Free Hamlet by John Marsden Page B

running, and in a moment had passed them.
    He has the reflexes of a dog, Horatio thought, grudgingly, admiringly, enviously. Then he followed his prince.
    Hamlet had dashed through a screen of trees as though they were not there and was already out of sight. When Horatio burst through the same line of young elms, he saw Hamlet stooping over a dark shape on the ground. Horatio first thought this was the baby taken by the boar but then realized that was not possible; the baby had disappeared three weeks ago.
    There seemed to be no danger. The boy ran to Hamlet’s side and stood with him looking down at the creature. It was not a baby but a badger, wounded in some wild attack, by a wolf perhaps. Its snout had been half torn off its face. It was an old badger, with a graying muzzle, as much as could be seen of it through the blood. Its teeth, exposed in its distress, were worn and stained.
    With the arrival of Horatio, and then Ophelia, the badger stirred and tried to drag itself away, on three wobbly legs, the fourth trailing behind, so impotent that for a moment Horatio thought it was a stick the badger had caught in its fur. The creature struggled about ten meters and collapsed again. It lay there waiting in fear for the end. Until then death had meant nothing more than the avoidance of pain; now the creature understood oblivion.
    “Better finish him off,” Horatio said to Hamlet.
    The prince drew his sword, a short weapon, as befitted boys of their age, but sharp enough. The three of them had followed the badger and now they stood over it once more, watching its heaving flanks and tiny eyes, listening to its grunting breath.
    “Do it,” Ophelia said urgently. “I can’t stand it. Poor thing.”
    Hamlet held the handle of his sword. He had not yet fully withdrawn it from its scabbard. Horatio realized that he was hesitating, that perhaps he was not yet ready to use it. Some boys were like that, but he’d never imagined Hamlet might be one of them. He didn’t know what to say but thought he should say something. Wisely, though, he held his tongue.
    “Go on,” Ophelia said again. “It’s all right. It’s the only thing to do. Look at its face. It can’t survive.”
    “I . . .” Hamlet said. “I don’t think it’s big enough.”
    “Of course it is,” Ophelia said. She had not yet understood the problem. Hamlet could not do it in front of anyone, only on his own. “Please, Hamlet. The pain it is . . . you must put it out of its misery. Nothing in such pain should live.”
    Hamlet jerked and swallowed. “You . . . I can’t . . .” he said. “Why should I? Oh, all right, then.” And he stabbed angrily at the badger, missing the heart by such a margin that the sword went in somewhere along the back of the spine, near the tail. The badger grunted and flailed its legs. Hamlet realized the enormity of his mistake and stabbed wildly now, three, four times, until blood was everywhere across the ground and breath was leaving the spasming animal.
    For every breath the badger lost, Hamlet breathed harder, and now that the creature had nothing left, the boy panted, as if somehow breathing for them both. Soon, it was over. In anger and embarrassment he looked around for his two friends. They had backed away and were behind him now, Ophelia with averted eyes, Horatio frowning.
    “It’s different with bow and arrow,” Hamlet said. His anger felt like scarlet fever. If I were here on my own, I would stab myself, he thought. That would be easy. But I wouldn’t do it in front of anyone. I’d probably mess that up too.
    The best swordsman in the castle, for his age! Horatio was thinking. Probably the best in the country! But he went to water. I would have done it with one clean stroke. I’ll be better than him one day.
    And as they walked home in silence, Horatio trailing behind the other two, he practiced huge stabbing strokes at the prince’s back, realizing with terror as he did that such a thing was tantamount