I like this! @Isabel T, you're doing a great job!

Lunch was delicious, and everyone agreed that the rabbit was definitely a much-needed break from fish. Julia and Corliss cleaned the rabbit skin and prepared it to be made into shoes. They all had shoes, but they were wearing out, and new shoes were needed. Corliss turned to Julia, frowning.

“The rabbit skin is nice and all, but at this rate it will take ages to get enough to make everyone shoes, much less new clothes and shawls for the winter!” She said. Julia agreed and both sat, trying to think of a solution. They called the boys over and everyone sat thinking of some way to answer their problem. Aiken shrugged and threw out an idea.

“Well, we could hunt deer.” Clay shook his head and said, frowning,

“We don’t have anything to hunt them with.” Heads went back down and for a few minutes there was silence. Then Alder spoke up.

“I would need some help, but I know how to make a bow and arrows, I could have one made in a week or so, and we could use that to hunt.” Everyone smiled at Alder’s never-ending resourcefulness, and then the group headed into the woods to find supplies.

A week passed, and at the end of it an excellent bow was produced under the skillful eye of Alder. It turned out that Aiken was actually the best marksman, and as soon as it was ready, he took it out, vowing not to return until he was victorious. They had caught one rabbit almost every day that week, and several pairs of moccasins had been made. The little metal needles had proved to be too small and weak to pierce the rabbits hide, and bone needles had been made. 

Life was becoming almost normal in this wood, and they were becoming comfortable in the new life they were leading. So, no one was ready for what came one morning, shortly after the bow had been made.

It was right after breakfast, which was venison and herbs, Aiken having returned with a good-sized buck. They were talking about what they were going to do that day. Alder was in the middle of a sentence when he abruptly paused and looked towards the trees.

“Did you guys here that?” Everyone shook their heads. Alder listened for a while, but hearing nothing, resumed talking. Suddenly the tranquility of the woods was pierced by an ear-splitting shriek. 

A cliffhanger!  Ahg, I want to know what happens next!  Post soon please.  It’s so good.

Everyone leapt to their feet, racing into the woods to see what was going on. Aiken grabbed his bow and knocked an arrow. Clay was the fastest, and he was the first to burst into a small clearing, where a startling sight met their eyes.

A girl was clinging to a tree in terror, and just below her, snarling and swiping at her was a huge male wolf. The girl was slowly slipping down the tree, and the last swipe of the wolf had scratched her ankle, drawing blood. Aiken pulled back his bow and released his arrow. He missed the wolfs heart but hit his right foreleg, causing him to yelp and trot limping into the woods. 

Julia and Corliss rushed over to help the girl down. She appeared to be in her teens, she was tall and skinny, with dark hair and brown eyes. She pushed them away, refusing their help.

“I can do it myself.” She said, glaring at them. Corliss and Julia exchanged confused looks, then Julia spoke up.

“Well, I’m sure you can, but if you want, we can show you the river and you can wash that scratch.” The girl said nothing but followed her to the river. She washed the wound, then tore a strip of cloth from her shirt and bound it tightly around her ankle. When she was done, she stood up and looked at them awkwardly.

“Thanks, I guess, do you have any food?” She asked this abruptly, looking around questioningly. 

“Sure, it’s back at the camp though, are you up for walking over there?” Clay asked, glancing at her ankle.

“It’s just a small scratch, I’ve had worse.” It was true, there was a long scar running down her otherwise smooth cheek. They went back to camp, and the girl ate hungrily, not stopping for twenty minutes. The food seemed to make her mood much better, and she allowed them to question her.

Dinotopia Solo Write

Here is the link to a solo write I'm doing, please join! 

http://www.cricketmagkids.com/chatterbox/inkwell/node/441356

“Well, I guess we should introduce ourselves” Clay said, glancing around the at his friends. “This is Julia, Alder, Aiken, Corliss, and I’m Clay.” He pointed to each in turn and then looked at her. “What’s your name?” She paused for a second, as if contemplating whether or not to answer, but then looked Clay in the eye.

“My name is Maida” she said it slowly, as if savoring it. Then nodded abruptly. “Yes, my name Maida, is there anything else your going to ask me? You might as well get it over with.”

“Well, I was wondering what you were doing alone the woods, did the raiders attack your family too?” Julia asked. Maida shrugged.

“I don’t know, I can’t remember my family. I grew up as a servant to the raiders, that’s how I got this scar.” She motioned to the scar on her cheek. “They beat me if I did something wrong. I ran away, and I’ve been wandering in the woods for five days, then today that wolf attacked me, that’s all I know, I don’t even know how old I am, I’m fourteen or fifteen, but I don’t know which.” She said this all in a rush, as if she had been waiting to tell someone her entire life. 

No one spoke for a while; they were still taking in everything she had said. Julia felt mad at first, this girl was with the people who had taken her family, what if she was even there that day! But her feelings soon turned to pity, Maida was no friend of the raiders, they had even beaten her, she hadn’t had an easy life, and it wasn’t her fault that Julia’s parents were gone. Everyone else was feeling much the same, and Corliss tried to give her a hug, but Maida pulled away, shaking her head.

“I don’t need your pity” she said, her face hardening into an unreadable mask. There was an awkward silence then Aiken suggested that they let Maida rest and go for a swim in the river. Everyone agreed and Maida was shown inside the cave where she laid down in the bedroom and immediately fell asleep. They went to the river and spent the whole afternoon there. When they came back Maida was awake and sitting outside waiting for them. 

I can‘t wait to find out Maida’s full history. 

They ate a silent dinner and went to bed. Early the next morning Alder got up and headed out to check the rabbit trap. He went silently into the woods, slipping between the trees. When he came to the trap, he stopped short. The wolf from the other day was lying there, its front leg caught in the trap. It had clearly struggled but had lost so much blood that it was too weak to escape. It looked at him with sad eyes and whimpered softly. He knelt next to it, and carefully cut the cord around its leg. The wolf tried to stagger to its feet but failed, collapsing on the ground, whimpering. Aiken stood and went to the river, tearing a piece of cloth from his shirt and dipping it in the water. He carried it back and slowly cleaned the wolfs wound pulling out the broken shaft of the arrow, then bound it. The wolf didn’t struggle, but just lay there panting. 

Aiken went back to the cave to tell the others and found them up and about. He was just starting to tell them what he had found when he noticed that they were staring just behind him with terror in their eyes. He whirled around to find the wolf had limped after him, and now sat watching them from the edge of the forest. Alder turned back to them.

“Don’t be afraid, he is to weak to hurt anyone, I found him in my trap and cleaned his wound.” He turned to Julia. “Do we have any venison?” Julia nodded and grabbed a hunk of it, which had been drying in the sun. She gave it to Alder who carried it over to the wolf, setting it on the ground a few feet away from him, then backed away. The wolf limped forward and sniffed the meat cautiously, then ate it in five large bites. It limped back into the woods and disappeared.

This went on for about a week. The wolf coming daily to get his meat, and Maida helping Alder fish. She was quite good at it and she was starting to become less hostile. She still avoided questions about her past, but she talked more, and even smiled once.

The Wolf was growing stronger and staying around for longer periods of time after he was fed, until one day he just didn’t leave at all. By then everyone was used to him, so no one minded. He had even brought them a squirrel once, as if he was trying to apologize for attacking Maida. They had cooked the squirrel and given it to him, but he wouldn’t eat it, and kept pushing it towards them, so they eventually ate it. Despite Alder being the one who had saved him, the wolf seemed especially fond of Aiken. He would follow him around, and even hunt with him, helping find the deer that Aiken shot. They decided he needed a name so after much deliberation they settled on Argos, the name of Odysseus’s dog in Greek mythology. 

Life settled back into a sort of routine. With the deer skins Julia and Corliss were able to make everyone another set of clothes, Maida and Aiken had become fast friends, and Julia and Alder blushed whenever they made eye contact. But now, as things were settling down and Maida felt more comfortable, more of her mischievous side came out, and she found a willing sidekick in all things prank related in Aiken.

One day, while Aiken and Maida were walking by the river to gather reeds for a fishing net Alder planned to make, Maida turned to Aiken and said, 

“You know, I have an idea for something that would be really funny.” Aiken raised an eyebrow. 

“Oh yeah? What is it?” Maida grabbed a reed and stuck it in the water. She placed her thumb over the top of the reed and pulled it out. When she released her thumb, water poured out of the other end of the reed. 

“See how the water stays in until you lift your thumb? What if we filled all these reeds with water and kept our hands over them until we got back to Alder, then we take our hands off and dump the water on him.” She said with a twinkle in her eye. A mischievous grin spread across Aiken’s face, and he nodded. They carried out the plan flawlessly, drenching Alder and then laughing so hard they could barely breathe at the look on his face.

That was just the start though, there were many more pranks to come. But at least one of the newcomers was helpful. Argos turned out to be an excellent hunter, and they had enough meat to start saving some for the looming threat of winter. There was a chill in the air already, and trees were losing their leaves. Everyone was worried about the onset of winter, but with extra meat and warm fur blankets their fears were abated. 

One evening, late in fall, they were sitting around the fire roasting venison.

“So, I’ve been thinking, and I feel like in winter we will be spending a lot more time in the cave. I think we need to make it more comfortable and home like.” Clay said, taking a bite of his meat. 

Julia nodded. “I have an idea for a canopy of deer skins that we can drape over the bushes to keep snow out of our home. And we could make a door out of skins too.”

Alder smiled “good idea, we could cut a hole in the skins and make a fire inside, that way we could stay warm and the smoke would go out.”

“And we could turn those two empty rooms into something.” Maida said, scratching Argos’s head. Everyone was excited about these ideas, and they decided to start the next morning. Julia could hardly sleep that night, thinking. About how beautiful everything would look when they were done. When she did sleep she dreamt of a real home, her home. In the corner was her mum, teaching Betsy how to sew, her da was talking with John about farming, and everything was so perfectly comfortable. She woke with tears in her eyes in the morning.