Hatchet (9781442403321) (16 page)

If I'm careful, he thought, they'll last as long as . . . as long as I need them to last. If I'm careful . . . No. Not yet. I won't be careful just yet. First I am going to have a feast. Right here and now I am going to cook up a feast and eat until I drop and then I'll be careful.

He went into the food packs once more and selected what he wanted for his feast: a four-person beef and potato dinner, with orange drink for an appetizer and something called a peach whip for dessert. Just add water, it said on the packages, and cook for half an hour or so until everything was normal-size and done.

Brian went to the lake and got water in one of the aluminum pots and came back to the fire. Just that amazed him—to be able to carry water to the fire in a pot. Such a simple act and he hadn't been able to do it for almost two
months. He guessed at the amounts and put the beef dinner and peach dessert on to boil, then went back to the lake and brought water to mix with the orange drink.

It was sweet and tangy—almost too sweet—but so good that he didn't drink it fast, held it in his mouth and let the taste go over his tongue. Tickling on the sides, sloshing it back and forth and then down, swallow, then another.

That, he thought, that is just fine. Just fine. He got more lake water and mixed another one and drank it fast, then a third one, and he sat with that near the fire but looking out across the lake, thinking how rich the smell was from the cooking beef dinner. There was garlic in it and some other spices and the smells came up to him and made him think of home, his mother cooking, the rich smells of the kitchen, and at that precise instant, with his mind full of home and the smell from the food filling him, the plane appeared.

He had only a moment of warning. There was a tiny drone but as before it didn't register, then suddenly, roaring over his head low and in back of the ridge a bushplane with floats fairly exploded into his life.

It passed directly over him, very low, tipped a wing sharply over the tail of the crashed plane in the lake, cut power, glided down the long part of the L of the lake, then turned and glided back, touching the water gently once, twice, and settling with a spray to taxi and stop with its
floats gently bumping the beach in front of Brian's shelter.

He had not moved. It had all happened so fast that he hadn't moved. He sat with the pot of orange drink still in his hand, staring at the plane, not quite understanding it yet; not quite knowing yet that it was over.

The pilot cut the engine, opened the door, and got out, balanced, and stepped forward on the float to hop onto the sand without getting his feet wet. He was wearing sunglasses and he took them off to stare at Brian.

“I heard your emergency transmitter—then I saw the plane when I came over . . .” He trailed off, cocked his head, studying Brian. “Damn. You're him, aren't you? You're that kid? They quit looking, a month, no, almost two months ago. You're him, aren't you? You're that kid . . .”

Brian was standing now, but still silent, still holding the drink. His tongue seemed to be stuck to the roof of his mouth and his throat didn't work right. He looked at the pilot, and the plane, and down at himself—dirty and ragged, burned and lean and tough—and he coughed to clear his throat.

“My name is Brian Robeson,” he said. Then he saw that his stew was done, the peach whip almost done, and he waved to it with his hand. “Would you like something to eat?”

The pilot who landed so suddenly in the lake was a fur
buyer mapping Cree trapping camps for future buying runs—drawn by Brian when he unwittingly turned on the emergency transmitter and left it going. The Cree move into the camps for fall and winter to trap and the buyers fly from camp to camp on a regular route.

When the pilot rescued Brian he had been alone on the L-shaped lake for fifty-four days. During that time he had lost seventeen percent of his body weight. He later gained back six percent, but had virtually no body fat—his body had consumed all extra weight and he would remain lean and wiry for several years.

Many of the changes would prove to be permanent.
Brian had gained immensely in his ability to observe what was happening and react to it; that would last him all his life. He had become more thoughtful as well, and from that time on he would think slowly about something before speaking.

Food, all food, even food he did not like, never lost its wonder for him. For years after his rescue he would find himself stopping in grocery stores to just stare at the aisles of food, marveling at the quantity and the variety.

There were many questions in his mind about what he had seen and known, and he worked at research when he got back, identifying the game and berries. Gut cherries were termed choke cherries, and made good jelly. The nut bushes where the foolbirds hid were hazelnut bushes. The two kinds of rabbits were snowshoes and cottontails; the foolbirds were ruffled grouse (also called fool hens by trappers, for their stupidity); the small food fish were bluegills, sunfish, and perch; the turtle eggs were laid by a snapping turtle, as he had thought; the wolves were timber wolves, which are not known to attack or bother people; the moose was a moose.

There were also the dreams—he had many dreams about the lake after he was rescued. The Canadian government sent a team to recover the body of the pilot and they took reporters, who naturally took pictures and film of the whole campsite, the shelter—all of it. For a brief time the
press made much of Brian and he was interviewed for several networks but the furor died within a few months. A writer showed up who wanted to do a book on the “complete adventure” (as he called it) but he turned out to be a dreamer and it all came to nothing but talk. Still Brian was given copies of the pictures and tape, and looking at them seemed to trigger the dreams. They were not nightmares, none of them was frightening, but he would awaken at times with them; just awaken and sit up and think of the lake, the forest, the fire at night, the night birds singing, the fish jumping—sit in the dark alone and think of them and it was not bad and would never be bad for him.

Predictions are, for the most part, ineffective; but it might be interesting to note that had Brian not been rescued when he was, had he been forced to go into hard fall, perhaps winter, it would have been very rough on him. When the lake froze he would have lost the fish, and when the snow got deep he would have had trouble moving at all. Game becomes seemingly plentiful in the fall (it's easier to see with the leaves off the brush) but in winter it gets scarce and sometimes simply nonexistent as predators (fox, lynx, wolf, owls, weasels, fisher, martin, northern coyote) sweep through areas and wipe things out. It is amazing what a single owl can do to a local population of ruffled grouse and rabbits in just a few months.

After the initial surprise and happiness from his parents
at his being alive—for a week it looked as if they might actually get back together—things rapidly went back to normal. His father returned to the northern oil fields, where Brian eventually visited him, and his mother stayed in the city, worked at her career in real estate, and continued to see the man in the station wagon.

Brian tried several times to tell his father, came really close once to doing it, but in the end never said a word about the man or what he knew, the Secret.

•   •   •

HATCHET

By Gary Paulsen

ABOUT THE BOOK

Thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson is en route to spending the summer with his father when the pilot of the single engine plane in which he is flying has a heart attack. The plane crashes in a lake in the Canadian wilderness, leaving Brian alone in the woods with nothing but the clothes on his back and a hatchet that his mother had given him. During the fifty-four days that Brian lives in the wilderness, he learns to read nature, conquer his fears, rely on his own ingenuity, and deal with the haunting secret that caused his parents' recent divorce. He comes of age in the woods, but in ways he never expected. He is no longer angry at his parents, and he realizes that self-pity has no positive effect on life. He is a survivor, and that is what makes him a man.

PREREADING ACTIVITY

•
Hatchet
is about survival. Ask students to name one thing they think belongs in a survival kit. Make a list of all the suggestions, and engage the class in a discussion about
why these things are important. Tell the students that only ten items can fit into a survival kit. Have them debate the ten most essential items.

DISCUSSION TOPICS

• Brian Robeson is haunted by “The Secret” about his mother. Discuss why he hasn't told his father about his mother's affair. How does keeping “The Secret” make him feel guilty? Explain Brian's feelings toward his mother at the beginning of the novel when she takes him to the airport. How is his indifference toward her related to “The Secret”? Why is “The Secret” less important to Brian by the end of the novel?

• When Brian's mother makes reference to his father, Brian reacts by thinking, “Not ‘my father.' My Dad.” How might Brian explain the difference between a “dad” and a “father”? Why is the difference so important to him?

• Discuss how Brian uses information that he has learned from movies and specials on public television to understand the animals in the wild. How does this knowledge contribute to his survival? What does Brian mean when he says that his knowledge is “tough hope”?

• Immediately following the crash, Brian has hope that someone will rescue him by late night. At what point does he begin to give up hope that he will be found? There are times when Brian suffers from great despair. How does he deal with these dark moments?

• Brian once had an English teacher who encouraged his students to “get motivated.” He told them, “You are your most valuable asset. Don't forget that. You are the best thing you have.” How does this message give Brian courage when he is alone in the wilderness? Describe how Brian learns to depend on his own ingenuity.

• In spite of Brian's bad luck, he does feel that he has some good luck. Describe his first good luck moment. What is his ultimate good luck? Discuss how Brian's experiences in the wilderness might change the way he deals with bad luck in the future.

• Brian is at times overcome with fear. Discuss how fear is both helpful and harmful to Brian. How does he learn to deal with fear? At what point does he learn not to fear the animals, but to share the woods with them?

• Explain the following statement: “[T]he two things, his mind and his body, had come together . . . had
made a connection with each other that he didn't quite understand.” How does this connection play a role in his survival? Discuss how this connection might guide him throughout life.

• Brian is alone in the Canadian wilderness for fifty-four days. After four days in the woods, Brian feels that “he had died and been born as the new Brian.” Think about Brian's return. Describe the new Brian from the point of view of himself, his mother, his father, and his friends.

• Brian keeps a mental journal of his experiences so that he might share them with his father. What are the mistakes that he records in his mental journal? Describe his best memories.

• After the tornado exposes the tail of the sunken plane, Brian dives into the water and retrieves the survival kit that the pilot carried. He finds food, matches, and other things that make his survival easier. There is also a rifle. How does the rifle change Brian? Why doesn't he like the change?

CULMINATING THOUGHTS

• Among the virtues that Brian acquires during his fifty-four days alone in the Canadian wilderness are
willpower, patience, hope, courage, and trust in his instincts. How might these qualities affect Brian for the rest of his life? What other lessons in life does Brian learn from his experience?

• Suppose Brian prepares a survival kit for another trip to the wilderness. Based on his experiences in the wild, what ten items might he place in the kit?

WRITING ACTIVITY

• Write a paper that Brian writes at the beginning of school titled “What I Did on My Summer Vacation.”

Prepared by Pat Scales, retired school librarian and independent consultant, Greenville, South Carolina.

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ALADDIN PAPERBACKS

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Text copyright © 1987 by Gary Paulsen

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.