re not so hard to find anymore.” He gestured to another little tree just a couple of meters away. Will’s mouth fell open.
“O,” he said. “Right. Let’s get moving.”

An hour flew by. The boys trudged further and further, without doing anything with their exercise. Suddenly, the forest just ended and they stood on the edge of an open field. A couple of sheep were grazing.
“Wow,” Bryan said. “Now this is something different.” Will nodded. After walking for hours in the woods, without seeing anything but trees, this was different.
“I’ve got it!” Will yelled suddenly. One of the sheep looked up for a moment, before continuing its grazing business. Bryan punched him in the arm.
“Stop doing that!” he said startled. Will rubbed his arm.
“Stop doing what?” he said indignantly. Bryan rolled with his eyes.
“Stop yelling like that! You’re freaking me out!” he said. “But what do you’ve got?”
“Well,” Will said, pointing at the sheep. “I just found the solution of our problem.”