The Skeleton Tree - Softcover

Lawrence, Iain

 
9780440421672: The Skeleton Tree
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0440421675 ISBN 13: 9780440421672
Verlag: Random House Children's Books, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

A modern-day adventure and classic in the making, in the vein of The Call of the Wild, Hatchet, and The Cay, by award-winning author Iain Lawrence.
 
A Junior Library Guild Selection

Less than forty-eight hours after twelve-year-old Chris sets off on a sailing trip down the Alaskan coast with his uncle, their boat sinks. The only survivors are Chris and a boy named Frank, who hates Chris immediately. Chris and Frank have no radio, no flares, no food. Suddenly, they’ve got to forage, fish, and scavenge the shore for supplies. Chris likes the company of a curious, friendly raven more than he likes the prickly Frank. But the boys have to get along if they want to survive.
 
Because as the days get colder and the salmon migration ends, survival will take more than sheer force of will. Eventually, in the wilderness of Alaska, the boys discover an improbable bond—and the compassion that might truly be the path to rescue.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Iain Lawrence grew up moving all over Canada with his family. He worked in logging, fishing, and even as a forest-fire fighter before studying journalism in Vancouver and working at newspapers for ten years. He is the author of fifteen books for young readers, including this one, and has received many accolades, including the Governor General’s Award and the California Young Reader Medal. He lives in the Gulf Islands with his companion, Kristin, and their dog and cat. He invites you to visit him online at iainlawrence.com.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

1

The Last Morning

When I wake in the night, I'm afraid.

I lie staring through blackness, listening for every sound from the forest. I can't see the ceiling or the walls of the cabin. I can't see Frank, and for a moment I'm sure that he's gone. But then, through the dark, comes the fluttery sound of his breathing, and I feel safe to know that he's near.

I used to be scared all the time, and nights were the worst. When the sun went down, I felt like screaming. I'm not the same anymore. I've learned many things about the forest and the sea, and many things about myself. But when I wake in the dark, I'm afraid.

Out in the forest, something is waiting. It's staying as still and silent as I am, both of us listening.

Is it the grizzly bear? I can imagine it standing huge and shaggy right beside the cabin, just the thickness of the wall away. But it might be a wolf. We've heard them singing, every night a little closer. It could be a man. Or it could even be a skeleton. I've heard them stirring in their coffins. These are things from my nightmares, and they loom in my mind in a terrifying cycle.

I always think of the worst things first. But it's probably a squirrel out there. Or a deer that will flee in a moment, crashing through the forest in leaps and bounds. I hope it's my night-black raven, come home at last from his wandering. But I'm afraid to call out. Through the cabin wall, through the stillness of the night, we must feel each other waiting. We're just two creatures in the darkness.

I don't know how much time passes before the window begins to brighten. Maybe it only feels like hours. But long before the sun will rise, the square of plastic starts to shine with a gray light. Shadows of trees appear like etches on a slate. Through the cracks of the cabin walls shine little gleams of gold.

With morning, my fears vanish. And so does that thing in the forest. There's no burst of noise, no thudding feet. I don't hear it leave, but I know it's gone. I have lived long enough in the wilderness that I sense things like that.

Quickly now, the darkness of the cabin dissolves into shadows, and the shadows change as they harden. Mushrooms sprout from the floor and become the stones of the fire circle. A skinny-legged beast morphs into our driftwood table. Monstrous men stand in the corner, then slip into the plastic capes that hang from their pegs.

I see the stack of firewood, the bottles of water, the shoes piled high beneath the table. I guess I went a bit stupid with shoes. I see all the things I've carried from the beach, the stuff Frank calls junk. But to me it's important because it came across the sea from Japan. I like to wonder about those things, to invent their stories.

Near the floor where Frank is sleeping, pale scratches in the wall mark the days that have passed. They're squashed together, blurred into one long smudge just like the days themselves: thirty, forty, fifty of them, and all the same.

Then I remember that this day is different. Today is the day we'll be saved.

It's still early, at least an hour till dawn. But I can't wait that long. I have to go down to the skeleton tree.

I roll out of bed and crouch over Frank. Not long ago I would have been afraid to wake him like this. He would have gotten very angry very fast. But this morning I think he won't mind. I shake him by the shoulder, shouting his name, and his hands swing up to fight me. He springs away with a cry, thumping his back against the cabin wall. His eyes are huge and startled, and when he sees me, he groans. "What's the matter with you?" he asks. "Are you crazy?"

"Today's the day," I tell him.

"Stop shouting," he grumbles.

I can't understand why he isn't excited. Frank's only three years older than me, not even sixteen. But sometimes he seems almost grown up. He scratches his matted hair and squints at the window. "It's not even morning, Chris."

"But they might be landing right now," I tell him. "Don't you want to see that?"

He coughs and shakes his head. "You go ahead. I want to sleep some more. But start the fire first; I'm cold."

Even a month ago it would have made me angry to be told what to do. But now I know it's just Frank's way. I squat by the circle of stones and scrape at the ashes with a small stick. The coals underneath are still warm and glimmering. In their glow I see my breath, a little red cloud like dragon's fire. I arrange a few twigs and a sprig of dry moss, and as I lean forward to blow on the embers, smoke rises into my eyes, making me squint. But flames come quickly. I'm an expert now at starting fires, maybe better than Frank.

I add more wood. The smoke grows thick and ropy, swirling up to the ceiling and out through the hole. I can imagine pictures forming in front of me, images that whirl apart and form again.

My uncle Jack told me once that if you look too long at a fire it will steal your thoughts away. He was right.



2

The Daredevil

My mother tried to warn me about Uncle Jack. "He's a daredevil," she said. "He can't be happy unless he's facing danger."

But I loved my uncle. He raced motorcycles; he jumped out of airplanes; he fought forest fires for a living. My father was an accountant who drove a brown minivan and worked in an office. It was no wonder that Uncle Jack was my hero when I was small.

He went away on long adventures, sometimes for months at a time. When my father died and Uncle Jack turned up for the funeral, I hardly recognized him. He stayed only three days, then vanished again. He bought a boat and set off to sail around the world.

It was almost exactly a year later when he came back into my life. My mother answered the phone and there he was, talking from the dock in Kodiak, Alaska.

They had a long conversation that she made sure I couldn't hear. She turned her back and whispered strange things in a strange voice, all beginning, "Oh, Jack."

"Oh, Jack, do you think that's a good idea?"

"Oh, Jack, Christopher doesn't know about any of that."

"Oh, Jack, I'm just not sure it's the right thing for him now."

When she hung up the phone she was red and flustered.

"What don't I know about, Mom?" I asked.

She stared at me. "Well, sailing," she said. "For starters. Jack wants you to fly up to Kodiak and sail home on the boat."

I wasn't sure what to say, or even what I felt. I hardly knew my uncle anymore, and I had never been on a sailboat.

"You realize you'd have to miss nearly a month of school," said Mom, and suddenly sailing with Uncle Jack seemed like a great idea. I begged her to let me go.

"It might be a learning opportunity," I told her.

"No doubt," said Mom, with a little snort. "I'm just not sure I want you learning what Jack would teach you."

She stood at the bookshelves, where a jumble of pictures showed my father as a boy. In one he was peering up through the poles of a lean-to. In another he was holding a fishing rod and a huge salmon. But my mother picked up the only one of my dad and Uncle Jack together. They looked almost like opposites, one short and dark, the other tall and fair, one thin and one muscled. They sat on the back of a horse that had no saddle, Uncle Jack in front, my father behind him, peering around his shoulder. They wore nothing but shorts, and little war bonnets made of cardboard, with painted feathers that stuck straight up. They were suntanned and smiling, and my father looked really happy in a way that I could sort of remember.

"Oh, I don't know what's best," said Mom. "Maybe a bit of adventure is what you need right now. But you have to be careful of men who love danger. Even Jack."

She dusted the picture with her sleeve, then put it back in its place and sighed. "All right, you can go," she...

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Verlag
Random House Children's Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2016
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0440421675
ISBN 13 
9780440421672
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
288
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
gpsr@libri.de
gpsr@libri.de

Europaallee 1
Bad Hersfeld
36244
Deutschland

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