The Thermos That Would Not Cool

At noon on his third day at the shipyard, Darius opens his thermos. A cloud of steam hits him in the face. His mum filled it with lentil soup at six o'clock this morning. Six hours later, the soup is still bubbling.

"Is it supposed to do that?" Hiba asks. She sits on an upturned bucket beside him and eats a cold sandwich.

"No," Darius says. "It's supposed to stay warm. This one stays angry."

The shipyard is small, with one slipway, two sheds and a crane that creaks in every direction. Darius and Hiba are fifteen, and their school has sent them here for a week of work experience. So far they have swept floors, carried planks and learned nine different knots. Nobody has let them touch a real boat.

The thermos is new. Darius's dad bought it online because the sticker promised hot drinks for twenty-four hours. Nobody told him that the sticker was serious.

"Just wait ten minutes," Hiba says. "It'll cool down."

They wait ten minutes. Darius blows on a spoonful until he feels dizzy. Then he tastes it, and he jumps up as if the bucket has bitten him.

"Still lava," he says, holding out his tongue.

"Fan it," Hiba says. "Use a clipboard."

Darius fans the thermos with a clipboard for five more minutes. The steam only dances faster. Hiba laughs so hard that she nearly drops her sandwich.

Their lunch break is thirty minutes long, and Darius is hungry. He looks around the yard for help. His eyes land on the foreman. He is walking past with a heavy coil of rope.

"Excuse me," Darius says. "Would you like some soup? My mum made too much."

The foreman stops. He is a broad man with a deep voice, and he has ten minutes before his next job. "Soup is always welcome," he says. He takes the lid from Darius and sips.

His eyes widen. He makes a noise like a whistling pipe.

"Is it hot?" Darius asks, although the answer is obvious.

"It is not hot," the foreman says, fanning his mouth. "It is a lesson. I have ten minutes, and this soup needs an hour. Give it to somebody with more time."

He hands the thermos back and picks up his rope. His eyes are still watering. Darius feels terrible.

"Don't take it personally," Hiba says. "Look, there's the welder. She works fast and never stops to eat. Maybe she likes her food hot."

The welder is crouching beside the hull of a fishing boat. Her mask is pushed up on her head. Orange sparks jump around her feet. Darius walks over carefully and holds out the thermos.

"My mum's soup," he says. "It's a little warm."

The welder looks at the steam, and then she looks at him. "A little warm," she says. "I see." She does not taste it. She tips a tiny drop onto a rusty bolt next to her boot. The drop hisses and curls into a cloud.

"Interesting," she says. "It has done more than my cleaning spray did all morning. But I can't drink it. If I stop for an hour, the boat doesn't get finished."

"Everybody has the same problem," Darius says.

"Not everybody," the welder says. She points one thick glove at the sky. "Ask the crane operator. He sits alone in that cabin for eight hours, and he can't leave. By the time he opens his lunch, it is always cold."

Darius looks up. The crane is very tall, and the cabin at the top looks as small as a matchbox. A man's shape moves behind the glass.

"How do we get it up there?" Darius asks.

"Wave at him," the welder says. "He sees everything."

Hiba is already waving both arms over her head. After a few seconds, the crane groans and turns. The long arm swings over the yard. The hook comes down on a steel cable, like a fishing line. A big plastic bucket hangs from it.

The crane operator's voice crackles from a speaker on the pole. "Something for me?" he asks.

"Soup!" Hiba shouts. "It's very, very hot!"

"Then it's the right soup," the voice says. "Send it up."

Darius puts the thermos carefully into the bucket. Hiba closes the lid and ties a rope around the handle, as they learned on Monday. The bucket rises, spinning gently. It climbs past the roof of the shed and all the way up to the cabin.

For a long minute, nothing happens. The two teenagers stand with their heads tipped back, shading their eyes. Darius suddenly worries that the soup has exploded.

Then the speaker crackles again. "Oh," the crane operator says. "Oh, that is good."

"Is it too hot?" Darius shouts.

"Too hot?" the man says. "Young man, you don't understand. I have waited five years for a lunch that stays warm. Every day, I climb up here at seven. By noon my food is as cold as a stone. This is the first hot meal I have had in this cabin."

"There's more soup if you want it," Darius shouts, although there is not much left in the thermos.

"I will drink it slowly," the voice says. "All afternoon. It will still be hot at five."

"It will still be hot tomorrow," Hiba mutters.

Darius sits down on his bucket. He realises that he is hungry, and that he has no lunch. Hiba sighs, tears her sandwich in half and gives him the bigger piece. He thanks her twice.

"Three people," Hiba says, counting on her fingers. "The foreman burned his tongue. The welder tested it on a bolt. The crane operator wants to marry it."

"Don't tell my dad," Darius says with his mouth full. "He thinks he bought a great thermos."

"He did," Hiba says. "He only bought it for the wrong person."

The afternoon goes quickly. The foreman gives them a small job at the slipway, painting a number on a boat. He walks past twice and winks at Darius each time. At four o'clock, the bucket comes back down with the empty thermos and a folded note inside.

Darius reads it aloud. "Thank you. Soup still hot at four. Please tell your mother that I am her biggest fan."

"You know what this means," Hiba says. "You're the soup supplier of the sky."

"Please don't say that near my mum," Darius says. "She has already bought a second thermos."