In Need of Shelter

Book characters find themselves in trouble, lost or plunged into an unfamiliar situation. Part of the fun I am having as an author is creating problems for my characters and seeing how they solve them. The characters always find a way, and usually it has nothing to do with my way. It is really fascinating how their motives and strengths and experiences guide them in decision making. Here is an excerpt from Parted Clouds, my middle grade novel. Jack finds himself in need of shelter in the woods. He has no survival training or experience, so he just has to think it through and come up with something. I like his solution. Do you?

 

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Jack hiked for hours, climbing up and down several ridges. He kept hearing the funny sounding bird from time to time. It made him feel less lonely. But now it was getting dark and he was very tired.

     Jack did not like to think about sleeping another night alone in the woods. But he forced himself to think about where he might sleep. He cast his eyes about the place where he stood. There were a few large rocks, but nothing forming a cave of any size. There were plenty of branches for making a little home as he did the night before. But Jack did not like the feeling that little creatures, mice or squirrels, were scurrying about him all through the night. He did not like hearing the scratching of some kind of creature, probably much larger than a mouse or squirrel. He did not want to become dinner for a bear, a lion or a wolf. Certainly these woods had loads of them! He cast his eyes up above him. There were many sturdy branches, curved like the cup of a hand.

     “If I slept up in that tree,” he said to himself, “I’d not be as likely to end up as dinner for a bear.”

            So Jack set about climbing the tree. He used the hatchet to chop a few unruly limbs, and the rope to tie branches together forming roof over his head. This project took shape as a sort of tree house. He wove some branches together to form a mattress, laying it in the curved cup of a very large branch. He lay down to try it out. It was not bad. Not bad at all.

 

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What kind of shelter would you make for yourself if you were lost?