It was hard to imagine that just this morning, his biggest problem had been being assigned Elchanan Stark as partner

“There’s nothing we can do.”

Elchanan’s voice sounded strange. Was it fear? Exhaustion? Or was it helplessness, as even Elchanan Stark himself admitted that they were stuck?

“Avi?” Elchanan’s voice spoke in the darkness again, tentative. “Still there?”

A wry chuckle escaped his throat. “Yeah. There aren’t many places to go.”

Avi heard movement. Elchanan seemed to be feeling his way around the small area where they’d sat down. “Unless... we could try? Going back, I mean.”

Avi shook his head vehemently, even though he knew Elchanan couldn’t see a thing. “No. It’s never gonna work. Firstly, how would we even get back to the path in the dark? Second, let’s say we manage to get back to the clearing, we can’t get through it without those guys seeing. And besides, there’s no point. The search parties will be coming from the other direction.”

“True,” Elchanan mumbled. “Guess we have to stay put, then…. You hungry?”

Avi thought about that. How many hours was it since they’d last eaten? He supposed he was kind of hungry.

“I guess so.”

Elchanan switched on the flashlight again.

“I have nosh,” he said, tossing packets of Bissli on the ground between them. “Or chocolate?”

For a brief moment, Avi thought longingly of the barbecue. Would the class be continuing the trip without them? Or were they busy searching the wrong forest for their two missing classmates?

It was hard to imagine that just this morning, his biggest problem had been being assigned Elchanan Stark as partner.