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Ch. 1 Summary Brian Robeson is a thirteen year old male flying to see his father in Canada because his parents are divorced. On the way to the airport his mother gave him a hatchet because he was going to be in the woods. Brian has a secret, a secret about his mom and another man. He saw them in his mother's car when he was with his friend on a motorcycle. The pilot of the plane taught Brian how to fly the plane. The pilot that was flying the plane had a heart attack. Brian is alone on the plane.
Ch. 2 Summary The pilot is dead. Brian is alone. He has to fly the plane by himself. He wants to find a clearing so he can land without dying. When the pilot was alive all they saw were lakes and now when he wants to land the plane in one, there isn't any. He uses the radio to call for help. It works at first, but then all he gets is static. He sees a shimmer of light reflecting off water, he starts heading toward it.
Ch. 3 Summary Brian tries to find a place to land the plane. He sees an L-shaped lake. He tries to fly the plane over to it. He crashes into the lake and at first; he cannot get out of the plane. He has to take off his seatbelt. Then he gets out and his windbreaker is caught on the glass as he goes through the windshield. He grabs grass and weeds and pulls himself on land. He lies down and falls into a dark and troublesome sleep.
Ch. 4 Summary Brian wakes up and is aching badly. He was cold. Hordes of mosquitoes were biting him. The secret that keeps troubling him is he saw his mother with another man in a car while riding on a motorcycle with his friend. All around him, he sees green colors when the sun comes up. At the lake, he saw a beaver, a large bird, and hundreds of fish. He fell asleep after seeing new things.
Ch. 5 Summary His eyes hammered open. He was thirsty and his face was burning. He went to the lake and drank water until he felt he stomach would explode. He started walking away and he threw up most of the water. He thought about where he was and if his parents will find him. Brian’s stomach was rumbling. He was hungry. He had a flashback about an English teacher he had named Perpich. Perpich always talked about being positive. Brian did not have much stuff, mostly money. At the end of this chapter, he started looking for shelter and food.
Ch. 6 Summary Brian finds a stone ridge and decides that it would be his shelter. The ridge had a small cave it was not very deep but it had a roof that he could almost stand under. He makes plans to make his shelter better. He remembers a television show he saw once where the pilots had to survive in a harsh climate for a week. He looks for berry bushes and sees many birds singing ahead. He goes to explore and sees them eating berries. He starts eating berries and gets full. He then fills up his jackets with berries and goes back to his camp. He gets sticks to try to close up the shelter. He falls asleep when he is done.
Ch. 7 Summary Brian woke up with his stomach hurting and went back to sleep. When he got up the second time he went to the lake and looked at his reflection he was cut and bloody. He was hungry again so he ate some raspberries. He got scared when he saw a bear, but it left him alone. The raspberries he had were soft, the juice was seeping through the jacket, he started to drink it, and it was good. He fell asleep before darkness came.
Ch. 8 Summary Brian heard a growl in the middle of the night. He smelled a rotting smell and became scared. He threw his hatchet towards the sound and missed and it hit a rock and made sparks. The animal that was there was a porcupine and it poked him in his leg with its quills. He pulled out the quills and went back to sleep. He awoke and remembered what he saw last night with the hatchet, the sparks. He swung the flat end of the hatchet on the rock and sparks flew everywhere. He smiled.
Ch. 9 Summary Brian rips up the twenty-dollar bill that he found in his pocket earlier. He uses it to make a fire with the sparks he makes with his hatchet hitting on the wall. He gets bark for fuel and he blows on the sparks when they hit the bark. At first nothing happens and then he has a small fire going. He uses the fire as a guard against mosquitoes and wild animals.
Ch. 10 Summary Brian keeps the fire going by gathering wood. He supposedly hears a noise at night and in the morning finds eggs from a turtle and eats them raw. The first egg was very greasy. He decides to eat one egg a day. At the end of the chapter, he hopes the searchers would find him before he eats all the eggs.
Ch. 11 Summary Brian works on his shelter repairing it and cleaning it. Brian looks in the lake and sees his reflection. He notices he has lost a lot of weight and his skin is tanned. He looks around him and finds out he can observe his surroundings around him with better knowledge. While looking in the lake he sees many fish and tries to catch one with his bare hands. After failing to catch one his makes plans for designs on a fish spear.
Ch. 12 Summary Brian makes a spear to catch fish but it does not work, so he decides to make a bow and arrow. While walking around the lake he almost steps on a bird and it flies up with feathers flying everywhere. He calls it a "fool bird". He hears a noise like a plane. He makes a big bonfire to signal it, but it just flies by. He thinks he might never leave the Canadian woods.
Ch. 13 Summary Brian was standing in the shallows of the lake and he felt a warning. He looked around and saw a wolf standing on a hill looking down at him. He made a new bow and arrows. He went back to the lake, got a fish, and ate it. He called that day feast day. Ch. 14 Summary A noise awakened Brian. He went to investigate. It was a skunk that had found the turtle eggs. The skunk sprayed him because he frightened it. He ran to the lake to get the liquid out of his eyes. Brian remade his shelter. He made a ladder to climb to a ledge above his shelter where he would store his food. He made a fish trap to catch many fish at once.
Ch. 15 Summary Brian went hunting and could not get anything at first. He sat down under a tree asking himself why he can't get a bird, when he got up a bird flew, and he saw how he could get one. A while later he sees a bird in the bushes. He uses his spear and gets the bird’s neck. He takes it back to the shelter and cleans it. He cooks it the same way he cooks the fish. He puts it on a stick over the fire on lets the fat drip out on the fire. When he eats it, he says it is the best thing he has ever eaten.
Ch. 16 Summary Brian got another fool bird. He went to the lake to wash his hands and a moose came from nowhere. It knocked him into the lake. It kept hitting him and then it started eating. He had trouble breathing because his ribs were messed up. He went back to his shelter and slept. Wind like the sound of a train awakened him. It was a tornado and it destroyed his shelter. The tornado put out his fire, so mosquitoes came and bit him. He went back to sleep. When he woke up, he was parched, so he went to the lake and saw the tail of the plane sticking out of the lake. That reminded him of the dead pilot. He made up a prayer: have rest. Have rest forever.
Ch. 17 Summary Brian made another fire and went to look for wood to fix his shelter. He went to sleep. When he woke up his ribs were better. He made another fish spear and caught three fish. He ate the fish and worked on making a raft. He called it Brush pile one. He started to go to the plane, but it started getting late, so he ate three more fish and went to sleep. He woke up and went to the plane on the raft. There was no opening above water so he would have to dive underwater.
Ch. 18 Summary Brian is at the plane trying to find a way in. he cannot find one so he hits the planes outside and the metal moves. He hits it a few more times. Then he uses the hatchet to cut a hole in the plane. He drops the hatchet into the lake. He uses his feet to push off the bottom of the raft so he can go very fast and get the hatchet. When he got it, he got back to the surface and made the hole bigger. He climbs in and dives down to find the survival kit and he sees the pilot. The pilots head had holes in it from the fish nibbling on him. Brian goes back to the surface and climbs out to put the kit on the raft and go back to his shelter.
Ch. 19 Summary When Brian wakes up, he looks through the survival kit. In it, he finds a sleeping bag, an aluminum cook set, matches, lighters, a sheath knife with a compass in the handle, first-aid kit, a cap, a fishing kit, soap, Survival rifle with clip and a box of 50 shells. When he was done looking at the rifle, he saw an emergency transmitter. He flipped the switch back and forth. He left it on, but he thought it did not work. In another part of the kit were some bags of food. All he had to do was fill one of the pots with water, put the food in, and hold the pot over the fire to cook. When the food was cooking, it gave off a marvelous smell. When he was daydreaming about the food, he heard a noise like a plane above him. Sure enough, he saw a plane fly over him and land in the lake. The pilot came out and said he heard the emergency transmitter and that Brian is the kid that was lost. Brian asked him if he wanted something to eat.
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