The Boy at the End of the World Read Online Free Page A

and quick on its heels, crayfish .
    He’d caught a crayfish, and tonight he would have meat!
    Anticipation of his meal reminded him of his hunger. The few bugs and worms he’d eaten hadn’t given him much nutrition, and building the fish trap had sapped much of his energy.
    He needed fire.
    He tucked the crayfish beneath the small pile of rocks and told Click to guard it while he went off to look for fire-making supplies. Half an hour of work gave him a sizable bundle of bark shavings. He brought his tinder and kindling back to the stream. Gathering fuel had been the easy part. But he still had no way to make a spark. He’d found no flint rocks to strike, nor anything to fashion into a string for his fire drill.
    Click stood nearby, whirring softly. “I have protected your prey,” he said. “Though nothing attempted to take it.”
    Fisher peered into the machine’s left eye, the one damaged by the rat. It still hung loose.
    â€œCan you see out of that?”
    â€œAre you referring to my left optical sensor? No, I believe the rat severed the data conduit to my processor.”
    After some prodding, Fisher got Click to explain that the eye itself wasn’t damaged, but that the wires connecting it to his electronic brain were cut.
    â€œBut your other eye is okay?” Fisher asked.
    â€œMy right optical sensor is operating at full capacity.”
    â€œOkay. Then I need to borrow the left one.”
    Click made a little hissing noise. “What for?”
    â€œIt’s a lens, right?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThen maybe I can use it to focus sunlight and start a fire.”
    Click’s hissing grew louder. He was doubtful, but after some more convincing, he told Fisher how to unplug the eye from its socket. The eye was made up of several parts: a panel in the back where the wires plugged in, the globe that made up the main part of the eye, and a covering of a thick, glasslike substance. Fisher tried to pry off the glass part with his fingers.
    â€œYou will break it that way,” Click said with an especially loud hiss. “Turn it to the left.”
    Fisher did. The covering didn’t budge at first, but with some more effort, it snapped off with a neat click .
    He looked through the glass. The trees appeared distorted.
    He arranged his fire bundle on one of the bigger flat rocks and gave a worried glance overhead. In the time it had taken him to gather his wood, clouds had begun scudding across the sky. They were moving quickly. Fisher needed sunlight if this was going to work.
    Hunched over the fire bundle, he angled Click’s eye until concentrated sunlight made a white-bright spot on the bark shavings.
    He waited.
    And waited.
    Click waved bugs away from his empty eye socket.
    When delicate threads of smoke finally began to rise from the bark shavings, Fisher had to stop himself from celebrating too early. Keep the lens still, he told himself. It wasn’t a fire yet. And fires were finicky. All it would take was a gust of wind, or a light-blocking cloud, and then Fisher would be spending another night in the cold.
    But when he heard a dry crackle, he couldn’t help but rejoice. There! Glowing sparks in the shavings! Small flames wavered, trying hard to become born.
    Fisher put the lens down and moved his body protectively over the infant fire. He blew gently on it. And then, as if the world had made a final decision to reward him for his efforts, the fire caught and Fisher’s spirits rose, as cautious and buoyant as the smoke.
    Soon, he was eating cooked crayfish. It was just a small nugget of meat, but it was rich and fatty and sweet and full of protein, and it tasted like success.

CHAPTER   5
    Fisher woke cold and hungry beside the cooling ashes of the fire. His body felt like ice, from the insides of his nostrils to the flesh between his toes. He had slept poorly, jolted often by the hoots of owls and the screams of small creatures