Hatchet (Hatchet, #1)

by Gary Paulsen

Here, at first, it was silent, or he thought it was silent, but when he started to listen, really listen, he heard thousands of things. Hisses and blurks, small sounds, birds singing, hum of insects, splashes from the fish jumping—there was great noise here, but a noise he did not know, and the colors were new to him, and the colors and noise mixed in his mind to make a green-blue blur he could hear, hear as a hissing pulse-sound and he was still tired.

He had been flying north to visit his father for a couple of months, in the summer, and the pilot had had a heart attack and had died, and the plane had crashed somewhere in the Canadian north woods but he did not know how far they had flown or in what direction or where he was . . .

My name is Brian Robeson and I am thirteen years old and I am alone in the north woods of Canada.

The hunger had been there but something else—fear, pain—had held it down. Now, with the thought of the burger, the emptiness roared at him.

“You are your most valuable asset. Don’t forget that. You are the best thing you have.”

It lasted only a few seconds, but it was so intense that it seemed to become part of him. Nothing. There was no sound. Then the bird started again, and some kind of buzzing insect, and then a chattering and a cawing, and soon there was the same background of sound.

He was dirty and starving and bitten and hurt and lonely and ugly and afraid and so completely miserable that it was like being in a pit, a dark, deep pit with no way out.

For the first time since the crash he was not thinking of himself, or his own life. Brian was wondering if the bear was as surprised as he to find another being in the berries.

When he sat alone in the darkness and cried and was done, all done with it, nothing had changed. His leg still hurt, it was still dark, he was still alone and the self-pity had accomplished nothing.

But it was a mental thing. He had gotten depressed thinking about how they hadn’t found him yet, and when he was busy and had something to do the depression seemed to leave.

I am not the same, he thought. I see, I hear differently.

This was hunger that he knew would be there always, even when he had food—a hunger that made him look for things, see things. A hunger to make him hunt.

He could not play the game without hope; could not play the game without a dream.

He was not the same. The plane passing changed him, the disappointment cut him down and made him new. He was not the same and would never be again like he had been. That was one of the true things, the new things. And the other one was that he would not die, he would not let death in again. He was new.

with his stomach full of fish and grease from the meat smeared around his mouth, he could feel new hope building in him. Not hope that he would be rescued—that was gone. But hope in his knowledge. Hope in the fact that he could learn and survive and take care of himself. Tough hope, he thought that night. I am full of tough hope.

All things in the woods, from insects to fish to bears, were always, always looking for food—it was the great, single driving influence in nature. To eat. All must eat.

Patience, he thought. So much of this was patience—waiting and thinking and doing things right. So much of all this, so much of all living was patience and thinking.

This morning he had been fat—well, almost fat—and happy, sure of everything, with good weapons and food and the sun in his face and things looking good for the future, and inside of one day, just one day, he had been

run over by a moose and a tornado, had lost everything and was back to square one. Just like that. A flip of some giant coin and he was the loser. • • • But there is a difference now, he thought—there really is a difference. I might be hit but I’m not done. When the light comes I’ll start to rebuild. I still have the hatchet and that’s all I had in the first place.

Is that all you can hit me with—a moose and a tornado? Well, he thought, holding his ribs and smiling, then spitting mosquitoes out of his mouth. Well, that won’t get the job done. That was the difference now. He had changed, and he was tough. I’m tough where it counts—tough in the head.

And the last thought he had that morning as he closed his eyes was: I hope the tornado hit the moose.

First food, because food made strength; first food, then thought, then action.

Sense, he had to use his sense. That’s all it took to solve problems—just sense.

if he did somehow get home and go back to living the way he had lived, would it be just the opposite? Would he be sitting watching television and suddenly think about the sunset up in back of the ridge and wonder how the color looked in the lake?

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.

Why is “The Secret” less important to Brian by the end of the novel?

There are times when Brian suffers from great despair. How does he deal with these dark moments?