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Hatchet
by
Gary Paulsen
Brian Robeson stared out the window of the small plane at the endless green
northern wilderness below. It was a small plane, a Cessna 406 – a bush
plane – and the engine was so loud, so roaring and consuming and loud,
that it ruined any chance for conversation.
Not that he had much to say. He was thirteen and the only passenger on the
plane with a pilot named – what was it? Jim or Jake or something –
who was in his mid-forties and who had been silent as he worked to prepare
for take-off. In fact since Brian had come to the small airport in Hampton,
New York to meet the plane – driven by his mother – the pilot
had spoken only five words to him.
“Get in the copilot’s seat.”
Which Brian had done. They had taken off and that was the last of the conversation.
There had been the initial excitement, of course. He had never flown in a
single-engine plane before and to be sitting in the copilot’s seat with
all the controls right there in front of him, all the instruments in his face
as the plane clawed for altitude, jerking and sliding on the wind currents
as the pilot took off, had been interesting and exciting.
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