10 Puffing Up

CHAPTER TEN PUFFING UP 10 degreesFahrenheit SIMON BROUGHT HIS mom's hair dryer into the garage. We plugged it into an extension cord —and plugged that cord into the wall. "We should run through all the steps like it's tomorrow morning," Rosie suggested. "You two hop in," Simon said as we untied the shoelaces on the burlap flaps. "I'm going to be pulling tomorrow." "I can't believe it's going to be even colder in the morning," I said as I got into the wagon.

"I really hope this works," Rosie said, climbing in after me. Simon tied the flap shut—except for the very top. That's where he stuck the end of the hair dryer. He turned it on. "Rosa-Pa-Looza!" he shouted. After being in the cold garage for so long, that blast of hot air felt awesome. Rosie and I took turns holding our hands up to it.

It took about three minutes for it to feel pretty warm inside the burlap bubble. It didn't blow up like a balloon or anything because burlap has lots of tiny holes in it. But it did stop sagging a bit. "Okay, Simon!" Rosie yelled over the loud hair dryer. "You can turn it off now!" He turned off the hair dryer, pulled it out, and tied the final shoelace. We knew the warm air would escape, but we wanted it to be as slow as possible. "What do we do now?" I asked. "We wait," Rosie said. "I want to see how long this holds the warm air." While we waited inside, Simon worked on the

outside. He felt all around and added extra duct tape wherever he thought warm air might be escaping. "Warm and Cozy Rosie!" It didn't take long for the burlap to start sagging— just a few minutes. And it was already colder inside. "You can let us out now," Rosie said. Simon untied and opened the flaps. "That didn't last too long," Simon said. You could

hear a little disappointment in his voice. "Yeah," I said as Rosie and I climbed out. I was a little bummed with the result too. "It takes fifteen minutes to get to school and it only took a couple minutes for the air to cool down." "It's okay," Rosie said and smiled. She tossed the gardening gloves and sandpaper into the wagon. "The hair dryer just gives us a head start. We're going to generate our own heat on the way using friction. The burlap will protect us some from the wind. And we'll be moving around when we rub the stakes. All of that will help us stay warm."

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