We have everything we could need for the next week. There would be no point, for it would rot or we'd have to dry it again. Everyone's spirits were very high. We decided that we would hunt again tomorrow, not today. It was a very fun time. The fire was lit and we all sat around it, warming up our hands.
Suddenly, Daniel hit William the Aussie with a snowball. Everyone was taken aback for a second, for that came out of nowhere. The snowball flopped on the ground and William the Aussie picked the snow out of the fur of his coat before putting on his gloves and grabbing a big chunk of snow. He threw it as hard as he possibly could. Daniel grabbed another ball of snow and threw it at someone else. I didn't quite see because all of the boys had put on their gloves and began throwing them amongst each other.
I decided that there was no harm done with this and put my gloves on myself. Quite a few of them seemed shocked that I had began throwing them too, but I don't mind. We distanced ourselves from the fire and began slowly joining teams. I joined a smaller one made up of Angelo, Antonio, Igor, Georges, and Lawrence. We assigned Georges, Igor, and Antonio to building a wall to protect us against their attacks. The rest of us threw snowballs.
Lawrence was a power machine in this fight. It took him quite a while to make his snowballs, but he had an amazing throwing arm. By the next ten minutes of constant warfare, we had desecrated Yuri's team's wall and hit them all with our snowballs. In the preceding minutes, part of our wall had fallen by the pounding of Daniel's team. The builders kept up their work.
We practically had a fortress when we had destroyed them. By that time, some of the boys from the other teams had come over and began building with us. Soon, we had four walls and a thin domed roof at the top and thick on the sides. One of them had set up a small support beam from floor to ceiling. The fortress was rather big. It was also quite warm. We had stopped throwing snowballs by then.
Simon and Louis began wrestling soon thereafter. We cheered them on and bet on who had to do work. Simon ended up winning with his fists pumped in the air. It appeared as if Yuri and Igor began boxing, to which no one got hurt, thankfully. Surprisingly, Igor won. I learned that Igor never backed down from a fight and usually always won. Georges and William the American went next. William the American won after a lengthy fight. Krishna ended up losing some of his supplying job to Ammon. After this, Mosao and Lucas began fighting in a different, weird style that I'd never seen before. Everyone watched in awe with their fighting style. It ended in a tie.
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Then, the unpredictable happened, I was dragged to the center by Lawrence and he began wrestling with me. Of course, he ended up winning, but not with out remnants of a moderate fight. I have only wrestled a few times in my life, but I have done it enough to be able to do something. I was exhausted from throwing all those snowballs. My arms ached. Of course I lost. No less would be expected from me. Everyone seemed to get a good laugh out of the fight. Next, Henry and Daniel went. Henry seems quite proud that he managed to beat a Brit.
We spent the next few hours like this. I sat beside Lawrence and Mosao. I asked him what his fighting style was when he fought Lucas.
"It's called Jiu Jitsu. It's older. It is popular in Japan and Brazil. I knew that Lucas knows it. That's why I challenged him. I thought why not," Mosao said. I told him that their fighting style was very cool and I'd love to learn about it. He ranted for a long time about it and I tried to listen, but I can't listen to long rants. Lawrence, however, was listening to every word.
After Mosao was done talking and focused on something else, Lawrence spoke up to me, "This has been an interesting day. It was way more fun than it usually is."
I soon asked him why he brought me out to fight me.
"I knew you'd make it. You're a strong guy, Felix. You can hold your own. You did too. You lasted longer than I expected you to, to be honest. It was real fun. We should do all this again sometime. You think?" he responded. I told him that I loved all that happened today and wished we could keep this joy until we are out of Russia. He agreed. I then asked him something I hadn't before. I am quite surprised that I had never inquired much about this before. I asked him about his family.
"My mom is amazing. I love her so much. My father works all of the time, so I hardly ever seen him. It's the same for my two little sisters, except I hardly ever see them because back in Chicago, I worked all the time. The older one, Mara, took to working before the war. I don't know where she is now. I kind of hope she got out of Chicago. Them all, to be honest. I love the city, but I've been to nicer places," he answered. I inquired about him working before the war. Lawrence was a young guy. He shouldn't really be working.
"You must come from one of those richer families. I don't. We all have to pitch in somehow to survive. My dad had worked in the same factory since he was thirteen. He gets paid much more than he used to though. Mom's a tailor. Been doing that forever. Me and Mara worked at this big shoe factory since we were both ten. I never did like that place; they don't pay well at all. Sometimes I miss it though. Especially since I joined the army," Lawrence explained. I questioned how he had been in the army for so long. The US didn't enter the war until April, 1917, and he had been in the army since very early 1917. It wasn't lining up.
"I joined the Canadian Army for a while. I saw your war and thought that it was bad enough for me to join. I transferred to the US after a while," Lawrence told me after thinking for a moment. After this, night fell on us. We went to our tents and almost fell asleep. I am satisfied with today. We left with our fortress still up.

