Brian's Winter by Gary Paulsen - 1998

Laurel Leaf. Good. 4.84 x 0.45 x 6.84 inches. Mass Market Paperback. 1998. 144 pages. Ex-library.<br>In Hatchet, 13-year-old Brian Robeson l earned to survive alone in the Canadian wilderness, armed only wi th his hatchet. Finally, as millions of readers know, he was resc ued at the end of the summer. But what if Brian hadn't been rescu ed? What if he had been left to face his deadliest enemy--winter? Gary Paulsen raises the stakes for survival in this riveting an d inspiring story as one boy confronts the ultimate test and the ultimate adventure. Editorial Reviews Review Paulsen crafts a c ompanion/sequel to Hatchet containing many of its same pleasures. ..Read together, the two books make his finest tale of survival y et. --Kirkus Review, Pointer Paulsen at his best. --Booklist Breathtaking...mesmerizing. --School Library Journal From the Pu blisher Paulsen crafts a companion/sequel to Hatchet containing m any of its same pleasures...Read together, the two books make his finest tale of survival yet. --Kirkus Review, Pointer Paulsen at his best. --Booklist Breathtaking...mesmerizing. --School Li brary Journal From the Inside Flap In Hatchet, 13-year-old Bria n Robeson learned to survive alone in the Canadian wilderness, ar med only with his hatchet. Finally, as millions of readers know, he was rescued at the end of the summer. But what if Brian hadn't been rescued? What if he had been left to face his deadliest ene my--winter? Gary Paulsen raises the stakes for survival in this riveting and inspiring story as one boy confronts the ultimate te st and the ultimate adventure. From the Inside Flap In Hatchet, 13-year-old Brian Robeson learned to survive alone in the Canadia n wilderness, armed only with his hatchet. Finally, as millions o f readers know, he was rescued at the end of the summer. But what if Brian hadn't been rescued? What if he had been left to face h is deadliest enemy--winter? Gary Paulsen raises the stakes for s urvival in this riveting and inspiring story as one boy confronts the ultimate test and the ultimate adventure. About the Author GARY PAULSEN is the distinguished author of many critically accla imed books for young people. His most recent books are Flat Broke ; Liar, Liar; Masters of Disaster; Lawn Boy Returns; Woods Runner ; Notes from the Dog; Mudshark; Lawn Boy; Molly McGinty Has a Rea lly Good Day; The Time Hackers; and The Amazing Life of Birds (Th e Twenty Day Puberty Journal of Duane Homer Leech). From the Tra de Paperback edition. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by permission. All ri ghts reserved. For two weeks the weather grew warmer and each day was more glorious than the one before. Hunting seemed to get bet ter as well. Brian took foolbirds or rabbits every day and on one single day he took three foolbirds. He ate everything and felt fat and lazy and one afternoon he actually lay in the sun. It was perhaps wrong to say he was happy. He spent too much time in lon eliness for true happiness. But he found himself smiling as he wo rked around the camp and actually looked forward to bringing in w ood in the soft afternoons just because it kept him out rummaging around in the woods. He had made many friends--or at least acqu aintances. Birds had taken on a special significance for him. At night the owls made their soft sounds, calling each other in almo st ghostly hooonnes that scared him until he finally saw one call on a night when the moon was full and so bright it was almost li ke a cloudy day. He slept with their calls and before long would awaken if they didn't call. Before dawn, just as gray light bega n to filter through the trees, the day birds began to sing. They started slowly but before the gray had become light enough to see ten yards all the birds started to sing and Brian was brought ou t of sleep by what seemed to be thousands of singing birds. At f irst it all seemed to be noise but as he learned and listened, he found them all to be different. Robins had an evening song and o ne they sang right before a rainstorm and another when the rain w as done. Blue jays spent all their time complaining and swearing but they also warned him when something--anything--was moving in the woods. Ravens and crows were the same--scrawking and cawing t heir way through the trees. It was all, Brian found, about terri tory. Everybody wanted to own a place to live, a place to hunt. B irds didn't sing for fun, they sang to warn other birds to keep a way--sang to tell them to stay out of their territory. He had le arned about property from the wolves. Several times he had seen a solitary wolf--a large male that came near the camp and studied the boy. The wolf did not seem to be afraid and did nothing to fr ighten Brian, and Brian even thought of him as a kind of friend. The wolf seemed to come on a regular schedule, hunting, and Bria n guessed that he ran a kind of circuit. At night while gazing at the fire Brian figured that if the wolf made five miles an hour and hunted ten hours a day, he must be traveling close to a hundr ed-mile loop. After a month or so the wolf brought a friend, a s maller, younger male, and the second time they both came they sto pped near Brian's camp and while Brian watched they peed on a rot ten stump, both going twice on the same spot. Brian had read abo ut wolves and seen films about them: and knew that they left sign , using urine to mark their territory. He had also read--he thoug ht in a book by Farley Mowat--that the wolves respected others' t erritories as well as their own. As soon as they were well away f rom the old stump Brian went up and peed where they had left sign . Five days later when they came through again Brian saw them st op, smell where he had gone and then spot the ground next to Bria n's spot, accepting his boundary. Good, he thought. I own someth ing now. I belong. And he had gone on with his life believing tha t the wolves and he had settled everything. But wolf rules and B rian rules only applied to wolves and Brian. Then the bear came. Brian had come to know bears as well as he knew wolves or birds . They were usually alone--unless it was a female with cubs--and they were absolutely, totally devoted to eating. He had seen them several times while picking berries, raking the bushes with thei r teeth to pull the fruit off--and a goodly number of leaves as w ell, which they spit out before swallowing the berries--and, as w ith the wolves, they seemed to get along with him. That is to sa y Brian would see them eating and he would move away and let them pick where they wanted while he found another location. It worke d for the bears, he thought, smiling, and it worked for him, and this thinking evolved into what Brian thought of as an understand ing between him and the bears: Since he left them alone, they wou ld leave him alone. Unfortunately the bears did not know that it was an agreement, and Brian was suffering under the misunderstan ding that, as in some imaginary politically correct society, ever ything was working out. All of this made him totally unprepared for the reality of the woods. To wit: Bears and wolves did what t hey wanted to do, and Brian had to fit in. He was literary awake ned to the facts one morning during the two-week warm spell. Bria n had been sleeping soundly and woke to the clunking sound of met al on rock. His mind and ears were tuned to all the natural sound s around him and there was no sound in nature of metal on stone. It snapped him awake in midbreath. He was sleeping with his head in the opening of the shelter and he had his face out and when h e opened his eyes he saw what appeared to be a wall of black-brow n fur directly in front of him. He thought he might be dreaming and shook his head but it didn't go away and he realized in the s ame moment that he was looking at the rear end of a bear. No, he thought with a clinical logic that surprised him--I am looking at the very large rear end of a very large bear. The bear had come to Brian's camp--smelling the gutsmell of the dead rabbit, and t he cooking odor from the pot. The bear did not see it as Brian's camp or territory. There was a food smell, it was hungry, it was time to eat. It had found the pot and knife by the fire where Br ian had left them and scooped them outside. Brian had washed them both in the lake when he finished eating, but the smell of food was still in the air. Working around the side of the opening, the bear had bumped the pan against a rock at the same moment that i t had settled its rump in the entrance of Brian's shelter. Brian pulled back a foot. Hey--get out of there! he yelled, and kicked the bear in the rear. He was not certain what he expected. Perh aps that the bear would turn and realize its mistake and then she epishly trundle away. Or that the bear would just run off. With no hesitation, not even the smallest part of a second's delay, th e bear turned and ripped the entire log side off the shelter with one sweep of a front paw and a moist whouuuff out of its nostril s. Brian found himself looking up at the bear, turned now to loo k down on the boy, and with another snort the bear swung its left paw again and scooped Brian out of the hollow of the rock and fl ung him end over end for twenty feet. Then the bear slipped forwa rd and used both front paws to pack Brian in a kind of ball and w hap him down to the edge of the water, where he lay, dazed, think ing in some way that he was still back in the shelter. The bear stopped and studied Brian for a long minute, then turned back to ransacking the camp, looking for where that delicious smell had c ome from. It sat back on its haunches and felt the air with its n ostrils, located another faint odor stream and followed it down t o the edge of the water where the fish pool lay. It dug in the wa ter--not more than ten feet from where Brian now lay, trying to f igure out if his arms and legs were still all attached to where t hey had been before--and pulled up the rabbit skull, still with b its of meat on it, and swallowed it whole. It dug around in the w ater again and found the guts and ate them and went back to rumma ging around in the pool, and when nothing more could be found the bear looked once more at Brian, at the camp, and then walked awa y without looking back. Other than some minor scratches where th e bear's claws had slightly scraped him--it was more a boxing act ion than a clawing one--Brian was in one piece. He was still jolt ed and confused about just exactly which end was up, but most of all he was grateful. He knew that the bear could have done much more damage than it had. He had seen a bear tear a stump out of t he ground like a giant tooth when it was looking for grubworms an d ants. This bear could just as easily have killed him, and had a ctually held back. But as the day progressed Brian found himself stiffening, and by the time he was ready for bed his whole body ached and he knew he would be covered with bruises from the encou nter. He would have to find some way to protect himself, some we apon. The fire worked well when it was burning, but it had burned down. His hatchet and knife would have done nothing more than ma ke the bear really angry--something he did not like to think abou t--and his bow was good only for smaller game. He had never tried to shoot anything bigger than a foolbird or rabbit with it and d oubted that the bow would push the arrow deep enough to do anythi ng but--again--make the bear really mad. He bundled in his bag t hat night, the end of the two weeks of warm weather. He kept putt ing wood on the fire, half afraid the bear would come back. All t he while he tried to think of a solution. But in reality, the be ar was not his primary adversary. Nor was the wolf, nor any anima l. Brian had become his own worst enemy because in all the busine ss of hunting, fishing and surviving he had forgotten the primary rule: Always, always pay attention to what was happening. Everyt hing in nature means something and he had missed the warnings tha t summer was ending, had in many ways already ended, and what was coming would be the most dangerous thing he had faced since the plane crash. An Excerpt from Brian's Winter He would have to f ind some way to protect himself, some weapon. The fire worked we ll when it was burning, but it had burned down. His hatchet and kni... .