Free Hatchet (9781442403321) by Gary Paulsen Page A

many sparks that found life and took briefly, but they all died.
    Starved.
    He leaned back. They are like me. They are starving. It wasn’t quantity, there were plenty of sparks, but they needed more.
    I would kill, he thought suddenly, for a book of matches. Just one book. Just one match. I would kill.
    What makes fire? He thought back to school. To all those science classes. Had he ever learned what made a fire? Did a teacher ever stand up and say, “This is what makes a fire . . .”
    He shook his head, tried to focus his thoughts. What did it take? You have to have fuel, he thought—and he had that. The bark was fuel. Oxygen—there had to be air.
    He needed to add air. He had to fan on it, blow on it.
    He made the nest ready again, held the hatchet backward, tensed, and struck four quick blows. Sparks came down and he leaned forward as fast as he could and blew.
    Too hard. There was a bright, almost intense glow, then it was gone. He had blown it out.
    Another set of strikes, more sparks. He leaned and blew, but gently this time, holding back and aiming the stream of air from his mouth to hit the brightest spot. Five or six sparks had fallen in a tight mass of bark hair and Brian centered his efforts there.
    The sparks grew with his gentle breath. The red glow moved from the sparks themselves into the bark, moved and grew and became worms, glowing red worms that crawled up the bark hairs and caught other threads of bark and grew until there was a pocket of red as big as a quarter, a glowing red coal of heat.
    And when he ran out of breath and paused to inhale, the red ball suddenly burst into flame.
    â€œFire!” He yelled. “I’ve got fire! I’ve got it, I’ve got, I’ve got it . . .”
    But the flames were thick and oily and burning fast, consuming the ball of bark as fast as if it were gasoline. He had to feed the flames, keep them going. Working as fast as he could he carefully placed the dried grass and wood pieces he had tried at first on top of the bark and was gratified to see them take.
    But they would go fast. He needed more, and more. He could not let the flames go out.
    He ran from the shelter to the pines and started breaking off the low, dead small limbs. These he threw in the shelter, went back for more, threw those in, and squatted to break and feed the hungry flames. When the small wood was going well he went out and found larger wood and did not relax until that was going. Then he leaned back against the wood brace of his door opening and smiled.
    I have a friend, he thought—I have a friend now. A hungry friend, but a good one. I have a friend named fire.
    â€œHello, fire . . .”
    The curve of the rock back made an almost perfect drawing flue that carried the smoke up through the cracks of the roof but held the heat. If he kept the fire small it would be perfect and would keep anything like the porcupine from coming through the door again.
    A friend and a guard, he thought.
    So much from a little spark. A friend and a guard from a tiny spark.
    He looked around and wished he had somebody to tell this thing, to show this thing he had done. But there was nobody.
    Nothing but the trees and the sun and the breeze and the lake.
    Nobody.
    And he thought, rolling thoughts, with the smoke curling up over his head and the smile still half on his face he thought: I wonder what they’re doing now.
    I wonder what my father is doing now.
    I wonder what my mother is doing now.
    I wonder if she is with him.

10
    He could not at first leave the fire.
    It was so precious to him, so close and sweet a thing, the yellow and red flames brightening the dark interior of the shelter, the happy crackle of the dry wood as it burned, that he could not leave it. He went to the trees and brought in as many dead limbs as he could chop off and carry, and when he had a large pile of them he sat near the fire—though it was getting into the warm middle