Darwin Expedition Read Online Free

lungs into it, but the twigs drop into the fire, smothering it. Again, the fire dies.
    Nothing I’m saying is polite enough to repeat.
    I grab the last of the shredded bark. “Light. Please light.” I set the match to the bark, holding it until it burns down to my fingers. Puff. Puff. Twigs, one at a time. Don’t look away from the fire. Puff. It’s starting to crackle. A bigger twig. More smoke, but the fire is strong. Grab a small branch. Breathe on the fire. The fire is the size of a basketball now. I snap dry branches over my shin and feed these to the blaze.
    â€œYou got it going.”
    Tej’s voice makes me jump. He’s returned to the shelter with his arms full of dead branches. He drops these into the pile, and then he stoops next to the fire. Taking a branch from me, he stacks it on the fire. Then he holds his hand out. “Matches.”
    I hand him the package. He shakes it and gives me a look.
    We pile up wood at the entrance to the shelter and crawl in. I add more wood to the fire. The fire is like a furnace. More than that, it’s like a barricade.
    I tell Tej about hearing the noise in the forest.
    He says, “Liam, if that bear had wanted us, he’d be eating us now.”
    I look out through the smoke into the woods. It’s dark now, too dark to see. I put another stick on the fire. I feed that fire all night long, only falling asleep with the first light of dawn.

Chapter Five
    During the night the sky clears, which is good because the rain has stopped. But without the cloud cover, it’s cold. Our breath puffs out like smoke. Every joint in my body is complaining. Hunger wrings my guts.
    Tej isn’t wasting any time. He’s got his woolen snowboarding toque pulled down low over his ears and he’s walking fast.
    â€œI think I know where we went wrong yesterday.”
    I can hear the shiver in his voice.
    He continues, “When we went off the road, we must have been farther north than we thought. That’s why we didn’t reach the highway. But we can’t be far now.”
    I stride along behind him. We’re keeping to a well-worn deer trail. Tej says it’s the right direction, more or less. The dense undergrowth among the trees makes a more direct route impossible. In an opening, I call for Tej to stop. “Just for a minute.”
    Nature’s call. I leave the path for a bit of privacy, just far enough that I’m out of sight of Tej. As I’m doing up my pants, I spot a quick movement on the forest floor. A bird bursts into flight right under my nose, which makes me jump. Just inches from my right foot is a small nest of eggs.
    I kneel down to inspect the nest. The eggs are the size of the end of my thumb, five of them, pale brown with speckles. They blend so well with the ground that if the bird hadn’t flown up, I never would have seen the nest. Probably I was justabout to step on it. I would have crushed the eggs and the adult bird.
    My stomach rumbles. Eggs. Protein.
    Not that I’m a fan of raw eggs. I like my eggs fried so the yolk is solid but still soft.
    My stomach gurgles and growls.
    These eggs are so small I bet I could swallow them whole. I pick up an egg. It feels warm in my palm. The forest falls quiet all of a sudden, as if it knows I’m taking an egg. I look around for the adult bird but nothing is moving. I’ll just take two, one for me and one for Tej. I select another egg.
    Tej is saying something, but I can’t hear what it is. His voice sounds high-pitched, like a whine.
    It’s stupid, but finding these eggs makes me feel powerful, like we could make it out here, if we had to. I straighten up and take a couple of steps toward the path.
    Tej is standing with his back to me, his arms straight at his sides. I can see his shoulders moving as he breathes, theexhaled air puffing out as if he’s panting. Then he sucks in his breath.
    Just on the other side of Tej, something big and