📸 Photo

out of my pack. It was a pathetic match for my appetite. A few fleshless pits remained. I gritted my teeth and strode back in the direction of the ravine. There I found what I was after. The mother must have abandoned the nest, for the eggs had grown cold. I broke them open one at a time and gulped down every last bit of the unborn birds. I expected them to make me nauseous, but they were quite tasty.

The sun had gone behind a cloud and now came out and shone brightly. I could still make some progress today. I had gone astray, but the entire day was not wasted; it wasn't so bad.

'It's no big deal. It's no big deal,' I started to sing.

We used to sing a song like that in the Boy Scouts, and, silly as it sounds, it stuck in my mind:

Oh, Mama, in what a fix am I.
I'll have a baby by and by.
Please tell me it's a lie.
Please tell me I won't die.
Please say it's no big deal.

I sang the tune over and over. Then I started dramatising it, creating characters and a silly dialogue. You're going to have a baby, and you think it's no big deal. All right, you won't die, but just you wait until your father gets his hands on him. You'll live, but tough luck for your boyfriend. Your father will kill him.