Read Online The Mascot by Mark Kurzem - Free Book Online Page B

He was a big man, and I had to keep pushing at him, trying to get him over onto his side and then to flip him over completely. But I had no luck since I kept falling over in the snow. I hunted around for a bigger stick and soon found one that I used like a lever. I pushed it under the soldier, and with all my might I managed to raise his body onto one side. And when it was raised high enough, I pushed my whole body against the soldier’s back. Quick as a flash he’d rolled over facedown, and I’d freed the coat. I was exhausted and sat down, leaning against his side for quite a while.
    â€œThen the real problem began,” he went on. “I had to get the coat on. But it was so enormous that I could hardly lift it off the ground. Somehow I managed to get my arms into the sleeves. Of course, I couldn’t see my hands and most of the coat was in the snow rather than on me. It was like a wedding dress where the back of it drags behind. But I didn’t care. I eventually tied most of it round me with the belt it had. I was warm for the very first time.
    â€œThen I thought, ‘His boots! Take his boots!’ The soldier had tied them up in such knots that my icy fingers couldn’t get them undone. But finally I tugged them off and I took his socks, too. It was heaven having them on. They went up beyond my knees. The boots were far too big for me, too, but that didn’t matter, either. The shoes I had left home in had almost fallen apart by then. I put my new boots on and wound the laces round and round my skinny ankles. I remember thinking that I looked like a clown with such big feet stretching out in front of me.
    â€œThere was one last thing: the soldier’s cap to keep my ears warm. Lifting it off was the worst thing of all: I had to touch his face.
    â€œWhen I put the cap on it sank down over my eyes so that everything went black for a moment. I pushed it back off my face and for the first time my head wasn’t freezing cold.”
    My father gave a slight chuckle. “God knows what I looked like, paddling through the snow, half-buried in all that stuff. But only one thing I am certain of: that dead soldier saved my life.”
    â€œHow could anyone survive this?” I wondered aloud, aghast at the picture my father was painting. He leaned forward.
    â€œI can tell you about that,” he said. “Don’t think about survival, just survive. That’s the answer. Once you start thinking, that’s when the trouble starts.”
    â€œYou were a very resourceful boy,” I said.
    My father nodded, grateful for my admiration.
    â€œI was always alert to a noise, even the slightest one—the break of a twig, the rustle of some leaves. Anything could indicate danger. I had to be on guard every moment. It was when the sun started to go down that I would become most frightened. All sorts of sounds would start up in the forest. Things rustling in the undergrowth nearby. Wolves in the distance. A sound that still gives me goose bumps.
    â€œI had to be quick-thinking. You know how I’d escape from them?” he asked me. Without waiting for a response he said, “I would climb as high up as I could in a tree and wedge myself into the fork of one of the branches. I had learned to climb our apple tree when I was little. Now I could climb any tree I wanted and the wolves were never able get me, even if I fell asleep!
    â€œAgain, I owed it all to that dead soldier. I’d use the belt from his overcoat—I’d wind it around my waist and then round and round the branch—so that I didn’t fall down. I’d wake with a start if I slumped forward too far or when the flaps of the coat had fallen open and I was too cold. Then I’d pull the coat around me and tighten the belt again to make sure that I didn’t lose my balance.
    â€œSometimes I couldn’t sleep at all. I could hear noises below me in the darkness. I’d wait patiently