the narrator sob in selfish relief? . A sharp pain in my arm cut through the dull pain of despair. I looked down.
The Shompen boy was twisting a corkscrew thorn from my forearm. I jerked away, then pulled at the thorn myself, but the boy gripped my hand firmly. ‘Not pull,’ he said, in his thick accent. ‘Turn.
Pull makes a big hole.’ He gripped the thorn again, twisting it gently so that it followed its own path out. The tip was covered with half an inch of my blood. I almost felt sorry for myself, but then I remembered that I was alive to feel pain. My distant cousin was not.
And what of my family? Mama and Papa. My God, what of them? I wanted to jump down from our tree and run to the village.
But all I could see were treetops and water. The wave still covered the ground and it was moving in fast muscular currents. If my parents were alive, they would not want me to kill myself. So, I was stuck here for the time being, at the mercy of a pickpocket Shompen savage.
A savage who had saved my life, and fixed my arm. (Abridged from Fire Stones -EOIN COLFER) This is an excerpt from: thehindu.com/mag/ / / /stories Glossary bluefin (n): a type of tuna fish retreat (v): move back from a position, withdraw horizon (n): the point at which the earth and the sky seem to meet Why did he decide to stay on the tree and not go in search of his parents? Unit- - - Critical - - snow-drift (n) : bank of deep snow rumble (v) : make a low continuous noise ebony (n) : deep black furrow (n) : trench, ditch smother (v) : suffocate, cover thickly dart (v) : sudden quick movement taunt (v) : tease buffet (v) : knock against spattered (v) : splashed cowering (v) : cringing in fear Car (n): Car is the most widely spoken tribal language in the Nicobar Islands of India. snaked (v): moving in a winding course like