Runt Read Online Free PDF Page B

ground, so slow moving.
    Thinker approached, too, though more cautiously. "That's Porcupine," he murmured to Runt. "I think she's best left alone."
    But Runt ignored his brother. Their mother
must have made a mistake when she'd named him Thinker. He should have been called Worrier instead. He was always fretting about something.
    Runt took a step closer to the short-legged animal.
    Porcupine turned her back, swishing her tail in a comical fashion. The tail missed Runt's nose by inches, and he laughed again.
    "I don't do battle with tails," he said. "If you want to fight, turn around and face me."
    Porcupine didn't answer. She didn't turn around, either.
    "Come on," Runt taunted the animal with the odd arched back and nose almost touching the ground. "Come on. Are you scared or what?"
    But "what" must have been the answer, because instead of replying, she swung her tail again.
    Runt jumped back. Not because he was afraid, of course—what was there to be afraid of in a tail?—but only because he wanted to prolong the game. Maybe the next time the tail came by he would grab it, show the silly creature a thing or two.
    First he would capture the tail, then the whole beast. He would drag Porcupine back to the den for a small feast. Then his family could call him Provider, conqueror of the "most dangerous animal in the forest"!
    "Runt," Thinker scolded, "be care—"
    The tail swung once more and Thinker, so busy warning Runt that he was unprepared himself, slipped and lost his footing when he tried to move away. To Runt's surprise, his brother shrieked, a piercing scream Runt had never heard from any pup before.
    When the offending tail came back, Runt lunged to grab it. But even as he tried to take hold, pain flashed through the side of his face, pain so fierce that he couldn't even cry out. A dozen stabs below his right eye and all along his jaw took his breath away.
    Thinker was still screaming, but Runt could no longer consider him. He was, himself, stumbling, crying ... trying to outrun the searing pain.
    Where he was going he had no idea. He barely took note of anything before him. He could tell only that he was moving away from Thinker—or perhaps his brother was moving
away from him—because the crying sounds grew more distant.
    Discovering himself at the edge of the lake, Runt buried his stinging face in the cold water. But even that gave no relief. Barbs had driven themselves through his skin, into his mouth. He slapped at the long prickers, rising onto his haunches and using both paws to bat and pull at them. But that did no good. The pain, which he had thought could be no greater, only grew worse.
    Runt raised his wounded muzzle to the sky he had loved since his first day out of the den and cried, "Help me. Someone please help me!" In the distance, he could hear Thinker uttering the same cry.
    Helper and the other pups answered, but from far away, too. Far away and growing farther. The yearling and the other pups must have run to help Thinker.
    "Always we are careful," Father had said. "But we are not afraid." But how could a pup anticipate disaster waiting in every creature's tail and not be afraid?
    Foolish.
King's gaze had said that, too.
    Runt wanted to roll on the ground, to
smash his muzzle into the earth, to howl. But gradually he went quiet instead. Every movement, even every utterance only made the fire in his face worse, anyway. He crawled from the grassy bank and stumbled toward the wall of trees.
    He was going to die. He knew it. The way the little field mouse had died when he had pounced on it, going suddenly limp and soft in his jaws. The way the deer did and the great moose the hunters brought home in their bellies. He would die and be food for maggots and mice, for weasels and skunks, perhaps even for Raven.
    Once again, he had done the wrong thing. Done the wrong thing and brought his brother down with him. What right did he have to live? Runt stepped beneath the shelter of a pine