Into the Wild

by Anh Do

  Meanwhile, Tiny was sneaking up on a cricket who had no idea what was happening. The chihuahua had an uncanny ability to move without being heard or even seen. I’d noticed him several times over the past few days sneak up and steal a bit of food from the other dogs without them even knowing. Sometimes it was useful to be small, it seemed!

  And then there was Brutus, standing away from the group. He was still a bit of an outsider, but at least he hadn’t attacked anyone since we had first found him. I hoped I wouldn’t regret the decision to let him stay. He seemed a little sad, somehow.

  When I called him over he was hesitant, but when he finally approached I gave him a pat and he relaxed, slumping down on his haunches with a grunt. If I made an effort with him, maybe he would finally feel accepted.

  What an odd bunch, I thought. But they were my odd bunch.

  Every day, we grew better at hunting. We worked as a team, learning each other’s strengths and how we all fit together.

  Nosey was very smart and by now I figured he probably used to be a guide dog.

  Perhaps saving me with that branch by the river had been part of his training?

  He was also good with directions and tracking with smell. When we were hunting, we would move about the forest in every direction, but once we were done, Nosey always knew the fastest way back to the cars.

  Tiny, with his huge ears, could hear for miles. He could squeeze into the smallest spaces unheard and unseen, and sometimes he would leap out of hiding to surprise me or the other dogs. From the look on his face, he seemed to think this was very funny. He was also fearless, although this sometimes got him into trouble, as I’d learnt on the first day of hunting.

  Zip’s talent was still speed. And even though he had terrible eyesight, his greyhound’s hunting instinct meant he could always sense if there was dinner hiding nearby. He was also pretty much inseparable from Nosey, and when Zip wasn’t shooting off like a grey comet through the forest, bouncing off shrubs and smacking into rocks, the two were never far apart.

  Brutus still came and went as he pleased, but we let him tag along so long as he behaved himself. Once or twice I had to step in and stop a fight from happening. It was a pretty scary thing to stare down a growling mastiff, but with the rest of the pack at my side, Brutus seemed to get the message fairly quickly.

  Once he realised it wasn’t okay to snap and snarl at your pack, the incidents became fewer. Besides, he was a good hunter when he worked with us. He was strong, and his powerful bark would send creatures scattering out of the undergrowth.

  And then there was Puppy, who just grew and grew. Bigger, stronger, faster, smarter . . . From out of that black mask of markings, her eyes shone with intelligence, and every day she would amaze me with something new, something she’d learnt from the other dogs.

  From Brutus she learnt to sense where game was plentiful. From Tiny she learnt to creep up silently on her prey. And – probably thanks to Zip – even her speed improved, allowing her to leap and twist in the air with stunning agility.

  On hunts, more often than not Puppy also became the dog who landed the killing blow. She didn’t crave the attention of the other dogs, though – she was her own self. Still, she was close to me and would curl up in my lap or snuggle next to me in her sleep.

  Somehow, I felt like we understood each other.

  As for me, I kept telling myself my only task in the group was to feed us for another day. After all, tomorrow someone would probably rescue us. Right?

  But tomorrow came and tomorrow went, and no one turned up.

  We were on our own. All we could do was keep surviving. Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months . . . I marked the days on the car door with a knife.

  It didn’t take long to run out of packaged food, and soon we were living entirely on what we could catch.

  Still, each hunt I got better with the sling, and soon I was able to send rocks whizzing through the air with deadly accuracy. I soon learnt that the trick to hitting a lizard or a rat isn’t about aiming where it is; it’s about aiming where it’s going to be.

  I always kept my eye out for well-shaped, well-weighted rocks, and was constantly refilling my pockets.

  Before we knew it, the season began to change too, and, with some worry, I could feel that winter was setting in.

  With Nosey’s help, I taught the dogs to range wide for firewood until we had a pretty good stack, and they loved nothing better than stretching out next to the fire after dinner.

  In the cold months, we moved during the day to keep warm. Then, at bedtime, we slept curled up together in the cars. Thankfully, the cars provided me with a good supply of clean clothes and several sleeping-bags and blankets that kept us warm through many a chilly night.

  Fortunately, it wasn’t too long before it was getting warm again.

  There were lots of books around too. I collected a whole heap from abandoned suitcases, and lined them up in the open boot of one of the nearby cars. Kids’ books, storybooks, books about everything you could think of.

  When the dogs would lie around in the heat of the midday sun, I’d sit under a tree and read. It kept me from being lonely. Sometimes I’d even read aloud, and the dogs seemed to enjoy it. Either that or they just liked hearing the sound of my voice as they drifted off to their daily nap.

  Even with the dogs as company, I missed my family. I missed my friends. I even missed school.

  The books helped me to stay human and feel connected to other people. Plus, over time, they also taught me a lot of useful things.

  A book about cavemen taught me how to make a fire without matches, using sticks.

  A book about forest fruits helped me learn which berries I could eat and which were poisonous.

  And finally, there was a book about animals and their feeding habits that helped me become a better hunter.

  Turns out, once you learn an animal’s behaviour – when they feed, when they sleep – you start to see patterns and you know better when to strike. I soon learned to recognise their tracks, the openings of their burrows, even their droppings.

  We usually caught enough to feed us for the day, but sometimes we had meat left over, so I would dry it out and keep it safe for the days when game was scarce.

  In no time at all, I got used to eating what was around. Long gone were the days of Mum and Dad packing my lunch, popping neatly sliced sandwiches into my schoolbag, along with an apple or tub of yoghurt. Hunger taught me to become less picky and to plan ahead. I even grew to enjoy the taste of snake. We ate lizards, ferrets, forest rats, sometimes fish from the river . . . just about everything we could catch.

  One day I even brought down a crow with my sling, but I felt bad about it, so I never killed a bird again.

  I’ve always liked birds, and even when the weather got colder, and there weren’t as many animals around, I would resist raiding a nest for eggs, or using the sling on an owl or a hawk.

  ‘Birds,’ I said to the dogs, ‘are not for eating. They are to be left alone.’

  Although, as it turned out, not all birds were to be left alone.

  We had been venturing further and deeper into the forest on our search for food. We no longer needed to be back at the cars by nightfall, because I’d learnt to pack enough supplies for us to sleep a night or two under the trees. This also allowed us to travel higher up the mountain.

  One day we had climbed higher than we ever had before, when Tiny’s big ears pricked up. He hopped on a rock, looking alert, hearing something no one else could. I strained my own ears – I had been growing more attuned to the sounds of the forest, and now heard rustles and faint squeaks I would never have noticed before. But this time, I could not tell what had gotten his attention. He cocked his head and gave a little woof.

  We all chased after him as he took off uphill, and before too long I could hear what he was excited about. There was an noise coming from a ledge above us and, as I looked up, I saw the edge of a huge bird nest.

  The d
ogs milled about at the bottom of the sheer rock face.

  ‘It’s an eagle’s nest, guys . . . I think we should leave it alone.’

  I scanned the sky all around us to see if I could spot any eagles. Nothing. For a moment, I thought I saw a small aeroplane a very long way away heading north, but then it disappeared and the skies were empty once more.

  ‘Guys, its mum and dad will probably come back soon.’

  The dogs didn’t budge. They just stared at me.

  ‘We don’t eat birds, remember?’

  Puppy walked up to me, pushed her nose into my hand and whimpered.

  ‘So you want me to have a look, then?’

  Puppy wasn’t asking me to go up there for food. She was telling me something was not right.

  From all my time spent with my new friends, I’d learnt that dogs often knew things that weren’t obvious to most human beings. They knew it was going to rain long before the first drops fell. They knew when I was happy, sad, tired or angry – even when I tried to hide it from them. They had powerful canine senses that I was only just beginning to understand.

  Dad always told me to trust my instincts, and my instinct now was to trust the dogs.

  I examined the nest more carefully. There was something not quite right about its tattered edge. The ledge it lay on was about ten metres up, almost a straight vertical climb with very few handholds.

  Fortunately, my climbing had gotten pretty good. Day after day, I’d shimmied up trees to pick berries or go after pythons and rats, while the dogs waited expectantly below.

  ‘Okay guys, I’m going up.’

  The dogs wagged their tails excitedly as I made my way carefully up the straight rock face, sometimes with only the slightest indents to hold onto. I just wished the dogs would shut up for once, because although I avoided looking down, their barks were a constant reminder of exactly how far off the ground I was.

  After what seemed like a long time, I finally made it to the top. I hauled myself over onto the rock ledge where the massive nest lay, then caught my breath before making my way over to look inside the nest.

  There, I found two baby eagles.

  One was dead, lying still on its side with its claws tucked up to its chest. The other was alive, just. It was as skinny as could be, its huge eyes popping out of its little head. I could clearly see shoulder bones under its spiky baby feathers.

  ‘Hey, little one,’ I whispered.

  ‘You hungry?’

  It was a silly question. The poor thing had obviously not eaten for a long time. Its sibling had probably died of starvation.

  I reached into my backpack and pulled out some dried forest rat. I tore off a small piece and gave it to the little bird. It took the meat in its beak but couldn’t swallow.

  ‘Is it too tough for you? Of course it is.’

  I remembered a picture I’d seen in one of the animal books. It showed a mother bird feeding her babies by dropping food she had chewed herself into their mouths.

  I took back the bit of meat and put it into my own mouth. I chewed until it felt very soft and then spat it into my hand. I picked out a tiny amount and carefully placed it into the baby eagle’s mouth.

  It swallowed the food easily and then opened its beak for more.

  ‘You like it, huh?’

  I fed her a few more morsels until she calmed down and stopped asking for more.

  ‘Well, I can’t leave you here all by yourself, can I?’

  Wherever Mummy and Daddy Eagle were, it was obvious they weren’t coming back.

  ‘I usually leave birds alone. That’s the rule.

  But if I leave you here, you’ll probably die.’

  I got some rope from my pack and tied it around a jagged piece of rock that looked sturdy. The journey back down would not be quite so scary.

  I shifted my backpack around to my front, wearing it across my chest like a baby sling.

  The eagle looked up at me with her big, gorgeous eyes. I slid my hands gently under her, scooping her up on a bunch of grass that was lining the nest. Then I placed her ever so gently into my backpack.

  ‘Okay, eagle, let’s go home.’

  I climbed down using the rope, being extremely careful not to squish the backpack with its precious new passenger.

  I held her close to my chest the whole way back, not letting any of the dogs get near her. Only Puppy seemed to know to keep her distance. The others kept jumping by my side, trying to get a look, but I’d gently nudge them away with my knee.

  In fact, I had to shout a few times to remind them that she wasn’t food. Brutus kept lurking around with a hungry look in his eyes, but he’d learnt the hard way that I could be meaner and angrier than him if I needed to, and he eventually got the message.

  The dogs knew that I was their leader. I was the one providing our pack with most of the food, and this baby bird was definitely not food. Quite the opposite. She was going to become a part of the family.

  I began to lose track of time. Sometimes we were away from the cars for days, and soon I began to forget how many days to mark down when we returned. Sometimes it just seemed like there were more important things to do. Time and dates had less meaning when there was no school to go to, no weekends to look forward to, no birthdays to celebrate.

  Even stranger, I still hadn’t seen any other humans. I felt more and more like the only person left in the world.

  That said, there was always something to keep me busy.

  I fed Eagle by chewing food for her for a few months. While she was little I kept her protected in her own car, in a basket on the back seat with the windows rolled down slightly. By now I didn’t think the dogs would harm her. After all, Tiny had led me to her in the first place, and Puppy had told me she needed help. Still, I did not take any chances, especially with Brutus around. Sometimes dogs forget things, especially when they’re excited or hungry.

  When we went hunting, I brought Eagle with us in her basket, which I could dangle from branches while we searched an area.

  One day Eagle got impatient with chewed-up food and snatched a whole hunk of dried meat out of my hand and gulped it down in one go. She was no longer the weak little bundle she had been when we’d first met!

  As she grew bigger, she even started to jump off my shoulder every now and then. She spiralled downwards awkwardly the first few times, but then she started to flap faster and travel further before hitting the ground. Ten metres, twenty metres. I knew it wouldn’t be long until she could fly long distances.

  By this stage the dogs didn’t even need a reminder to leave Eagle alone. They knew well enough that if they bothered her, they’d risk a painful peck on the nose.

  But Eagle wasn’t the only one growing at a rapid pace. I was too. One day I realised I no longer fit my clothes. I was taller, fitter and stronger from running with the dogs and surviving in the wilderness.

  Luckily there were still suitcases full of clothes of all shapes and sizes. A lot of them were ugly or too big, but with no other humans around I didn’t really care how I looked. Just that I was comfortable, and still able to climb trees and hunt. Of course, it didn’t stop me from trying out a few looks on the dogs – just for fun – but they weren’t that keen to be made over.

  My hair had also grown much longer, almost down to my waist.

  But I wasn’t even the fastest growing in the group. That title belonged to Puppy.

  In fact, Puppy no longer looked like a puppy, or even a dog. She had outgrown everyone, even Brutus. Her markings, her fangs, the way she howled, everything about her had proved to me that Puppy was no dog.

  She was a wild WOLF!

  Puppy was almost as big as a full-grown lion.

  She reminded me a lot of a lion actually. Her luxurious golden fur was thicker around her neck, which made it look like she had a mane.

  She was also incredibly strong. She would often carry Eagle, who would grip onto her big wide back as we hunted.

  One wet, rainy day we were cha
sing a lizard through the thick undergrowth. We had waited all morning for the rain to clear, but it just got heavier, so we headed out anyway, mid-afternoon.

  I should’ve been more careful, but like the dogs, I was hungry and over-excited by our first sighting of potential dinner. That’s when I leapt over a tree root and landed on a slippery rock. My leg shot out from underneath me, twisting my ankle badly.

  I managed to stand up on my left foot, but couldn’t support my weight on my right.

  It was clear I wasn’t going to be walking, let alone running, anytime soon.

  The dogs began to gather around me, not knowing what to do.

  ‘I’ve hurt myself,’ I said, lightly touching my ankle.

  Then Puppy bent down. I wasn’t sure what she was doing at first. Then I realised – it seemed she was inviting me to climb onto her back.

  I had never ridden an animal before, let alone a wolf!

  ‘Are you sure, Puppy?’

  But she seemed to insist, making an even deeper bow.

  I put out my arm for Eagle, who jumped up and walked up to my shoulder. Then I grabbed Puppy’s thick golden fur and heaved myself onto her back, straddling her as if she were a small horse.

  I was worried I would hurt her, but she didn’t make a sound. She stood up gently and walked around slowly until I got used to riding her.

  ‘Are you okay, Puppy?’

  She wagged her tail and suddenly took off.

  I held on tight – it was terrifying and amazing at the same time. Like riding a wild furry motorbike that powered forward in great big leaps. Strange as it felt at first, it did not take me long to decide that I loved it!