Free Taken by Norah McClintock

you’re trying to gross me out, Grandpa, you’re doing a great job.”
    â€œThey taste better than they look.”
    â€œThat’s not saying much.”
    Grandpa laughed. “They’re also rich in protein,” he said. “When I was a couple of years younger than you are now, I decided to show my father how grown up I was. While he made one of his treks into town, I went out hunting on my own. I thought I’d surprise him with some rabbits or maybe even a deer when he came back. It didn’t work out that way though.
    I got myself good and lost. Worse, I managed to drop my rifle over the edge of a ravine. Pretty soon I had no choice—it was either eat grubs or starve. So I ate grubs. They saved my life.”
    â€œI’d rather starve,” I said. I’d meant it too.
    But that was when I with my grandpa and we had a small camp stove with us so that soon after that we were eating stew and washing it down with hot tea. Now I was on my own with no stove, no tea and nothing to make stew out of. Apart from strips of birch bark, I hadn’t eaten anything in days. And I had no idea how much longer I might have to walk.
    I stared at the log in front of me and wondered what was inside. I stepped up to it, wrapped my fingers around one rough end and pulled as hard as I could. The log was soft and spongy. It came apart easily in my hands, exposing the inside. Sure enough, it was squirming with fat disgusting grubs. Just looking at them made me queasy. I swallowed hard before reaching out with one hand—oh my god, they were so gross!—and plucking one fat grub from the seething mass. It twisted and wriggled its soft white body, and I almost dropped it in disgust. There was no way I was going to be able to put something that alive and that revolting into my mouth. I remembered what I had told Grandpa: I’d rather starve .
    Now I’d rather not starve.
    I squeezed my eyes closed, tipped my head back and dropped the grub into my mouth. I had to fight the urge to spit it out again. I felt it writhe on the back of my tongue. I tried to swallow it, and gagged. Finally, my face twisted in revulsion, I choked it down.
    Yuck!
    For a moment, I was sure I was going to throw up. That was the most disgusting thing I had ever done. The fat little bug was probably writhing down in my stomach. I looked down at the log again. I didn’t doubt what Grandpa had told me. I didn’t doubt that the grubs were rich in protein or that they had saved his life. But I wished that it would only take one to satisfy my hunger. That way, I wouldn’t have to eat any more of them.
    Slowly I bent down and plucked another one from the revolting little colony. It was fatter and squirmier than the first one. I closed my eyes again, popped it into my mouth, bit down quickly, tried not to think about the goo that suddenly ran down the back of my throat, and forced myself to swallow. The second one didn’t go down any more easily than the first.
    I picked up another grub. Then another and another. Every single one filled me with revulsion. Every single one made me want to throw up. But I ate them anyway. I wanted to go home, and if eating grubs was what it was going to take, then I would do what my grandpa had done—I would eat grubs.
    Finally, astonishingly, my stomach felt full. For the first time since I had found myself in that miserable little shack, it wasn’t grumbling and groaning from hunger.
    I started walking again and kept going as the sun continued to sink. I was feeling so good for a change that I decided to keep walking until it was too dark to see. It seemed like a great idea—until I stepped onto something black that I thought was a rock.
    I was wrong.

ELEVEN
    T he black thing that I’d seen wasn’t a rock. It was a hole. My foot plunged into it, throwing me off balance. My upper body lurched forward as my foot went down. Pain ripped through my right ankle and