Chickadee Read Online Free PDF

tripping over branches as they fled.
    Behind them, the powerful big brothers flexed the muscles of their arms and compared their fists again, smoked their pipes, and laughed and laughed.
    Chickadee and Makoons reeled back to the safety of their camp to find the women in the family were finishing their work. They crept into the wigwam to hide, hoping that the family would leave the camp very soon.
    It seemed they would. Once the nights and the days were warm, and the sun increased its strength, the days of sugar bush were over. Omakayas wrapped the tawny blocks of maple sugar in birchbark and tied the bark down with split jack-pine root. After the sugaring, the family planned to return to the islands in the Lake of the Woods, where they would hunt furs and build their stores of food through the summer. They all looked forward to warm days of fishing, berry picking, gathering medicines, and swimming.
    But the two sons of Zhigaag had something else in mind.
    Even as the other families gathered their blankets and pots and prepared to move, Babiche and Batiste sat on the rock. There, the pipe smoke drifting up in curls, they hatched an inglorious plan.
    â€œWe are important,” said one brother.
    â€œThat is true,” said Batiste. “We carry the mail on our horses. Everyone treats us with respect.”
    â€œBut our shanty, it is a mess,” said Babiche. “I was thinking how nice it would be to have a wife.”
    â€œA wife is too much trouble,” replied his brother. “Besides, we’d need two. We couldn’t share a wife.”
    â€œHar, har,” said Babiche, “you are funny, my brother. What we need is a servant.”
    â€œA servant! Now that is a fine idea. We are important enough to have a servant, but where would we get one?” asked Batiste.
    â€œI have an idea,” said Babiche. “Those two insulting rabbits who look exactly alike—what if one disappeared?”
    â€œWe might get in trouble with that whole family,” said Batiste.
    â€œOh, I very much doubt it, my brother,” said Babiche. “Remember, they have two the same! They have an extra! Why should they care?”
    â€œHar. You are very funny! But perhaps you are also right.”
    Late that night, while the whole camp slept, the two men crept to the birchbark shelter where the twins dreamed of all they would do back on their island. With a stealth surprising for his size, Babiche wiggled his hands and arms underneath the loose walls. He seized the twin closest to him, put his rough hand over the boy’s mouth, and yanked him so quickly out under the birchbark wall that the other sleepers were not stirred.
    Ever since she was a young girl, Omakayas had been visited in her dreams by a protective spirit, a bear woman. That night, the furry and powerful bear woman appeared. Omakayas dreamed that the bear woman crawled in beside her and curled up, speaking sleepily, for she was only now stirring from her winter hibernation.
    â€œOmakayas, my child, your little ones are in danger. The hunters are coming....”
    Omakayas woke with a start and stirred up the fire just enough to see. There was Nokomis, curled in her rabbit-skin blanket. And there was Zozie sleeping flat on her back underneath a trade blanket. Makoons was a lump entirely wrapped in another blanket, and next to him there was a lump too. But something about the lump did not look right.
    Omakayas stirred the little fire into flames, causing Nokomis to sit up, blinking.
    â€œChickadee?”
    There was no answer.
    Omakayas went over to Chickadee’s blanket, felt around the spot, and noticed that the birchbark wall was pulled up. At first she thought he had gone out to the bushes. She waited. Nokomis turned over, went back to sleep. Chickadee did not return. Omakayas’s heart jolted in fear. My bear woman has spoken the truth! She woke Makoons.
    â€œMama?” He rubbed his eyes.
    â€œWhere is your